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Yes it is and thank God we have clean water and options.</p>
<p>The six months you breastfed your kids were a precious gift of immunities and other benefits. That’s really quite wonderful.</p>
<p>You are very lucky dr google. Isn’t it interesting how they are born with their own strong personalities?</p>
<p>LOL on breastfeeding and teeth and size of kid. Both kids started teething at 4 months and DS15 outgrew his infant carseat at 4 months (now 6’2" 170ish) Had he stopped nursing when he started teething he would have gone pretty hungry. Wow - the cover on the news right now.</p>
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This begs the question: How can you afford to feed them now??!!</p>
<p>I have never before or since done anything that felt as completely right as nursing my babies. The fact that I knew it was the oxytocin making me feel that way didn’t stop me from gazing down at the nursing baby and out at my messy house with dishes unwashed and laundry unfolded and thinking, “it doesn’t get any better than this.”</p>
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<p>Best line on this thread and really says it all.</p>
<p>And from the other side of the fence…</p>
<p>I did not nurse either of my kids and I live in an area where the LLL is a political force! With my first, it was an extremely long and exhausting labor - for both parties. Afterward the attempts to nurse were unbelievably excruciatingly painful. Imagine a red hot set of pliers applied to a rug burn wound. Tried nipple shields, calming teas, even a bit of beer, nothing helped. We had to supplement with a bottle because D was losing weight. I had a home appointment with the LLL and was left to feel like the most selfish, inconsiderate and unloving mother for even considering anything but breastfeeding… so I kept at it until for another 2 weeks…until the morning I woke up with a 103 degree temp and breasts that were even hotter, purple and hard as rocks. Yes, mastitis… Dr. said just stop…LLL advice…you must nurse through this setback. Well, D went on the bottle.</p>
<p>S came along 3 years later…easy delivery and he latched on nicely. However it was the same unbelievable pain …literally searing into my toes. It got to the point of my being in tears when it came to feeding time. I thank my lucky starts DH said enough is enough! S went on the bottle.</p>
<p>So, as much uproar (which was the intended goal of all the vested interest participants) as this Time article generates from the pro-nursing side, realize that there are others who have felt the same amount of outrage directed at them for choosing not to nurse.</p>
<p>As for the Time picture…oh good grief…really!!! Too many sections of our society have lost the common sense given to a rock. Frankly, IMHO it is child abuse to put this child on the cover in this context. (just to be very clear…I’m not saying the activity is child abuse but rather the publication of the image of the minor). This child had no say in the matter and yet will continue to feel the effects of the choice made by the “adults” who are supposed to protect him the most.</p>
<p>I went back to work full time after 2 months so breast feeding for a year was a project. It was my D’s choice though. She refused anything else with a vengeance. Turned out, for us, she knew best.</p>
<p>That is a great line mimk6. I really like the one just before yours.</p>
<p>“I have never before or since done anything that felt as completely right as nursing my babies.”</p>
<p>edited to add my empathy for you Dietz, I too would have discontinued if I had experienced such pain. Noone should have to feel bad about a choice made due to any reason, but certainly due to the pain you describe. glad you posted as it helps for us all to increase our understanding of the other side. thanks…</p>
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I can’t tell you how sorry I am that you had such a miserable experience. No one should have to go through that. I really do understand. I had one (only one) bout of mastitis. Made me think that God hated me with a raging passion.</p>
<p>Another yay LLL post.</p>
<p>I was living in Europe when S was born. The English-speaking LLL circle was helpful in all sorts of ways.</p>
<p>I had mastitis a couple times. Ended up laying in the floor of the bathroom because it felt so cool.
After that I made a bigger effort to stay awake when nursing so I could switch off.</p>
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<p>Yep, knew that pain well. I remember sitting in a rocker, nursing my D through mastitis with tears streaming down my face. I always described it as grinding the nipple between two bricks. That was what I envisioned was happening. The combination of pain, fever and lack of sleep is something hard to forget. Coming out on the other side of it was even more memorable though. Because D wouldn’t take a bottle, I felt I had no choice at that time.</p>
<p>With D is was a breeze and with 2nd I had clogged ducts and mastitis PAIN!!! When he was born D was weened down to once a day at bedtime every now and again - pretty much done (2.5 yrs) and she would nurse first to take the edge off so S could latch. I had more trouble with recurring clogged ducts, but got better at the hot shower and massage to clear it so as to avoid the whole rest of that cycle.</p>
<p>Now that I think about it I weened S at about 2.5. He was down to 3 times a day and I let him pick which one to give up first. Each week we gave up one more until on Indepencence Day (literally and figuratively) he was done. He gave up morning, nap, then nighttime in that order. After the no night time, though it was hard to get him to sleep. One night I was just ready for a break and had DH lay down to “snug” him at bedtime. DS, crying and wailing . . . “I don’t want to be snugged by a man I want to be snugged by a woman!” DH kept a straight face long enough to get out of the room and say, “Can’t argue with that.” :)</p>
<p>I only have an observation about the photo. As others have pointed out, it has caused considerable discussion of extended breast feeding, the very topic of the argument/debate that is the subject of the Time article. That is effective use of photo journalism.</p>
<p>Using a mid-20’s mother with a “perky” breast (another poster used this description earlier in the thread), helps get a message across that this is a “now” issue, not some hold over from prior generations. It helps dispel the thought that extended nursing causes negative impact on the woman’s breasts. In fact, if anything, it suggests that nursing continues a full breast attribute.</p>
<p>Using a mother nursing a strapping male 4 year old gives the message that this is not just for girl babies, and that the child gets sufficient nourishment.</p>
<p>On the teasing issue, kids get teased by others all the time based on the parent’s parenting choices and decisions. My son got teased by another boy at church pre-K school for an after school activity that my son did starting at age 5 that involved me picking my son up from pre-school, taking him to the activity and staying there until it was over. Within a matter of a few weeks, the boy doing the teasing had gotten his parents to allow him to join that same activity. </p>
<p>His mother brought him and since we knew each other from church we would strike up a conversation. She clearly did not know about the prior teasing (I never mentioned it). She said her son had recently started asking his dad if he could take tae kwon do. He had told his dad that my son was taking it. </p>
<p>The mom said she asked my son’s mother (my Ex) about it at church and my Ex told her where I had enrolled our son for tae kwon do. The boy’s mom said that her son had asked his dad if he could be the one to take him. The mom said that her son had been very disappointed that his dad said no. The mom mentioned that she wished that the dad could find more time to do things with their son.</p>
<p>The mom in the photo spends quality time with her son in the process of breast feeding. I imagine that more than makes up for any teasing.</p>
<p>Mastitis was 20 times worse than childbirth. I was never so sick in all my life, and I had several episodes with all 3 kids. With my first bout, I didn’t feel breast pain right away, and had no idea what was wrong. I thought I was coming down with the flu or something. I fainted dead away at my parents’ church full of old people, causing quite a stir! After that, ditto on the colorful descriptions of the intense pain. With my last baby, I got mastitis at least 5 times and almost quit nursing for good. I asked the doctor if there was something I was doing wrong. She said no, just some people are more susceptible to it than others.</p>
<p>The nice thing about weaning is to each his own. I will say that most girls that I knew back in those days that breastfeed past first teeth did so for themselves which is a whole nother side of the story often untouched.</p>
<p>???</p>
<p>since both my kids got their first teeth at THREE MONTHS, I would hardly say that I nursed past that time for myself. Yes, there were times when I had to have my finger ready to block a bite down, but they soon learned not to do that. (ouch!)</p>
<p>My elevator is now showing the Time cover with a blurb about how it makes people outraged because it smashes a taboo.</p>
<p>With my first one, the first two weeks were painful. I can remember biting down on my own fist to “mask” the pain when my son was learning to latch on and such. But I was determined. After the first two weeks, the pain went away. Didn’t get any pain with the second. I’ve talked to enough moms to know that this is quite common. The first two weeks can be brutal. </p>
<p>My second child slept for 6 days straight. Nothing could wake him up long enough to eat. I was in the hospital for 5 of those days, so I pumped and froze so that he could later get that early milk that is so good for babies. Thankfully, this wasn’t my first child so I wasn’t worried that he’d starve to death or anything. Yes, he lost weight, but he wasn’t so small that that was an issue. After 6 days, he woke up and ate. (he was taken two weeks early by C-section, so he just wasn’t ready to be awake yet…lol)</p>
<p>Yes, I had an occassional mastitis, I used to put the baby on the breast, lay down and go to sleep…wake up later, all gone! baby had sucked it out. </p>
<p>There is NOTHING that compares to looking down at a nursing baby who looks up at you, pauses a sec, smiles, and goes on. Priceless.</p>
<p>I think people are outraged because they remember when TIME was considered a news weekly.</p>