A woman continues to breast feed her 6-year old son.
Many find that shocking, but when you consider that “the average age of weaning around the world is 4 years old and there are no studies saying it is harmful,” is it really?
While psychologists wonder whether it will impede the ability to “develop the capacity to soothe oneself, the capacity to tolerate frustration,” mothers claim a close bond to their children when they get older.
With the lack of long term studies, nobody knows the answer, ensuring that the topic will continue to be controversial.
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When a child is old enough to say, “That’s delicious, Mother.”, it’s way past the time to stop.
Here’s a Youtube documentary of an 8 year old suckling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxv6R9fUO74
ABC aired the mother-nursing-a-6-year-old on 20/20 two hours ago along with segments discussing a woman carrying 12 different surrogate pregnancies and pregnant women ignoring sane medical advice to have risky deliveries at home.
I was shocked that a show like this would glorify the extreme views of a very small subset of the population. There was very little balance in the presentation.
I don’t care as long as she doesn’t want to do it in public.
A little baby is OK. A big kid isn’t something that I want to have to ignore in an airport terminal or shopping mall.
It is stimulating for the Mom so probably she doesn’t mind.
Good for them that it’s working so well! Good for all the other breastfeeding mothers out there that will find out that anything is “normal” and OK.
Yes, Peter. Doctors=Sane. Pregnant Women=Crazy. How astute.
How is this for sane? No, you may not have a vaginal birth in this hospital because you have a previous Cesarean. The risk of a neonatal death from uterine rupture associated with a c-section scar is 1 in 7,100, yet the majority of hospitals have VBAC bans. So many women stay home rather than have to endure an unnecesarean.
The piece in question did not do a good job of separating home birth with a midwife from unassisted childbirth, a TOTALLY different birth scenario.
Wasn’t the title of the piece “Extreme Motherhood?” How would it not be sensationalized? Who would watch “Middle-of-the-road Motherhood?”
And Dr. Mary Johnson, when an 18 month old verbally asks for milk or verbally indicates that they like it, is it time to throw in the towel?
Kevin, your commenters are real treasures.
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