How long is it advisable to breastfeed a baby? Does anyone have an answer to it? Because a British, named Denise Sumpter, 44, confessed a few days ago that He still breastfeeds his daughter Belle, 6 and a half years old, and history has generated quite a lot of controversy because, in the wake of his professional words, health and psychology have declared that he is not doing well.
She, on the other hand, explains that She is a girl who is healthy and who is happy, and that's why he sees nothing wrong with it. As explained in the Daily Mail, this fact makes the girl the oldest still breastfed in the United Kingdom (known).
The demand is very low
At the time of normalizing or not this situation seems logical to know the details: does the girl breast a lot or a little breast? Because it is not the same as the mother explain that the girl sucks very often and that she has to give him even in the street, because if she does not get very nervous, explain that demand is very low, that there are days when he asks twice, but then he can spend an entire week with a single shot.
The reality is the second, sometimes breast twice in a day and sometimes once in a week. The mother says that since the age of 5 they no longer do it on the street. The girl asked him, but the mother said no, that she would give him at home, and there was no problem on the part of the girl, who usually asks for breast when tired or when you need a moment to be attached to your mother.
Belle has a brother, Beau, 18 months old, who is also breastfed on demand.
What is Belle's life like?
Because surely you will also wonder how the girl behaves, say that she is a girl who goes to school, like most of her age, and that, according to the mother, excels in most classes. Physically is highest that his classmates and rarely gets sick. The mother believes that all this is thanks to breastfeeding, although I do not think the same, not at all.
The one that makes very little I agree, may be related because breast milk does that, provide defenses to breastfed children. The one that is taller, no, depends on its genetics and even if it had not been breastfed it would be equally high. The one that stands out in all subjects, yes and no: breastfeeding promotes a correct and normal brain development, which is usually somewhat worse in non-breastfed children, but here we must add the factor of affection, hug, availability of the mother, the Contact, the link, the good relationship.
A girl who has a relationship of love and respect with her parents (and vice versa) is probably so confident in herself that she is capable of being an attentive and motivated girl at school, although be careful, the opposite could happen, that she was so curious and able to get bored at school (where children's expectations don't always meet) and consequently the results were negative (and then they would say it's because of breast milk, of course).
Mother's words
To know the reasons and explanations of the mother, I quote below:
I don't think there's anything weird about it. I feed both children on demand, when they wish. I have two healthy, bright and safe children, who I really believe have benefited from breast milk ... For my part, I am protected from various types of cancer and I can eat whatever I want without gaining weight. Breastfeeding has not impacted my sex life and has not ruined my breasts ... I will breastfeed Belle until she asks me to. I don't know how long it will be. It will be the same with Beau ... If I had been asked five years ago, I would never have thought that I would still be breastfeeding Belle. However, it turned out to be one of the best things I have done for my family.
Is it good, is it bad?
In social networks, as comments to the news, there are all kinds of opinions, the majority being criticism. When reading professional opinions, the thing does not seem to vary too much. In El Nacional de Venezuela, for example, they cite a pediatrician and a psychologist who think it is a mistake.
Pediatrician and nutritionist Elisabeth Yáñez explains, for example, that breast milk fulfills its greatest function until two years and that is why WHO recommends it until that age. Beyond that age, he claims that no benefits have been demonstrated.
Well, as I love answering these things, to say that WHO actually says that it is recommended until two years, and then until the mother or son wishes, that is, until one of the two decides to end it. In Denise's case, neither the mother nor the girl have decided yet.
What have not been shown benefits? Y? Is the mother breastfeeding the girl because she thinks it is beneficial? No, he does it because he has always done it, because he doesn't care, because it's a pleasant time for both of us and because you don't see anything wrong with it. Yes, he believes that it is also beneficial for the girl, but does not do so exclusively for that. It is simply that he has not found a reason to stop.
Further, How does it have no benefits? What is the benefit of drinking cow's milk at age 6? What is the benefit of eating vegetables? What is the benefit of eating fruit? Well, they are foods that are part of a balanced diet. Breast milk is one of the most nutritionally complete foods, but the most. Of all the food available to the girl, she is surely the best. Why wouldn't I take it, if it's the best?
The pediatrician adds, and adds the child psychologist María Pía Castro, that the ideal weaning is a year, to enhance the autonomy of children and to develop solutions to adversity. Breastfeeding a 6-year-old girl, they explain, could alter her psychosocial development and prevent an adequate development of her basic security and confidence. It could also affect children's creativity, being less spontaneous and hypersexualizing them, considering that psychosexual development begins at 5 and 6 years. In addition, they end up suggesting how dangerous it is because of the possibility of mockery of children his age, since if they make fun of a 5-year-old boy who takes a bottle, we must imagine what they will think of a 6-year-old girl who looks for her mother's breast to feel safe. That will lead her to do it secretly, hiding it, and will cause erratic behavior.
And I don't know, they don't convince me
And I don't know about you, but they don't convince me. It seems to me one of those things that doesn't matter if they are done or not done. If a mother tells me she doesn't breastfeed her 6-year-old daughter and asks me what I think I will tell you that well. If you tell me that you are breastfeeding your 6-year-old daughter and ask me what I think, I will ask about how the relationship between the two is and how the girl's relationship with others is. If you explain to me what this girl is like, I will tell you that well, because I do not think that the girl is at a disadvantage in anything with respect to others. In advantage? I do not know, perhaps because of the relationship he has with the mother, yes, with other children who do not have such a relationship, but it should be seen.
Weaning per year, as the pediatrician and psychologist explain contravenes the WHO recommendation. It makes no sense to mention the recommendation and then skip it themselves. They say that we must wean the child to be autonomous, but I understand that a child takes autonomy when separated from his mother and father, and mothers do not breastfeed 24 hours in a row, so from the moment a child acquires mobility, when no mama is gaining autonomy. The important thing here is not to breastfeed or not, but for parents to create a climate of trust in children so that they begin to develop as independent people and this is to let them do things, even at the risk of doing them wrong. Come on, don't become your butlers.
The psychosocial development? The same. It does not depend so much on whether the girl breastfeeds or does not, but on what the girl has a chance to be with other children and other people and make life with them too. If a mother does not breastfeed but keeps her daughter always at home and prevents her daughter from being with other children because she considers that they are all bad influences, psychosocial development will be horrible, and if she breastfeeds her, too. If instead a mother does not breastfeed, but her daughter goes to school, plays with her friends, does collective sports and meets girls and boys in the neighborhood, her psychosocial development will be correct, and if she breastfeeds her, too.
That the girl has the mother to help find security when she is nervous? Well, what's wrong? All 6-year-old children, if they feel insecure, look for ways to find security or calm. She has her mother's tit, others have her mother, without a tit, others find other solutions and some will have to, poor, have not found an element that helps her find calm. Of all, the last one is the one with a problem, because the others will find new tools that help them (not just one) and in the same way that they changed the pacifier or the bottle for a hug from mom or other solutions, Belle will change the tit for that hug or for something else when the moment.
Hypersexualization? No, what hypersexualizes children is not to do something they have done all their lives. For Belle and her mother, the last thing there is sex. It is a moment of relationship and union together for 6 years. The hypersexualization of children comes from dolls with provocative dresses, cartoons with thin and low-cut women acting as dependent women always of a man who saves them and the behaviors of fashion singers, it seems that if they do not appear in semi-nude videos and doing stripper dances, they no longer sell. That is terrible. About this mother and this girl responds to something else, a moment of calm and peace, of a relationship between mother and daughter. Nothing else.
And finally, should we stop doing things so that children their age do not make fun of? Well, we must begin to explain to children 5 and 6 years old that the usual is not always the most correct, or that there are things that you have never seen that are so good, or better, than those that are always done.
But hey, this is my opinion and I only give my arguments about it so, What is your opinion? Is this mother good? Is it wrong? Do you think indifferent, like me?
Photos | Daily Mail
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