International health organizations promote exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued nursing for 2 years or beyond, and John Paul II endorsed these recommendations.
On the other hand, despite ever increasing research on the benefits of breastfeeding, long-term nursing is down. A recent study involving the duration of breastfeeding among Saudi Arabian mothers found that the mean duration of breastfeeding was 13.4 months in 1987 and 8.5 months in 2010. The most common reason given for no longer breastfeeding was insufficient breast milk. Some reasons given for this shortened lactation were the common use of the bottle, more mothers working (67% in 2010), use of oral contraception, sickness of mother or child, and becoming pregnant. (“Breastfeeding in Saudi Arabia: a review,” International Breastfeeding Journal, January 14, 2014)
Our country also suffers from the poor lactation rates. Mothers and babies have more diseases because our country and churches do not promote a pattern of frequent and extended breastfeeding. The latest statistics from the CDC (2010) report that the rates for breastfeeding in the United States remain “stagnant and low.” It appears that only about one-fourth of the babies in the United States are receiving any breast milk at 12 months.
Nature has the answer for successful breastfeeding, for good outcomes, and for spacing of births. As Dr. William Sears has said, the key to successful breastfeeding is “frequency, frequency, frequency.” That’s basically a description of ecological breastfeeding as well. With ecological breastfeeding a mother is nursing frequently, and she will have an ample milk supply. Due to the frequency of nursing and extended breastfeeding, the mother doing ecological breastfeeding will have good health outcomes for herself and her baby.
The research stating the health benefits of breastfeeding is abundant. If interested, just download our online manual (small donation requested unless you are poor) and study the first two pages of Chapter 6 as a starter.
The research showing the natural spacing effect of ecological breastfeeding is also abundant. The research was there when I began my work in the late Sixties; our research was published in two journals in the Seventies and Eighties; and Dr. H. William Taylor made several contributions on ecological-type breastfeeding research in the Nineties. Other research of this kind has also been reported or published.
The lack of education on breastfeeding and natural child spacing among mainline churches is unfortunate. On the other hand, I have been privileged to help some conservative Jewish women for over 25 years, and recently we have been receiving requests from Amish and similar groups which have spiritual or solely natural reasons to avoid unnatural methods of birth control. The most common request from these latter groups is for The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding which meets their needs for family planning.
Unfortunately, most Catholic dioceses and independent NFP programs ignore both ecological breastfeeding and also the Lactational Amenorrhea Method (LAM), a method that has been studied abundantly and published frequently in scientific journals and is highly effective—-at least 98% if the simple requirements for the method are met.
To be sure, everyone says some nice things about breastfeeding, but ignoring ecological breastfeeding and the LAM sets the advocacy of breastfeeding back 50 years! That’s not exactly the way to make progress in maternal and child health and in natural baby spacing.
Sheila Kippley
The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding: The Frequency Factor