Extended Breastfeeding?

Last week I had a thought “Ada makna ke menyusu anak ku yang dah pass infanthood?”. Then it was being followed up with the little poll I held on my blog titled “How long will you breastfeed your baby?”.

From the poll, it is evident that many of you mommies out there agree that extended breastfeeding is good. But do we really know why we agree to such idea? Do we really have a firm belief on this whole extended breastfeeding mission of ours? As for me, I am still determined to have some factual stuff to back-up my stand.

So I surfed the net and read on a few articles and I found out that I am not alone. Many moms wonder if there are really benefits to nursing a baby past his first birthday....and in the western world most babies are weaned before they turn one. Most Mat/Minah Salleh are surprised to see toddlers and even older children at the breast, though this is commonplace in other parts of the world.

And in Islam, the Quran states that a complete a breastfeeding journey is for the period from birth to the 2 years of age. Furthermore, the Quran did not state that is the maximum age of when the child should be wean off from breastmilk.

So I guess, it is safe to conclude that the natural time of weaning will vary from child to child. In cultures where children are allowed to nurse as long as they want it has been found that natural weaning takes place between three and four years of age. Extended nursing seems to be the human norm.

In the modern world, breastfeeding is only as a means of providing optimal nutrition coupled with immunological protection. However from my reading from many articles and websites of pro-breastfeeding, many believes that breastfeeding provides much more than just nutrition.

In reference to breastfeeding for toddlers, I found out that toddlers really enjoy nursing, they don't nurse for milk alone, toddlers crave for that soothing comfort from breastfeeding. It comforts him/her when he/she is tired, sick or hurt. Nursing is your baby's way of touching base with you as he busily explores his world. Parents often worry that their child will become clingy and dependent if they are nursed for an extended period of time. Providing your little one with this loving and secure base actually helps him to become independent.

Mothers also benefit from extended nursing. You continue to benefit from the hormones of breastfeeding. The "mothering hormone," prolactin, relaxes you, while oxytocin stimulates loving , nurturing behavior. As mothers of nursing toddlers know, this can be very important to your mental health and well-being. Life with a toddler is not always easy! You also benefit from the intimacy that nursing provides. Taking time out of a busy day to cuddle is as important to moms as it is to their babies.

But is that all to breastfeeding a toddler? Is that all what the toddler gets? Is that all a breastfeeding mother gets?

So I did some further reading and I found this article by Kathryn Orlinsky. Have a read of it and I think you’ll get on what I’m thinking here.

Comfort versus Nutrition By Kathryn Orlinsky

A very common statement about older nurslings is that they nurse mainly for comfort rather than for nutritional needs. Children who only nurse when upset or tired, or who eat a large quantity or variety of other foods often fall into this category. Is this an accurate depiction? To some extent, it is. As one mother suggested, if a child has nursed his fill, then hurts himself and asks to nurse again, this time only long enough to regain his composure, what else can that second nursing be for if not for comfort? Also, how much nutrition can a child get from nursing for a few minutes per day? These are valid questions. Nevertheless, I believe that it belittles human milk, the most nutritious substance in the world, as far as humans are concerned, to speak of it in these terms. Why disparage it this way? We never talk that way about other foods. How much nutrition do we get from eating any small amounts of food? An older child with a varied diet doesn't need human milk in the same way that I don't need to eat apples. One apple doesn't contribute too many calories to my diet, but it's still a significant nutritional contribution. If I were writing down my diet to make sure that I got the right amount of nutrients and vitamins, I would certainly not omit the apple. It doesn't matter what my emotional state was when I ate the apple either, it is still nutritionally significant. I think of human milk the same way. It may or may not contribute a significant amount of calories and it may not be essential to sustain life, but on the days when a child consumes it, it is nutritionally significant. And that doesn't even include the other health benefits of human milk, such as protection from disease or gastrointestinal discomfort. Why do we expect more from human milk than from any other food source? If a child doesn't appear to need human milk for survival, we as a society are quick to decide that breastfeeding is now unnecessary and that every effort should be made to wean the child. We don't say that children should stop eating bananas once bananas are no longer a significant part of their diet. Bananas eaten once in a while are as nutritious as bananas eaten three times a day. In fact, you might even consider the rarely eaten banana to be more important nutritionally. Why do we not see that the same is true of human milk? I think this whole 'comfort nursing' thing started because people were comparing breastfeeding with sucking on thumbs or pacifiers. In our culture, those things are more commonly used by older children than breastfeeding, and of course, they are sucked on purely for comfort; nothing comes out of them. Our society then assumes that breastfeeding children of the same age are suckling for the same reasons. My last point is that we assume that children are nursing for comfort because they only ask to nurse when they are upset or tired. What if the reason they are upset in the first place is because they are experiencing low blood sugar or lacking some other nutritional element found in human milk? They don't realize that's what is wrong with them, and neither do we. Under this scenario, despite what we see--child asks to nurse when she needs to be comforted--the true reason behind the nursing might be nutritional. By the same token, a younger child who gets all of his nutrition from the breast may also be nursing to comfort himself. I realize that there are differences between nursing one-year-olds and nursing six -year-olds. Their nutritional and emotional needs are very different. However, I strongly feel that it is wrong to arbitrarily establish distinctions between 'comfort nursing' and 'nutritional nursing'. Breastfeeding will always be about both aspects; they cannot be separated. (from "Keeping Abreast" October/December 1999 issue)

Okie now, from my earlier expression and then followed down to this article, I want to know of what my fellow breastfeeding friends out there thinks? Please leave a comment here and share your 2cents on “benefit of breastfeeding your toddler”. Really appreciate any sort of feed back on why do you think extended breastfeeding is good.