An interesting article in the Boston Globe last week described an increase in the number of women who are breastfeeding beyond the first year. The Globe reported:
"In 1997, 14.5 percent of mothers were still breast-feeding at 12 months; by 2005, the number had climbed to 20 percent.
No one keeps count beyond 18 months, not even La Leche League International, a lactation support system. Katherine Dettwyler, the nation's leading breast-feeding researcher, says women who continue to nurse typically keep quiet about it, sometimes even to family members, because the culture is so biased against it...
'We call these women 'closet nursers,' ' says Dr. Ruth Lawrence, a pediatrician who specializes in infant nutrition at the University of Rochester. Lawrence, who chairs the American Academy of Pediatrics' section on breast-feeding, [and] helped write the academy's 2005 position statement that reaffirms breast-feeding for at least a year and "beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child." The World Health Organization's recommendation, adopted in 1979, is for a minimum of two years."
I remember the pressure I felt to keep nursing "private" after a certain point. I've certainly had nursing mothers tell me that they lie to their family members and even doctors about the fact that they're still nursing.
I use the picture above in my breastfeeding classes, and twice I've been asked by expecting parents, "Um, how old is that child? That doesn't look like a baby to me."
How about you? Have you ever lied about how long you breastfed? If you felt pressure to stop, how did you deal with it?
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