Demographic
Feb. 17th, 2005 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ailbheIt's odd how many recently or hugely pregnant people I know, suddenly - I never did before I was pregnant myself. It's all a big conspiracy!
One by one, my family are asking me "What, you're not still breastfeeding her, are you? Why?" It's an effort to tell the truth - "Why not?" rather than come up with rational justifications along the lines of "WHO guidelines... NHS guidelines... The global average is over 3 years you know..." and, worst of all, "Because of her dairy intolerance." What am I doing, justifying myself like this? Feeding my baby is normal. Formula feeders don't have to suddenly justify why they haven't changed to something else at 9 months. Why is formula feeding more "grown up"? Why is breastfeeding only for young babies? What's wrong here?
Hi, choir.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 06:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 06:41 pm (UTC)Funny thing about pregnant ladies: I now not only have pregnant friends, but friends with pregnant daughters - and, in one case, a pregnant grand-daughter. I was chuckling the other day when I remembered thinking, in my late 20s, "Ah, the era of baby showers is done..."
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 07:01 pm (UTC)I have been lucky not to receive any negative comments. My two sisters with children all breastfed for as long as the children wanted. My elder sister was quite distraught when her youngest self-weaned at 13 months.
to answer your questions 'I have no idea' fits for all three.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 07:03 pm (UTC)And my sister with children has never commented at all. It's the childless ones who express amazement. Even the one who was herself fed until 18 months.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 07:59 pm (UTC)Hi, Ailbhe.
I wonder what it'll be like for us when Amy is as old as Linnea is now.
Though even now, there's one family that thinks Stella is a little weird for breastfeeding exclusively now that Amy is five months old.
Oh no - breastfeeding at five months!
Date: 2005-02-17 08:09 pm (UTC)*fury*
A.
(Who still has no clear idea who Philip, Stella and Amy are, but so what?)
Re: Oh no - breastfeeding at five months! And: who is Philip, anyway?
Date: 2005-02-17 08:31 pm (UTC)Oh, definitely.
I remember Stella being less than enthusiastic about the doctor's recommendation, at a routine checkup about six weeks ago, where the doctor strongly recommended introducing solid foods at four and a half months -- and added that she should buy little glasses of carrots rather than preparing them herself due to the levels of pesticides and other chemicals in "normal" food, whereas manufacturers of baby food control this more carefully. But she also said that a week or two after introducing carrots, she could introduce potatoes, which she could just buy, cook, and mash... though don't potatoes and carrots grow in pretty much the same soil? So they should be both equally pesticide-laden. *shrugs* So yes, she'll be introducing steak and chips first thing tomorrow morning.
Anyway, she plans to breastfeed exclusively until at least six months, and possibly longer (eight or nine months, perhaps) if Amy cooperates, since Amy is at risk for allergies because of me, and breastfeeding exclusively for a bit longer is supposed to help reduce the incidence and severity of allergies. She's also now strongly considering switching pædiatricians, since she's not happy with the advice she got from the current one.
still has no clear idea who Philip, Stella and Amy are
Well... I'm Philip. I first saw you in afp, back when I still read Usenet regularly, and liked your name. Occasionally, I'd have a look at your web page. I sent you an email once (8 May 2000) asking you whether my guess at the pronunciation ("Alvey") was correct or not, and you replied (11 May 2000) that it was "More like Alver or Alvuh" and that "It's on the website :)" ("The website" being, presumably, the http://library.lspace.org/~ailbhe/ that was linked in the signature of that email, which now gives me "403 Forbidden".)
I think that email may have been the only contact you had with me, so it's not surprising you don't know me.
At some point, I came across you on LiveJournal, found out that
And Stella and Amy are my wife and daughter, respectively, though I imagine you've gathered that much.
who is Philip, anyway?
Date: 2005-02-17 08:35 pm (UTC)This was in response to this Usenet message of yours (or 8es4b9$3th$1@leprechaun.ossifrage.net, should it still be available on your computer or news server, for some reason...).
Re: who is Philip, anyway?
Date: 2005-02-17 08:39 pm (UTC)Re: Oh no - breastfeeding at five months! And: who is Philip, anyway?
Date: 2005-02-17 08:43 pm (UTC)Linnea got solids at about 16 weeks - up to a millilitre of mashed banana! She wanted it. I imagine Stella will know when Amy wants solids, too, and introduce non-allergenic foods gradually. We're working on introducing gluten now, but it makes me very nervous.
Pesticides - I use organic-certified food, and when we're out, we use organic pre-bottled babyfood, because I can't pack it in as sterile an environment, and the jars are useful if I'm going to be going from hot to old to hot to cold, on and off buses and in and out of shops. And I consider fruit skins to be a sanitary wrapping, too.
Stalker - heh. Who put her diary on the internet?
A.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 08:22 pm (UTC)Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-17 08:45 pm (UTC)hi, ailbhe!
how weird that they'd ask you that -- do they feel that mother's milk is somehow deficient? i wonder what motivates them.
Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-17 08:49 pm (UTC)Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-18 02:01 am (UTC)Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-18 09:15 pm (UTC)Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-18 09:23 pm (UTC)Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-18 04:39 am (UTC)*shrug* I'm for breastfeeding them as long as mother and child are still fine with it. If that's more than two years, why not?
Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-18 11:03 am (UTC)teeth and nursing children
Date: 2005-02-18 11:27 am (UTC)Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-18 11:50 am (UTC)Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-18 09:18 pm (UTC)Fingernails, now - fingernails are different! She's drawn blood with those.
Re: Demographic
Date: 2005-02-18 01:01 pm (UTC)Lucy is 7 months old and I haven't had any complaints about 'still' breastfeeding as yet. When she was 2 weeks old, though, DH's grandmother came to visit, asked "are you still feeding her?" and when I said yes, she said "How long will you do that for..3 months?" Errr..
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 09:48 pm (UTC)People with children are going to take over the world!... Eventually.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-17 10:50 pm (UTC)JoJo had her last breastfeed some time after she was two.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-18 01:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-18 09:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-02-18 09:20 pm (UTC)why is breastfeeding only for young babies?
Date: 2005-02-19 12:09 am (UTC)- i'm not absolutely certain - but that's only because i don't currently have a functioning time machine [a]:
before widespread & socially accepted effective birth control was readily available, most married women would be pregnant most of their fertile married lives. quite apart from the devastating effects this had upon women of the only marginally adequately nourished peasantry through most of history, and of the downright malnourished urban poor, it also meant that married women unable to afford wet-nurses would be breastfeeding most of their fertile lives - bearing a baby a year, and more (what with miscarriages and high infant mortality), and so only too glad to get three to six months off between babies on the breast - if they could.
such "old wisdom" dies hard - and bear in mind, it is only forty years since cheap, easy to use and over 90% reliable birth control became available to women in this country - and women's use of it, generally acceptable. people's attitudes to such things generally take a long time - generations - to change.
[a] - which presumably means i never will have/will have had
Re: why is breastfeeding only for young babies?
Date: 2005-03-22 10:50 pm (UTC)isn't there some sort of idea that breastfeeding helps you not get pregnant? So historically nursing for longer would be considered a good thing by these women.
Mind you, I've recently been talking to a woman who got pregnant (with twins) while still nursing her 18-month-old (she stopped soon afterwards because the twins put her in hospital overnight on several occasions).
Ailbhe my love: I finally stopped nursing Christopher when he was two and a half. Oliver is two next week and still going strong. Glare at them and say "why not?" as much as you like.
ingenious paradox (Julie) from afp
Re: why is breastfeeding only for young babies?
Date: 2005-03-22 10:59 pm (UTC)I do try to say "because we want to" rather than produce Good Scientific Reasons, but it's hard...