So perhaps we should be breastfeeding for 7 years?

[ThomasTankEngine]

See here

i've bf on and off for 7 years....

with three children!

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I think we just don't know any more what the natural term of bf really is. It seems so skewed by the artificial deadlines people set (HVs this means YOU) - 6 months, a year, when they can walk or talk, etc etc. - all of which seem fairly arbitrary to me.

dd1 self-weaned at 19 months (I was pregnant) and although I'd have been happy to go on longer I liked that she chose when to stop - that seemed a better way to do it than setting a random time limit.

I can see that just because you physically can go on for years and years doesn't necessarily mean you need to or ought to. But I still think that it's not impossible that bf beyond toddlerdom does have benefits, which the vast majority of children in the developed world aren't accessing.

look for "the politcs of breastfeeding" for historical accounts of bf to present day (uk bias).

very good book.

or "fresh milk" with pictures of two daisies on the front, about current perceptions and actual bf mothers opinions on bf. (scary bit about mother bf and using milk as a pre-lude to sex - bit uncomfortable reading but there you go).

Wasn't there a thread on here yonks ago about how Shakespeare's Juliet was bf until she was 4? Will see if I can find it.

Would like to add that there is pressure to give up at 6 months (which for me is when it got much easier). Not overt pressure IME, but comments like 'Are you still bfing' and questions about the benefits. The idea seesm to be that it should be difficult, it should be a sacrifice that a mother makes for her baby and there will be a time when she doesn't have to make that sacrifice any more. This would make bfing past 6 mo/1 year problematic cos it is SO much easier and the fact that the mother and child can both enjoy it then becomes a problem IYSWIM. All very odd.

That said, I found the idea of bfing past a year uncomfortable before I had DS. He's now 10 mo and I am thinking about carrying on with one or two feeds as long as he wants . As others have said, you don't set out to feed a toddler/infant, you just don't stop feeding a baby.

BTW my MIL was pressured to stop bfing at a year by her mother as it was 'wrong' to bf older babies . She did bf both her sons for at least 6 months though, which was unusual in the 70s. Neither my sister or I were bf. Must remember not to ask my mum's opinions on extended bfing

Another thought: does anyone else have lots of comments from friends who are no longer bfing about how 'good' they are for carrying on - ooh, you're expressing at work, aren't you good, again the sacrificial mother thing. Frankly I'm still bfing because it would be more work to stop and it's benefiting me and DS. This if course makes me strange

Yes, definitely for me the early weeks, bleeding nipples, no sleep, chained to sofa is the sacrificial bit. The later bit is easy and convenient and no trouble at all - and because it's later and it goes on longer, ultimately that's what's shaped my experience of bf. I'd have had a very different view of the "work" involved in bf if I'd stopped earlier.

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I Tlike this one, not just about bf but about female reproduction

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the naked ape by desmond morris

is a great book on the human species and how we are actions/reactions are relative to other species.

an excellent read. he also looks at bf and the period needed for human and other species young. very insightful.

I can't believe we've managed to have an interesting, thought-provoking, reasonable and relativly flame-free thread about breast feeding!
Impressive!

come back to this a bit late !!

Welliemum 'So... (speculative bit here), it might be that extended bf has less of a role in nutrition, but continues to adjust the balance of the immune system. (If that's so, and there aren't a huge amount of nutrients in the bm, then my earlier argument about famine wouldn't work, obviously). '

i think the two things go hand in hand actually. with good nutrition, one should have a strong immune system.

maybe the benefit of extended bf in this day and age is to combat the amount of chemicals and pesticides that we come into contact every day, in our homes, in the food we eat, in the air we breath.. all these things impact hugely on the immune system, sometimes detrimentally.

look at the increase in cancers etc. it would be interesting to track the increase in cancers and other illnesses versus the decline in extended bfing, taking out all alcohol / tobaccy related cancers of course !

of course i am NOT saying that ff causes cancer !! this is speculation of an interesting subject

in fact i wonder if there would be a benefit to offering breast milk rather than cows milk to children suffering from childhood leukaemias and other illnesses ?

especially if the mother relactated, child is able to feed directly from the mother and so therefore the mother is able to make antibodies to the childs illness ?

How could a mother have antibodies to a diseas she's never had?

true, although i did read somewhere that a baby who contracts an illness will pass it through to the mother via breast who then manufactures antibodies and then passes them back to baba

But do you even make antibodies to cancer? It's not a bacterial or viral infection.

I breastfed my son for 33 months and I had no periods for 33 months! It was wonderful.

Prehaps its worth breastfeeding for seven years to avoid periods.

Can I ask a question of the extended Bfers...and this is not meant to sound antagonistic in any way.
I know we all get annoyed about stupid use of the "bitty" reference every time this topic comes up, bc it is obviously designed to make extended bfing look odd and weird, but is there an age when you would feel that it WAS odd to continue bfing your child?
Please don't flame me

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Have avoided this thread but to answer question about it being odd. hmmm hard to say but dd age 5 still wants and I let her although it does feel a bit odd and annoying. It's such a gradual thing and it depends on the child. I last 'fed' ds1 when he was 6 (can't actually remember the last occasion) but at that age he was much more gentle than a struggling tugging toddler like my ds2 who is aged 2. If you let them stop on their own then they don't actually want to eventually so there is definately no risk of it going on for years and years. ds1 actually pretty much stopped at age 5 but did it occasionally (ie weeks apart after that). As I say its very gradual and they just grow out of it on their own. Certainly never heard of a child over 8 even that girl on the Extra-ordinary Breastfeeding programme stopped hten. And oh yes they do eventually forget how to do it properly anyway so lose interest.

SweetDarling, being breastfed dramatically reduces the chances of a baby getting leukemia (Babycentre article), and at least one study reckoned also women who were themselves breastfed are also less likely to get breast cancer.

Add breastmilk to a petri dish with human cancer cells in it, the cells stop dividing and die off...(!)

As the article says, breastmilk is the only foodstuff that has developed under evolutionary pressure to make humans more healthy.

agree re genetic predisposition. However i also think that if the gut is the first line of defence for the immune system, bm lines the gut in a specific way (bear with me, baby brained and can't remember where i've read half this stuff but some of it on MN).

Most people who eat well have usually had the range of childhood illnesses (ear infections, tonsilitis et al) that are usually treated with anitbiotics.

Antibiotics kill off the good bacteria in the gut along with the bad bacteria causing the infection. Prolonged use of anti-b's (and indeed lots of other drugs, even such as paracetamol) will put additional stress on the immune system due to the reduced number of good bacteria in the gut to help fight infection and stop the body from digesting nutrients etc.

This then means the immune system doesn't function normally and so that person becoes susceptible to colds, flus, coughs etc etc.

wehre cancer etc is concerned, yes I don't know wether a mother would be capable of creating antibodies for her child - but it does protetc against childhood cancers, and also against uterine and breast cancer in the mother.

God i wasn't intending to write an essay !!!! So, my point is i wonder if a bf child who is not exposed to the usual range of drugs and is eating well will be able to 'resist' gentically predisposed illnesses - and bm could indeed perhaps help a child with leukaemia etc purely by helping to boost the immune system as it contains valuable pro & pre biotics, helping the gut to digest foods efficiently and the body to uptake nutrients and use in the fight against the cancer.

phew !! hope i've made a bit of sense ? in my twisted thinking !!!

I don't know, but suspect that previously (pre 100 years ago) women breastfed until the next baby came along. Otherwise a lot of milk needs to be produced and nutrients may well have been hard to come by.

Nowadays it is still unusual to tandem feed, even in a society where there are stacks of nutrients and calories available.

I wonder how long those that have tandem fed have kept going on average? It must be tiring (and I've always thought, very impressive)
Anyone with any experience about?