Apparently, there was an episode of 20/20 featuring a mother breastfeeding her six years old daughter. I read a related article in here. The author of Family Health and Safety has a strong opinion on the support of extended breastfeeding and breastfeeding in general.
This is wonderful, and I'm all for breastfeeding. But I have to say the competition between mothers on breastfeeding is not healthy. I have to tell my story for those mothers who can't breastfeed their kids and feel guilty.
When my son was born, he was healthy and they released us from hospital in normal time. We came home. My son was crying constantly and was constantly on my breast for one week until we went for his first checkup with our GP. I thought well this is having a baby, the last thing in my mind was that he may be hungry. The minute the doctor saw him, he noticed my son was yellow beyond normal and send us for blood work. We ended up in the emergency room, he had baby jaundice and his numbers were way above normal.
We spend almost five days in the hospital and he was under the light all the time. They weighed him before and after breastfeeding and noticed that I didn't have enough production. The nurses told me that because of lack of production, my son couldn't get enough liquid to be able to pass the extra iron in blood to prevent baby jaundice. ...continue reading "Breastfeeding Competition"