I came across this article on breast-feeding and fertility while taking a break from grading. I find all things about breast-feeding interesting, and I find the idea that a woman's decision to breast feed a child for an extended period could prevent or limit her ability to have another child based on her age really intriguing and complicated. As a mother of two children, I feel like I'm constantly negotiating between what is right for one child versus what is right for another, and in any given minute, I am privileging the needs of one child over the needs of another. It is a constant struggle for me, and I'm sure for all parents.
After reading this article I found myself wondering if I were in this mother's position would I have stopped nursing Wild Man to get pregnant again. I don't know if I would have. As much as I love Bear and am so thrilled we have him, I can't imagine not nursing Wild Man for as long as we did (19 months for the record). I really believe that nursing for that extended period played a significant role in his development, both positive and negative. I also believe the same for Bear, although we're only 10 months in. The writer, Erica Kain, poses a very salient question, one so many parents are confronted with: how do you balance the needs of one child with the very different needs of another, even if the second child is only hypothetical? I know I struggle with this one every single day.
1 comment:
I know someone who weaned specifically so that she could get pregnant - but that was after a year of nursing. Trying to get pregnant within six months of the last pregnancy isn't just a question of fertility, but of health -- closely spaced pregnancies increase the risk for micronutrient deficiencies (folate, iron in particular) and increase maternal mortality risk.
For me, I want widely-spaced pregnancies for professional reasons (because I like the idea of putting all our effort into La Dudarina only while our pre-tenure workloads and stress are high) so this question doesn't come up for me -- even if I'm still nursing at four years (which I doubt) I will likely be ovulatory.
I guess all of this is to say, not that I want in any way to invalidate the very real concern all mothers face when thinking about their investment in their children, but that the author of the article may have been inflating the opposition of the issues of breastfeeding and fertility, particularly in a well-fed population like those of us who live in North America and other industrialized populations. That 1993 WHO study cited was looking at world health, and industrialized pops are at one extreme end of the spectrum.
Just the two cents of someone who studies this stuff ;).
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