First, did you know it's World Breastfeeding Week? Neither did I.
Second, an Australian study of mothers who breastfeed their kids past the age of two really like it, and so do the kids. [Um, but isn't that because the ones who didn't like it stopped doing it before then?] The survey covered kids from 24-78 months. I would point out that 78 months is actually 6.5 years, but the study also says "social stigma" is a big challenge for breastfeeding older kids. So is the kid getting his driver's license and going off to college, mate.
And third, a California company is now trying to put the Pro into Lactation, by getting into the breast milk business. The company, Prolacta, plans to buy donated breast milk from milk banks, pasteurize it, and then sell it to hospitals for breast milk-centered treatment regimens. If that sounds like a racket, just wait until they start trying to patent all the compounds and ingredients they find in that donated breast milk. I'm sure no one'll mind if some random company ties up the intellectual property rights to every woman's chest, right?
World Breastfeeding Week 2005 [waba.org]
'As good as chocolate' and 'better than ice cream': Study asks Aussie tots about breastfeeding [eureka, via robotwisdom]
Move to commercialise breast milk [bbc, via robotwisdom, who's demonstrating an impressive focus on world breasts this week]
They have a local "breast milk bank" here in Vancouver that does the same thing, but it's run by the government, I believe. They use the pasteurised (note the Canadian spelling :P ) milk for babies who are hospitalised or kids whose mothers have some problem that prevents them from feeding, I believe...
Gotta love studies like these. It reminds me of the one a few years ago that produced the stunning result that kids who grew up with pets in the house had fewer allergies to pets later on. They concluded that it was the exposure to pets that averted the allergies. Not, you know, that maybe kids whose parents had no pet allergies would be more likely to have pets than kids whose parents were allergic to animals.
Privatiz/sing breastmilk sounds a lot like copyrighting words. I'll continue to lactate on my own, just as I'll gleefully run through the streets shouting the words "threepeat" and "onesie." I'm such a rebel.
Also, Moxie, "realtor."
That said, I'm all for normalizing the breastfeeding of older kids. If you'd told me pre-motherhood that I'd still be nursing a two-year-old, I would have laughed in horror. But here I am.
I threw out almost 300 ounces of frozen breast milk that I wasn't going to be able to get to by the 3-month deadline. I asked around to see if I could donate it, and heard that the closest place that lets you do that was in Colorado, so I gave up. But oh boy, did it hurt to toss the stuff that I had worked so hard to produce! I used to freak out if I spilled a couple of drops while pumping or transferring, forget several dozen bags. I would have loved to do something useful with it.
"Dr Karleen Gribble ... surveyed 107 Australian mothers aged 21 to 45 years, who were breastfeeding 114 children at least two years of age or older."
Um, pardon my math, but how is this possible, unless some of the women were like the mutant hooker with 3 breasts in "Total Recall".
With twins and an older sister, all under 5, this makes me do the female equivalent of the John Bobbit squirm.
My wife came home from work on Friday telling me about this (she is a Pediactric Nurse Practitioner) and she metioned that the milk is going to be sold for $3.00 an ounce. I then mentioned something about "get the pump out...NOW! Our 4 mounth old eats way too much of it now as it is, but we decided to hoard it ourselves.
JJ Daddy,
Some of the women were breastfeeding more than one child 2 years or older (many were breastfeeding more than 1 child but only 7 of these women were breastfeeding 2 children 2 years or older). There was one set of twins and 1 mother was breastfeeding 3 children....