Subtitle: Yet Another Reason to Nurse a Toddler
Why it is that as Americans we think that the proper age to wean is 12 months is beyond me. It defies all the medical research that is out there and also defies the current trend in the rest of the world. But yet again, here is another study that shows that breastfeeding is not only healthy for the baby but it’s healthy for the mother too. What’s particularly interesting to me about benefits that the mother gets from breastfeeding, is that those benefits are generally derived from a breastfeeding relationship that is longer than one year.
The New Arthritis Study
According to Swedish researchers, women who breastfed for 13 months or more were half as likely to get rheumatoid arthritis than women who had never breastfed at all. Researchers also looked at birth control and said that birth control (once previously thought to offer protection because of the hormones released), offered no protection against the painful autoimmune disease.
Other Breastfeeding Health Boosts for the Mom
Breastfeeding also helps protect against breast cancer. The rate of breast cancer is inversely related to the length of breastfeeding. In other words, the longer you breastfeed, the less likely you are to get breast cancer. Of course there are other risk factors involved for both breast cancer and rheumatoid arthritis but I think the general message we’re getting here is that there are benefits to both mother and baby when you breastfeed for a long time.
Child Led Weaning
This is one reason breastfeeding organizations recommend child led weaning. Generally a child will wean themselves at some point between the third and fourth year. While that might seem awfully long for some people, consider that the immunological protections that you’re giving your child extend throughout the breastfeeding relationship. While there’s a boost of antibodies in the beginning after birth, breast milk is a living substance and changes over time to meet the needs of your baby.
For more articles on breastfeeding see Valorie’s Breastfeeding Index. If you have a specific question about breastfeeding, leave me a note below.
Valorie Delp shares recipes and kitchen tips in the food blog, solves breastfeeding problems, shares parenting tips, and current research in the baby blog, and insight, resources and ideas as a regular guest blogger in the homeschooling blog. To read more articles by Valorie Delp, click here.
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