toddler breastfeeding: nature says yes, society says no

by Elizabeth Willmott Harrop
17 March 2010

"Breastfeeding becomes wrong when they start to talk”, yet adult men have been happily hanging off women's breasts for centuries.

As a society we have become confused about what women's breasts are for - elevating their status as titillators and denigrating their function as nurturing life-givers. The same can be said of how the role of women in general is viewed by society.

Two common comments:

Said in concerned manner to me: “Should you still be breastfeeding her?”
Said teasingly to my 2 year old: “You don't want booby, that's for babies. You're not a baby are you?”

Both of these comments are made without malice, but also without thought to the social and cultural conditioning and assumptions which lie behind them. Two key assumptions being:

a) that a small child can only be breastfeeding for comfort and
b) that comfort feeding is inappropriate.

Let's say comfort was breastfeeding's only role – to provide intimacy and warmth when a child feels hurt or vulnerable. Surely that is a good thing. It is certainly evidenced anecdotally by my 27 month old who will come running to me after a fall saying “I want booby, booby make it better”.

In fact, comfort is just one of a range of scientifically proven benefits to both child and mother, of extended breastfeeding.

For the child these include:

nutritional benefits
being ill less often and for shorter duration
having fewer allergies.

For mothers, breastfeeding is linked to reduced risk of various types of cancers.

The World Health Organization recommends that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first six months and for breastfeeding to continue up to two years of age or beyond.

Research by anthropologist Kathy Dettwyler "suggests that the normal and natural duration of breastfeeding for modern humans falls between 2.5 years at a minimum and about 7 years at a maximum".

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Links:

KellyMom extended breasfeeding factsheet http://www.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/ebf-benefits.html

Women's Health Action Trust Storm in a D Cup: http://www.womens-health.org.nz/index.php?page=storm-in-a-d-cup

World Health Organization infant feeding recommendation http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/infantfeeding_recommendation/en/index.html