A dear friend of mine sent me a link to Pinterest which shows some basic trends regarding breastfeeding in the United States versus 79 countries surveyed from the rest of the world.
The thing that caught my attention is the variance between the U.S. and the rest of the world. Although many U.S. citizens claim to support breastfeeding, most have an “age limit” that they believe is appropriate to stop breastfeeding. For some people that “age limit” is an actual age, and for some people it’s a milestone (for example, when the child learns to walk or to speak). I’m curious as to where we come up with this “age limit”, since the variance between the U.S. and the rest of the world is so great. Why are 56% of babies still breastfed at 2 years of age in the countries surveyed, when only 24% are still breastfed at 2 years of age in the U.S.? A variance of 32% is a pretty big gap!
I’m interested to know if this gap is the result of mothers returning to the workplace, as I know that the U.S. typically has shorter maternity leave benefits than other countries. Or, is it simply a cultural issue where mothers just feel judged if they continue to feed their children after the perceived “age limit” in the U.S., and it is just too tiring to justify to the inquiring minds why they breastfeed longer than that point? Personally, I wasn’t sure how to respond to my boss when he asked how long I planned to breastfeed my child. He let me know that, in his opinion, it was normal to be finished breastfeeding by the time a child turned a year old. I thought that was interesting.
So, my question of the day is: How long do you believe is too long to breastfeed a child, and why?
Signing off.
BKB
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