trying to decide how long to breast feed - Page 5

[JaneS]

And Caedmyn, sorry to sidetrack this discussion a bit but re: your original question ...

Nurse as long as you can. I weaned DS for health issues in us both when he was 26 months and I wish I didn't. BM is liquid gold and essential for the development of the immune system.

I think one year is giving a child the short stick, and two years should absolutely be the minimum. Nursing longer is essential if food allergies or other immune disorders are present. Good luck to you.

Nutritional stores do need rebuilding, especially vitamin A and minerals. From my research a 3 yr. spacing is much better.

[Viola]

Originally Posted by caedmyn

It makes sense if you stop and think about it--the mother is naturally the stronger party so it is God's way of making sure the one who is more likely to survive survives if only one can.

With the mention of God's way, you are already taking science out of the equation. If it's a religious belief, fine, no point for debate or research. If it is not, I would suggest you read the studies yourself rather than relying on the Weston-Price's interpretation and presentation of the data.

[the_lissa]

It is the most illogical thing I have ever read. Like I and DaryLLL pointed out, women suffer from hyperemisis, yet deliver full term, healthy babies.

[plantmama]

I just wanted to say that the Weston Price site was put together by Sally Fallon who had trouble breastfeeding herself (and unfortunately has a bone to pick with LLL or someone). Many of Weston Price's findings were/ are very interesting re nutrition. I don't think he had anything to do with the articles in question.
Also Sally Fallon doesn't promote regular formula, she promotes making your own homemade formula which has many strange ingredients etc... Glad I can breastfeed!
Also I think it is great to promote good nutrition while breastfeeding (which the site does), because a lack of nutrition can definately take a toll on breastfeeding women. I'm pretty sure postpartum depression has been linked to vitamin deficiencies in many cases. So, those articles are pretty far off, but make the point that eating well, and eating plenty of fat, protein, and well prepared food will amplify the health of mother and child. I love the whole nourishing traditions concept- just think that Sally Fallon seems pretty biased and not very pro bf.
Sorry to continue the derailment of this thread.

[plantmama]

Sorry JaneS, I missed your post. Much more articulate than mine.

[Snowy Owl]

Originally Posted by JaneS

And research has shown significant cellular damage from them, because they are assimilated into the cells. Now what mama wants their babies bodies (and brains) to be built with trans fats! Even formula doesn't contain them!

I'm all for reducing/eliminating transfats as well as environmental contaminants that pollute our food, our breastmilk *and all animal fats* even grass fed beef and raw milk. And even what you call 'deficient' breastmilk is still "liquid gold" compared to formula. Even despite all the pollutants and weird things we eat.

[Kirsten]

Only had time to read the first and fifth pages of this thread so I'm sure I missed a lot in the middle but to respond to the OP -

I planned to nurse dd1 for 12 months. I did but then it just didn't seem like the right time to wean - she was teething and starting to walk and had a cold and we had a few weddings coming up (I liked knowing she'd be quiet during the ceremony if we were nursing). So we kept going. At 15 months I started thinking **I** was ready to stop. So we weaned over the next month, finishing when she was 16 months.

I don't know about the first site but I am all about blueribbonbaby. I followed Dr. Brewer's nutrition plan during my pregnancy and never felt better.

Sibling spacing is a very personal thing. We repeated the spacing between me and my younger sister (four years) with our dd1 and dd2, as it worked so well for us. Dd2 and dd3 are 2.75 years apart and that has been fine for them, harder for me. I have found two and three years old to be challenging ages to parent so choosing to TTC then was hard - I had my hands full already! With dd2, we just went for it as I knew I wanted that four year spacing but it was odd to TTC for a "spacing" instead of a true readiness.

I understand your feelings (as much as I've read on the first and fifth pages here) about not nursing while pregnant; I felt the same way. It won't be popular here on MDC but you are not the only one.

[the_lissa]

Originally Posted by Kirsten

I understand your feelings (as much as I've read on the first and fifth pages here) about not nursing while pregnant; I felt the same way. It won't be popular here on MDC but you are not the only one.

Lots of people here have said nursing through pregnancy or tandem nursing is not for everyone. I know I have on several occasions. People are taking issue with her spreading blatantly incorrect info and possibly scaring other mamas into weaning whod on't want to wean.

[joesmom]

Originally Posted by the_lissa

Lots of people here have said nursing through pregnancy or tandem nursing is not for everyone. I know I have on several occasions. People are taking issue with her spreading blatantly incorrect info and possibly scaring other mamas into weaning whod on't want to wean.

Yep~ I have never nursed while pregnant. I have never tandem nursed. However, I know if I did, I would not be endangering either my nursling or my babe in utero.

After Joe was born (by emergency csection) I had SO much trouble eating. Some said it was from the anesthetic- literally nothing tasted good to me. For two weeks I ate canned peaches & drank apricot nectar, choking down the occasional scrambled eggs. I weighed about 100 pounds at that time. Joe lost weight in the hospital, like all babies do, but he was back up OVER his birth weight before we left the hospital. He gained weight so fast. He doubled his birth weight in a matter of weeks. My milk was perfect for him even though my body was not letting me eat much of anything.

[TanyaS]

Originally Posted by JaneS

Personally I am very dismayed that LLL doesn't strongly warn against trans fats/hydrogenated fats in the mother's diet. Because if you eat them, they appear on your breastmilk. Even the FDA has said there is no safe level of trans fat consumption. And research has shown significant cellular damage from them, because they are assimilated into the cells. Now what mama wants their babies bodies (and brains) to be built with trans fats! Even formula doesn't contain them!

LLL's philosophy on nutrition is "Good nutrition means eating a well-balanced and varied diet of foods in as close to their natural state as possible." Foods in their natural state do not contain trans fats, so their nutrition philosophy has always recommended reduction of trans fats before it was the latest thing to eliminate from the American diet.

There is one formula that processes their proteins by hydrogenation supposedly to make it 'easier to digest.' So I wonder if the trans fat label will come up with anything there when the requirements to add it to the nutrition label take effect? Until then we don't really know which formulas contain trans fats. The 'fat' in formula comes from high fructose corn syrup and that's not good, trans fat or no.

[Nora'sMama]

Actually HFCS is a carbohydrate source. As far as I know the fat in formula is milk fat, so it would be highly saturated but contain no trans-fats.

I do agree that women should be educated about fatty acids in their diet and the effect on BM. However I also agree that the "worst" BM is superior to the "best" formula by a long, long shot - trans-fats and all. After all, the study that showed that BM confers a higher IQ was not done on a self-selected category of moms who ate perfect diets. The 'BF' mothers who participated in the study (they were actually pumping for preemies) were presumably eating the Standard American Diet (which has been high in trans-fat for generations...Crisco, anyone?). And yet their milk STILL far outperformed formula. That was a great study because since the milk and formula were being provided via tube or bottle to preemies who were all in the same hospital environment there was no bias towards the non-nutritional aspects of breastfeeding or the possibility of a better home environment in the BF households.

That said, I don't eat trans-fats (or I try as much as possible to avoid them) because it just icks me out to think of DD getting them through my BM. I don't buy everything the Weston Price foundation says about nutrition but I do agree with some things, including the need for nutrient-rich foods (including minerals) and lots of healthy fats. I focus on the fats in my diet since I know that no matter what I eat the protein and carbs in my BM will remain pretty much the same, but the fatty acid profile will depend on my diet.

As for the OP's question. I worry about this too - the whole weaning thing. But I'm committed to nursing until age 2 and then I'll re-evaluate. Between ages 1 and 2 I will probably be doing some weaning things like nightweaning and encouraging solids, asking DD to wait if I need to do something before nursing, etc. I don't think I'm a CLW person all the way, but I want to do as much as I can. I value BF so much and I'm so glad that DD and I worked through our initial difficulties!

[Snowy Owl]

Originally Posted by Nora'sMama

Actually HFCS is a carbohydrate source. As far as I know the fat in formula is milk fat, so it would be highly saturated but contain no trans-fats.

I do agree that women should be educated about fatty acids in their diet and the effect on BM. However I also agree that the "worst" BM is superior to the "best" formula by a long, long shot - trans-fats and all. After all, the study that showed that BM confers a higher IQ was not done on a self-selected category of moms who ate perfect diets. The 'BF' mothers who participated in the study (they were actually pumping for preemies) were presumably eating the Standard American Diet (which has been high in trans-fat for generations...Crisco, anyone?). And yet their milk STILL far outperformed formula. That was a great study because since the milk and formula were being provided via tube or bottle to preemies who were all in the same hospital environment there was no bias towards the non-nutritional aspects of breastfeeding or the possibility of a better home environment in the BF households.

Good points.
Also, about the HF corn syrup, corn is one of the most monocultured, highly genetically modified crops out there, and then to get the syrup it goes through all kinds of processing. That's one of the main ingredients in formula, isn't it?

[CathMac]

Caedmyn,
Wow, my head is spinning. Thanks for the thought provoking thread and for daring to challenge the status quo. While I don't agree with your conclusions I do commend your going off the beaten track in an effort to fully inform yourself. Having said that, sometimes you need to turn around and forge your own path or get back on track, and I think that is the case here. Assuming the Weston Price Foundation studies are empirically valid, I think the logical conclusion is that pregnant and tandem nursing Moms should eat better, not that they should stop nursing prematurely. I think eliminating "bad" fats, increasing healthy fats, and reducing what I call "junky carbs" is a good start and would be consistent with what the Weston Price Foundation would recommend.

For the average American woman the questions of whether or not a Mom in a third world country can produce adequate milk for her baby, or whether an unborn baby or nursling gets the nutrients before Mommy does, are red herrings. The real question is whether or not she is willing --or perhaps able--to eat healthier.

I must say though I am intrigued by one conclusion in particular of the Weston Price Foundation regarding the ability to increase the fat content of human milk. This plays into my own personal bias and my one brief struggle against "conventional breastfeeding wisdom". Most of the widely published information on fat content in human milk (including a Kellymom article) suggests that you can improve the quality of fat through diet but not increase the quantity. If my reading of the Weston Price Foundation literature is accurate it suggests that poor diet decreases fat content (which is obviously bad for babies) and that with better diet the fat content can be increased.

For breastfeeding Moms with any sort of sugar to fat ratio issues such as: Hindmilk / Foremilk imbalance, Oversupply, baby's Secondary Lactose Intolerance, etc., the ability to increase fat content could be critical. I had one or more of these issues and I struggled for weeks and months to maintain the breastfeeding relationship; the colicky behavior was brutal. I was nursing DD1 on one side for up to 4 - 6 hours at a time; which helped a little. I finally found some obscure research "abstracts" suggesting that it was possible to increase fat content. I cut back on the "junky" carbs and increased the healthy fats in my diet and things seemed to improve. Of course I readily acknowledge that since mother's milk evolves as the baby grows anyway (according to "conventional wisdom") the improvement may have been coincidental.

Imagine my surprise when I tried to share my newfound insight (on an entierely different board, not Mothering.com) and was met with resistance, conventional wisdom, and the status quo. It surprised me primarily because there can be no harm in reducing the "junky carbs" and increasing healthy fats. I think the perceived harm, for diehard Lactivists, is that any additional special instructions on diet might deter some women from breastfeeding. Of course, my intention was to inform women who already were breastfeeding and were struggling with a particular issue I was familiar with.

Anywho, I've gone way off topic at this point. I just wanted to let you know that I admire your efforts to go beyond the status quo but I would encourage you to keep going, which may eventually mean circling around. The Weston Price Foundation my be well-intentioned with no obvious bias and some of their conclusions may be valid but that is no reason for the average breastfeedig Mom to cut nursing short. Which begs the question and leads me back to your original main question: how long should you keep going?

With DD1 I went into it having no idea of how long I might want to keep going. I asked every medical professional, LC and fellow LLL member where they thought you got the most "bang for the buck" so to speak. If I had believed I could get 90 percent of the benefit in 3 months I might have stopped there. Unfortunately, it is impossible to quantify. Eventually, like you, I settled on one year. That timeframe was re-inforced once I realized that DD1 was dairy intolerant and that weaning her onto a hypoallergenic formula could be difficult, time consuming, and expensive.

Her first birthday came and went. She is now 18 months old and I am about 26 weeks pregnant and despite a major dip in supply back in November she keeps going and I find myself hoping that when the colostrum kicks in she won't dislike the taste and will keep going. I happen to believe that there are nutritional, immunological, and psychosocial benefits to nursing beyond one year but, again, there is no way to quantify the benefits.

Since DD1 isn't getting much milk the whole diet issue is pretty much moot for me and I consider my dietary needs to be pretty much the same as any other pregnant woman. Having said that I could eat better and thanks to this thought provoking discussion I may be more motivated to do so if I see any signs that DD1 is getting any significant amount of colostrum. In any case, assuming DD1 is still nursing when DD2 arrives in June it will certainly be an issue then.
~Cath

[Ammaarah]

Originally Posted by Nora'sMama

Actually HFCS is a carbohydrate source. As far as I know the fat in formula is milk fat, so it would be highly saturated but contain no trans-fats.

Actually, the fats in formula are from vegetables: To mimic mothers' milkfat, infant formulas are made from a mixture of vegetable fats and oil blends such as palm olein, soy, coconut, and high-oleic sunflower oil. http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/dec02/oil1202.htm

I have read the milk fat is sold to ice cream producers, but I don't have a source for that.

So formula could contain trans fats if it was made with hydrogenated oils, right?

[Tofu the Geek]

Originally Posted by BamBam'sMom

Also, how do you know you won't be able to get pregnant while nusing? I know someone who's cycle returned when her ebf baby was 3 months. That's rare, but I don't think that bf is an effective form of birth control after 6 months, especially not if your baby is starting solids.

DD was exclusively breastfed for one year. I got my period back at 4 months, ugh. At that point she was nursing every hour - hour and a half, even during the night. As an aside, she also got her first 2 teeth at 4 months, but the kid wouldn't touch solids until she was a year.

[TanyaS]

Originally Posted by Nora'sMama

Actually HFCS is a carbohydrate source. As far as I know the fat in formula is milk fat, so it would be highly saturated but contain no trans-fats.

Cow's milk contains too much fat and proteins for a baby. So all the milk fat is removed. It is then added back in in the form of a blend of vegatable oils. I cannot locate my source, but I recall reading that HFCS is part of that blend. Here is a great article that describes it better than I can

http://www.todaysparent.com/baby/bre...807_101250_216

Also, in my search to find my original source (I really should keep track better), I was surprised to see a Weston Price article about HFCS come up. It says "Interestingly, although HFCS is used in many products aimed at children, it is not used in baby formula, even though it would probably save the manufactueres a few pennies for each can. Do the formula makers know something they aren't telling us?" http://www.westonaprice.org/motherlinda/cornsyrup.html

This statement alone is enough to make me question the validity of the site. All you have to do is read the ingredients list on a can of formula to see HFCS as an ingredient. I would be very wary of other information on this site. That is a blatant lie.

[JaneS]

You need to read many more articles on the Weston Price Nutritional Foundaton site Tanya, to make that claim. There are many contributors to this HUGE site and an incredible amount of peer reviewed research studies referenced for their conclusions. And like any organization, I would encourage any mama, to pick and choose what to believe and what to discard.

http://www.westonaprice.org/sitemap.html

And that article is mostly correct... I can totally see her point b/c the standard formulas that capture 90% of the market do contain Lactose for the carb content, and not High Fructose Corn Syrup. This mimics the lactose in BM, except we all know BM lactose is a specific kind of lactose that allows probiotics to proliferate in digestive tract, and therefore superior.

Here are the ingredients listings (I didn't post vitamins and minerals)

Enfamil Lipil Milk-Based Formula With Iron
Reduced Minerals Whey, Nonfat Milk, Vegetable Oil (Palm Olein, Soy, Coconut and High Oleic Sunflower Oils), Lactose...

Nestle Good Start Supreme DHA & ARA Infant Formula with Iron
Enzymatically Hydrolyzed Reduced Minerals Whey Protein Concentrate (From cow's milk), Vegetable Oils (Palm Olein,Soy, Coconut, High-Oleic Safflower), Lactose...

Bright Beginnings
Lactose, Nonfat Milk, Palm Oil (or Palm Olein), Whey Protein Concentrate, High Oleic Oil (Safflower or Sunflower), Coconut Oil, Soybean Oil

Similac Advance
(u)-D Nonfat Milk, Lactose, High Oleic Safflower Oil, Soy Oil, Coconut Oil, Whey Protein Concentrate...

Nutramigen, Prosobee, Pregestimil, Lactofree, the "hypoallergenic" formulas contain corn syrup.... but those are not as widely used by most FF. Alimentum is maltodextrin from corn and sugar.

In addition, Weston Price Foundation has done an extraordinary amount of work on the dangers of soy formula, including testifying before Congress. They are working to get soy formula banned because of the research they have done. Please don't tar and feather them without more knowledge.

Soy Alert
http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/index.html

[TanyaS]

I must admit I didn't read every can of formula before I said that. My niece is not bf, and she stays with us one weekend a month. She was using nutramigen, and I remembered reading the label on it, and reading some other things online about the issue, although I don't recall where. Either way, formula companies DO use HFCS, just not in every formula. Also, some previous posters have also demonstrated grievances with some of the information being either shady or inaccurate. I only said that the info about HFCS on that link was a lie, not the entire site. Also, I said to be wary of other info because of the misinfo many are finding, in addition to what I found. It is very important to read critically, imo.

Some people also found some good info, and that is why I said 'wary' and not 'beware.' I never said that the site was invalid, by any means. Sorry for upsetting anyone as it was not my intention.

[DaryLLL]

What is this thread about? Whether a "Weston Price" diet is compatible with bfing? What the components of artificial baby milk are? Whether tandem nursing is safe for the fetus? Whether one yr is long enough to breastfeed?

I'm confused.

[turtlemama77]

The OP was trying to decide how long to nurse based on her desire to TTC weighed against how long she feels a baby should nurse (a year, two years, etc)...correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!! In her wonderings, she stated something to the effect of not wanting to nurse during a pregnancy and gave what I would consider, based on my research, misinformation about the health and wellbeing of the unborn child. When asked where she got her information, she cited several websites, including the Weston Price one. I think the debate has been whether or not the information is from a valid source.

Does that help?