Breastfeeding Older Children

Breastfeeding is a globally recognized imperative for the preservation of infant health, and governments around the world have introduced breastfeeding promotion measures. While initiation rates have improved, duration rates at a few weeks or months after birth still lag behind the World Health Organization's recommendation that breastfeeding for all children, in both developed and developing worlds should continue for at least two years. Behind the figures, there is however an inverse reality. Today, increasing numbers of women in the industrialized world challenge social convention and breastfeed their children well beyond WHO guidelines. How widespread is this surprising many would say shocking phenomenon? Is it Nature's way or is it an unhealthy practice? Do mothers prolong breastfeeding for their own pleasure? Is it as some say a form of sexual abuse? Are women being overly controlling, coercing children into continuing because they wish their children to remain depend