Demographic

[ailbhe]

It'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.

Comments

why is breastfeeding only for young babies?

[feetnotes.livejournal.com]

it isn't, of course. but why is it so commonly thought to be?
- 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?

[(Anonymous)]

jumping in here far too late...

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?

[ailbhe]

Breastfeeding reduces the amount of, um, either estrogen or progesterone, I forget which, which means you are less likely to ovulate. But I ovulated at 7 weeks postpartum, so it doesn't always work.

I do try to say "because we want to" rather than produce Good Scientific Reasons, but it's hard...