Why breastfeed a toddler?

Or for that matter, why breastfeed at all? 

The recent Time magazine article and its provocative cover has kicked off another round of controversy over breastfeeding in the West, and it set me thinking. The article itself is about Dr Sears and Attachment Parenting, about which more another time, perhaps. For now, I’m going to focus on breastfeeding, since much of the fuss worldwide has been about that. 

So what exactly is the problem? Is it that in western societies the extended family unit is now relatively rare, so breastfeeding is not something we readily see as we grow up? Is it down to the sexualisation of society, so that breasts are now primarily seen as being “for men” and as sexual objects rather than the feeding glands they are in biological terms? Or is it that we have, over the last century or so, become so focused on “progress” and work and freeing women from the “slavery” of parenthood that we have become ignorant about the benefits and joys of breastfeeding? Or is it just that the formula manufacturers are bloody good at advertising?

I breastfed my older daughter until she was over 3 years, and she still occasionally has a quick feed, aged 5, when she needs to feel that connection to me. Her younger sister, now 15 months, is also still breastfeeding, and I’ll keep going until she’s ready to stop. Here’s why:

1. Because it’s normal. I’m a mammal; I’ve got boobs; that’s what they’re for. [Mammal noun: a warm-blooded vertebrate animal of a class that is distinguished by the possession of hair or fur, the secretion of milk by females for the nourishment of the young, and (typically) the birth of live young. ]

2. Because it’s normal. In traditional human societies, Katherine Dettwyler has demonstrated that children wean between 2 and 5 years of age. From an anthropological standpoint, nursing a three-year-old is normal human physiology.

3. Because it’s normal. It is not in any way perverted or weird. If you see a 3 year-old breastfeeding and you think of things sexual, it is you who are sick, not the child.

4. Because it’s healthy for my babies. According to UNICEF , every year more than 10 million children die from mainly preventable causes, including diarrhoea, pneumonia, measles and malaria.  If every baby were exclusively breastfed from birth to six months, an estimated 3,500 children’s lives could be saved each day.

5. Because it’s healthy for my babies. Breast-fed babies have:

·         fewer gastro-intestinal infections

·         fewer chest and ear infections

·         fewer admissions to hospital for childhood illnesses

·         less chance of being constipated

·         less likelihood of becoming obese and therefore developing type 2 diabetes and other illnesses later in life

6. Because it’s healthy for my babies. Prolonged breast-feeding promotes psychological health, and breast-feeding for less than 6 months is associated with increased risk for mental health problems during childhood and adolescence. If a need is met, it goes away. If a need is unmet (such as the need to breastfeed and be close to mum), it remains a need well into childhood and even the teenage years.

7. Because it’s healthy for my babies. A mother’s body adapts the nutritional content of breast-milk to match the needs of her child as he or she grows. In the second year of breastfeeding, breast milk provides:

·         29% of energy requirements

·         43% protein requirements

·         36% of calcium requirements

·         75% of vitamin A requirements

·         76% folate requirements

·         94% vitamin B12 requirements

·         60% vitamin C requirements.

8. Because it helps my children develop. Dettwyler again: It's possible that we evolved to nurse children until they're around 5 or 6. Breast milk is one of the only sources of long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids that build brain tissue. It isn't until age 5 or 6 that "95% of brain growth has been reached, and that's also about the time that the child's immune system is ramped up to full production," she says.

9. Because it’s healthy for me. Breastfeeding mothers tend to lose the so-called “baby weight” more easily. Other significant benefits include:

·         a lower risk of breast cancer . Studies have found a significant inverse association between duration of lactation and breast cancer risk

·         lower risk of ovarian cancer, uterine and endometrial cancer

·         protection against osteoporosis

·         a reduced  risk of rheumatoid arthritis

·         a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease

·         and breastfeeding has been shown to decrease insulin requirements in diabetic women

10. Because it’s free.  In 2009 the infant milk market in the UK was worth £263 million; worldwide the figure is $9 billion. Why spend money on something inferior to the free version?

11. Because I received the support I needed from my family, and from La Leche League. It is a crying shame that so many women who set out to breastfeed are persuaded, even encouraged, by ill-informed health professionals or well-meaning friends and relatives to give up when they encounter difficulties. Breastfeeding isn’t always easy, but it IS worth the effort, and women deserve to be supported all the way. Their babies deserve it too.

12. Because it helped me recover from post-natal depression. It helped me create the bond with my baby that was lacking the first few months. It helped me feel that I was nurturing her, and has helped us develop a strong relationship as she grows.

13. Because it’s what my babies need. Breastfeeding is a life-affirming act of love.

14. Because it’s beautiful.

15. Because it’s wonderful.

16. Because I love it!

References

http://www.whale.to/a/extended_bf_factsheet.pdf

http://kellymom.com/ages/older-infant/ebf-benefits/

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/story/2012-05-11/breastfeeding-rates/54909940/1

http://www.whale.to/a/newman.html

http://www.laleche.org.uk/index.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-04-05-study-breast-feeding_N.htm

http://bfmed.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/time-cover-sells-out-moms-to-sell-magazines/

http://www.llli.org/ba/aug94.html

http://mothering.com/all-things-mothering/baby-2/breastfeeding/an-open-letter-to-time-magazine?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+motheringblogs+%28Mothering.com+Blogs%29

http://www.cwt.org.uk/pdfs/infantsmilk_web.pdf

What if...? (4)

What if all the words fell out of my brain
Like so many autumn leaves,
Skittering across the floor
To form whispering drifts in the corners of the room?

Wire jewellery

Some of you already know my other hat as jewellery designer/maker for Morgan & Pink. I've been playing around with a few new designs recently and thought I'd share them with you. Let me know what you think!

So this was my first design using sterling silver wire; this is 0.8mm wire, with a faceted glass bead. It's quite hard to coil this thickness of wire, but I'm pleased with the results:

I then tried using 0.6mm sterling silver wire, which is easier to manipulate, and I've gone for a more open spiral, which combined with the thinner wire gives a lighter look. This first version has Czech glass pearls and faceted glass:

And this version uses Preciosa crystals to add colour and sparkle:

I've now bought another length of the 0.8mm wire to have another go with that, and I'm planning to try some pendant or necklace designs as well as earrings - will post the results in due course!

Breastfeeding paintings

Few of you will have missed the recent edition of Time magazine featuring a breastfeeding mother and her 3 year-old. I'll pin my colours to the mast right now and say that I also breastfed my older child until she was beyond 3; my younger child is still regularly breastfed at 15 months, and I'll carry on for as long as she needs or wants to. There are many things I'd like to say about the way Time represented this issue, and about the article itself, but while I marshal my thoughts I wanted to share a couple of my favourite images of breastfeeding (I've been collecting them lately!).

Mary Cassatt (1844 - 1926)
Louise Nursing Her Child

Johann Friedisch August Tischbein (1750-1812)
Family Portrait (Believed to be a self-portrait of the artist, with his wife Sophie and his daughter Betty)

Tissue paper stained glass windows

This is a good old-fashioned rainy day activity, and it seems to me that we can’t have enough of those up our sleeves at the moment. My nearly 5 year-old managed to make this without help, apart from cutting out the shape of the A in the second version. The floor was liberally decorated with scraps of tissue by the time she’d finished, and it took a while to scrub the glue off the kitchen table, but apart from that, no damage done!

So, you’ll need some cardboard thin enough to cut relatively easily (an old cereal box works well), scissors, a selection of colours of tissue paper, and some glue (we used pritt-stick).

First, cut out a window frame from the cardboard. If you’re aiming to get going quickly, as my daughter was, go for a basic rectangle or square. If you’re handy with a craft-knife, there’s no limit to the complexities you might create!

Then cut the tissue into strips about an inch wide. Glue the first strip at the bottom of the frame, so that perhaps a third of its width is glued along the length of the frame. Glue the next strip so that it overlaps the first, and covers the frame at each end, then keep going with all the subsequent strips until you have filled in the whole frame. Neaten up the edges, colour or decorate the frame if you wish, and blu-tac it to the nearest window. Then wait for the sun to shine through it to see it in all its glory...

Banana bread recipe

I have a confession to make: I don't like bananas. So when the rest of the household turn their backs on the rapidly ripening bananas in the fruit bowl, this is the recipe I turn to. It works every time, makes a fabulous snack, and you can even claim it's healthy, because it's got fruit in it.

Ingredients
100g butter, softened
140g light muscovado sugar*
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 ripe bananas, mashed
a handful of raisins (optional)**
2 tbsp milk
225g self-raising flour
1 or 2 tbsps demerara sugar (optional)

*I've also made it with dark muscovado, or ordinary caster sugar, depending on what's in the cupboard; it alters the taste slightly but doesn't matter - it's still delicious either way!

Method
To start, turn the oven on to 180°C/Gas Mark 4/fan oven 160°C.
Butter and line a 1k/2lb loaf tin. Cream together the butter and sugar, then add the beaten eggs. Stir in the mashed bananas, raisins and milk, then fold in the flour.
Spoon the mixture into the tin, and sprinkle the top with demerara sugar.
Bake for 55-60 minutes; once out of the oven, let it cool in the tin for about 10 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack and leave to cool (if you can - we often eat a slice or two while it's still warm!)

**Variations: if you don't like raisins, leave them out. If you like walnuts or hazelnuts, add a couple of handfuls to the mix (?50 - 75g) at the same time as the bananas, and then top the loaf with a scattering more of them before you cook it.
You could also try it with chocolate chunks - dark or milk as you wish. I once made it with a chopped up bar of fruit & nut chocolate which was pretty good.

It's great eaten on its own, or if you have a decadent streak, slice it thinly and spread it with butter.
Let me know how it works out for you!

Harcourt Arboretum

Today we celebrated the first day of the holidays with a trip to the University of Oxford's Harcourt Arboretum. Poppet (age 4) insisted in the car that we wrote a list of things to look out for - a strategy we invented last year to encourage her to approach a country walk with more enthusiasm! So today's list included: different shapes of leaves; pink, white, and yellow flowers; a pinecone; a feather; a peacock; bluebells; leaves and flowers just emerging from their buds, etc. It was a glorious morning, and we were treated on arrival to the magnificent peacock display pictured above.

We went on to find everything on the list, and more, including this stunning camelia,

and this beautiful rhododendron, about to burst into bloom:

We then found the first few bluebells coming out (much earlier than I expected):

before ending our walk through the glorious Lime Wood, which has yet to come into leaf:

Here we were lucky enough to come across a den someone had built of sticks leant around the trunk of a small tree:

Poppet and I set about making our own, scavenging for more sticks and propping them in a rather haphazard fashion around a neighbouring tree. Unfortunately BabyGirl (14 months old) had had enough by this time, so we had to abandon it unfinished. Poppet was unfazed: "It can be a woodlouse house," she said, quite happy with our efforts. On the way home, she asked me to spell the words so that she could write "woodlouse house" on our list, and add a tick to show we'd found one.

If you'd like to visit the Harcourt Arboretum too, now is a good time - the bluebells are beginning to come out,the peacocks are strutting their stuff, the azalea walk will be glorious soon, and the staff have also emerged from their winter hibernation so it is now open at weekends as well as weekdays. And no, I'm not being sponsored for this - we have a family season ticket and it remains one of our favourite places to take the children, come rain or shine! All it lacks is somewhere to buy a cup of coffee, but we're getting better at remembering to take a flask...