Child-led weaning

This is for those who have noticed that Boo is still nursing and are curious. *smile*

The weaning process begins the first time your baby takes food from a source other than your breast - whether it's formula from a bottle or mashed banana from a spoon. Weaning is the gradual replacement of breastfeeding with other foods and ways of nurturing. ~KellyMom

So, yes, she is in the process of weaning. *smile*

Now for some bullets from The KellyMom site (such a wonderfully supportive site!):

• It's a myth that the benefits of breastmilk stop at a certain point. Instead, they continue and are more significant and longer-lasting for both you and your child the longer breastfeeding continues. In fact, the antibodies in human milk are more concentrated the lesser the frequency of breastfeeding is (say with a toddler or older child).
  

• The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that "Breastfeeding should be continued for at least the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child... Increased duration of breastfeeding confers significant health and developmental benefits for the child and the mother... There is no upper limit to the duration of breastfeeding and no evidence of psychologic or developmental harm from breastfeeding into the third year of life or longer." (AAP 2005)
  

• Many studies have shown that one of the best ways to prevent allergies and asthma is to breastfeed exclusively for at least 6 months and continue breastfeeding long-term after that point.
  
  Breastfeeding can be helpful for preventing allergy by:
  1. reducing exposure to potential allergens (the later baby is exposed, the less likely that there will be an allergic reaction),
  2. speeding maturation of the protective intestinal barrier in baby's gut,
  3. coating the gut and providing a barrier to potentially allergenic molecules,
  4. providing anti-inflammatory properties that reduce the risk of infections (which can act as allergy triggers).
  

• Per the World Health Organization, "a modest increase in breastfeeding rates could prevent up to 10% of all deaths of children under five: Breastfeeding plays an essential and sometimes underestimated role in the treatment and prevention of childhood illness."
  

• "Human milk expressed by mothers who have been lactating for >1 year has significantly increased fat and energy contents, compared with milk expressed by women who have been lactating for shorter periods. During prolonged lactation, the fat energy contribution of breast milk to the infant diet might be significant."
  -- Mandel 2005
  

• Extensive research on the relationship between cognitive achievement (IQ scores, grades in school) and breastfeeding has shown the greatest gains for those children breastfed the longest.
  

• According to Elizabeth N. Baldwin, Esq. in "Extended Breastfeeding and the Law":
  "Breastfeeding is a warm and loving way to meet the needs of toddlers and young children. It not only perks them up and energizes them; it also soothes the frustrations, bumps and bruises, and daily stresses of early childhood. In addition, nursing past infancy helps little ones make a gradual transition to childhood."

There is so much more there to learn! The benefits for moms are extensive in reguard to prevention of specific cancers, osteoperosis, and mothers' general well being. *smile* Breastfeeding not only calms babies but mothers as well!

Kellymom has a lot of support for mothers that pump, tandem nursing, preemie nursing, and mothers adopting who wish to induce lactation. *thumbsup* Please see her sight for references - she has them by the bucketfulls.


I also think this is interesting and I plan to do more study of this when I have time:

Among the Hebrew's, children (whom it was customary for the mothers to nurse, Ex.
2:7-9; 1 Sam. 1:23; Cant. 8:1) were not generally weaned till they were three
or four years old.
Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

Ok...my lactivist post is now concluded.
*grin*