Extended Breast Feeding A Common Occurrence Today

Once upon a time, breastfeeding for women was synonymous with spoiling of figure. Women who were conscious about the way they looked hated to breastfeed, in spite of their love for their babies, because they believed this would lead to sagging breasts and in general loss of good looks.

Extended Breast Feeding Why It Is Gaining Popularity Today

Medical science has done its duty in convincing the humanity at large not only that breast milk is the best gift that a mother can give her infant, but also that it is completely safe on the breasts. As a matter of fact, if the breast feeding is done intermittently with prescribed exercises, the breasts actually become handsomer than before because they fill up with the milk flow.

Mothers all over the world slowly realized the injustice they were doing their babies by abstaining from breastfeeding. This was underlined by studies which exposed milk substitutes with irregular and unacceptable methods of processing. There were also a few scandals where ‘things’ were found in powder milk of companies of high repute. These were foil pieces, plastic caps, match sticks and the like. Slowly, the mothers all over the world gradually turned back to breastfeeding.

Extended breast feeding was no more sporadic instances, but regular practice mostly indulged by women who were housewives because it was easy for them to do so by their mere presence next to the child. However, women who worked too encouraged extended breast feeding, but this was because they felt guilty of depriving their babies due to their work.

In Asian countries, extended breast feeding is indulged because poor (economically challenged) mothers have no alternative food to feed their children, and hence they feel better when they have something to offer their babies. In Europe and USA on the other hand, mothers offer extended breast feeding because they want to give their best to their children, considering that breast milk is considered the best food that a child can have.

Today, it is common occurrence to find babies breastfeeding up to two to three years old and both mother and child feel great about it. Some studies say that this makes children emotionally too dependent. There are studies, however, which point the other side saying that children become emotionally more stable and physically stronger because of this extended bond. A good number of mothers all over the world like to believe the latter theory.