Monday, February 28, 2011

Breastfeeding and all of it's taboos


Photo Courtesy of http://www.visualphotos.com/
I once was sort of having a conversation with someone who said they felt that breastfeeding a toddler or older child was child abuse. That really made me have a WTF moment. I mean, if you were FORCING a child to breastfeed that didn't want to, that would certainly be child abuse. But anyone that has breastfed for any amount of time knows that the want to breastfeed is mutual. And, in my experience, the baby wants it much more than the mother does.

I think it's still kind of "taboo" in the United States for several reasons. In other countries, it is perfectly acceptable to breastfeed your child until they are three, four even five years old and older. In the United States, people are so quick to judge and so quick to assume that any mother breastfeeding an older toddler must be creepy or weird. The fact of the matter is, it's not wrong. There have been various studies done with varying results, so I'm not going to try to prove anything. It has been said that breastfeeding can help fight obesity. The reason being that the baby will stop when he is full, rather than stop when the bottle is empty.

I suppose people can argue against breastfeeding. I can't really think of any reasons why. It's natural, it's beautiful, and it's right.

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