At the writing of this, I
am a mom to a 17mo old nursling.
Don't ask me when I plan to wean her.
I am a strong supporter of children weaning in their own
time, when they are ready.
Some call this "child-led weaning."
I call it natural.
(No, she won't be still nursing when she's heading off
to college...that's just a silly notion created by
people not educated on the natural progression of
breastfeeding children.)
I am also following the advice of the AAP (American
Association of Pediatrics) and WHO (World Health
Organization)...the
AAP advocates breastfeeding AT LEAST a year,
preferably 2...and
WHO says 2 YEARS or more. So I have big support on
my side.
But it doesn't matter.
I would do it anyway. It just feels right.
Did you know that
less than 3% of moms are actually physically
incapable of breastfeeding?
Yet, less than 65% of American moms ever even try.
And most who do breastfeed at birth, stop before their
babies are 3 months old...less than 30% are still
nursing at 6months. (a
compilation of info from surveys & such)
But the official word from the health officials is that
babies should be nursed AT LEAST a year, preferably two.
Hmmm, somewhere this crucial info is getting lost.
If you are a mom who didn't
breastfeed, or failed at breastfeeding...please don't
see this as an attack on you.
Please see this as an opportunity to educate yourself.
Because chances are it was not your fault.
Perhaps you got bad advice, perhaps you had no support,
perhaps you were simply uneducated...
I personally blame
our culture for not educating the medical
professionals...
The largest percentage
of mothers who fail at breastfeeding do so because of
poor advice from medical professionals.
Really sad,
isn't that?
Most MD's only receive
maybe
one 45 minute lecture on breastfeeding (if that) in all
their training, and that may not even be accurate info!
As one professional recently told me, those lectures are
not always good info, not all MDs or med students attend
them, and if they do attend, they might not have even
been paying attention! So please do NOT take your
doctor's advice on breastfeeding as gospel! It is
CRUCIAL to educate yourself on the subject, and check
with La Leche League for truly accurate advice! Even
lactation consultants have been known to occasionally
give out poor tips that have sabatoged the breastfeeding
experience.
Let me repeat that important
advice:
**If you are
planning to breastfeed...EDUCATE YOURSELF!**
Don't
expect it to come naturally
(sometimes it does, but
sometimes it doesn't)... Don't
expect that the doctors and nurses will help you or even
give you good information... Don't
believe every bit of "advice" you hear from well meaning
friends and family, since myths about breastfeeding
abound...
and especially... DON'T
believe those who tell you you can't do it!
(Because sister, I'm
here to tell you, YOU CAN...remember only a very tiny
percentage of women are actually physically incapable of
breastfeeding, so it's at LEAST 97% sure that YOU CAN.
Whether you choose to or not is up to you.)
DO
read everything you can get your hands on about
breastfeeding: books, magazines, and especially
web articles which are FREE! DO
start going to
La
Leche League meetings while you are pregnant, or as
soon as possible... DO
talk to experienced nursing moms
(preferably LLL moms, since
they are the most likely to give you accurate info.)
REMEMBER:
If you want to breastfeed in
our bottle feeding culture, you must be
a) determined
b) educated
c) supported
Our first
pediatrician gave me some very inaccurate and
potentially sabatoging advice. Luckily, I had been an
active member of La Leche League since my pregnancy and
had taken the time to educate myself on the subject and
was fully aware of how wrong she was when she told me
that I needed to "get your baby on a schedule, and only
feed her every 3 hours...and don't ever let her fall
asleep at the breast." If I had followed her advice, I
would've had a miserable baby, and would most likely
have ruined my milk supply. (Needless to say, we no
longer see that pediatrician. If you want to know who
she was so you can avoid her, feel free to
email me...I
have no problem warning people against her. I can also
tell you a local pediatrician who's INCREDIBLE.)
I
also blame our culture for allowing the formula
companies to agressively market what was originally a
pharmaceutical product you had to go to your doctor for,
but has now become simply a feeding "choice"...and for
allowing the general public to believe that formula is
just as good as breastmilk...
It's NOT.
And it never will be.
Want to see a startling comparison that illustrates this
very clearly?
Check this out.
Breastmilk
is full of living cells, something that formula does not
now and never will have.
Breastmilk prevents all kinds of diseases and disorders,
including lowering both mom's AND baby's risk of breast
cancer and many other cancers...formula prevents nothing
but starvation, and can actually be dangerous.
Formula for Disaster
Yet we continue to treat the "breast vs. bottle" issue
as a feeding choice, when the one affected the most by
this (The baby), doesn't have any "choice" in it at all!
...
But we don't want to make moms feel
guilty.
ARGH!
Ok, I'm done preaching...
If you get
nothing else from my rantings, PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELF
on breastfeeding.
There's
SOOOOO MANY benefits to breastfeeding!! Benefits for
both mom AND baby!
The only person who TRULY benefits from formula feeding
is the formula companies.
Any other benefits are subjective, and only for the
MOTHER...
