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breastfeeding

Science

Breastfeeding mom's touching encounter with an orangutan has people swooning—and debating

"She sat with me for approximately half an hour, kept stroking the glass and lay down next to me as if to support and protect me."

This article originally appeared on 10.04.22


A breastfeeding mother's experience at Vienna's Schoenbrunn Zoo is touching people's hearts—but not without a fair amount of controversy.

Gemma Copeland shared her story on Facebook, which was then picked up by the Facebook page Boobie Babies. Photos show the mom breastfeeding her baby next to the window of the zoo's orangutan habitat, with a female orangutan sitting close to the glass, gazing at them.

"Today I got feeding support from the most unlikely of places, the most surreal moment of my life that had me in tears," Copeland wrote.

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Family

Why some parents are cheering the new AAP breastfeeding recommendations

Hopefully, this new guidance will reduce judgment over breastfeeding toddlers.

Photos via Canva

The AAP has updated the minimum recommended age for breastfeeding.

When my mom was breastfeeding my brother in 1972, someone asked her, "Are you still going to breastfeed him when he's in college?!" He was less than 6 months old at the time.

A long history had led to the prevailing negative attitude toward breastfeeding at that time, much of it having to do with the marketing of infant formula in the decades before my brother was born. My mom ended up breastfeeding him for almost a year, which was fairly radical in the early 1970s.

In many ways, attitudes have reversed in the decades since then, with official breastfeeding recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics influencing the "norm" for length of breastfeeding. Up until last month, the AAP recommendation was to breastfeed exclusively for six months and then continue to breastfeed until a child is at least 1 year of age. But citing the "remarkable" benefits of breastfeeding, the AAP has now updated its guidance to recommend breastfeeding for at least two years, and then however long is mutually desired between mom and baby.

The news has been met with a mix of reactions, from praise for finally aligning the guidance with that of the World Health Organization to criticism for adding to the pressure many moms feel to breastfeed. With a formula shortage crisis putting extra stress on families, judgments over infant feeding choices have unfortunately proliferated.

Judgment over breastfeeding flows both ways, however. Some people judge moms for not breastfeeding and some people judge moms for breastfeeding beyond a certain age. Both are wrong, of course, but one good thing about this new recommendation is that it will hopefully make breastfeeding well into toddlerhood seem less "weird" or "gross" to those who aren't used to the idea.

All three of my kids breastfed past age 2, and it definitely raised more than a few eyebrows. I can't count how many times I've heard someone say that if a child is old enough to ask to breastfeed, they're too old to breastfeed. But that's totally arbitrary. Every breastfeeding baby communicates a desire to eat; they just do it with cries and body language instead of words.

As the AAP statement points out, "Mothers who decide to breastfeed beyond the first year need support. They often report feeling ridiculed or alienated in their choice and conceal their breastfeeding behavior to minimize unsolicited judgment and comments."

Everyone has a different threshold for how old they feel is "too old" to breastfeed (usually whatever age they are used to seeing), so what this updated guidance from the AAP does is establish a new "norm." That's welcome news for those who breastfeed longer than a year. It makes a difference to have an official entity not only endorse, but actively recommend, something society tends to react negatively to.

At the same time, many families face obstacles to breastfeeding for any amount of time. I was fortunate to not have to navigate breastfeeding and working full-time when I had babies, my mom was a lactation consultant who helped me get breastfeeding established, and my close friends and family were supportive. I had every structural and social support in place to make breastfeeding happen.

The AAP did add the caveat that there needs to be a lot more support for mothers to help more families be successful in whatever breastfeeding goals they may have.

"Not everyone can breastfeed or continue breastfeeding for as long as desired for various reasons, including workplace barriers. Families deserve nonjudgmental support, information and help to guide them in feeding their infant,” said lead author Joan Younger Meek, MD, MS, RD, FAAP, FABM, IBCLC.

While every family absolutely has to do what works for them, it is helpful to have recommendations from the experts and official acknowledgment that support is key for success, no matter how long a child breastfeeds.

Emily Calandrelli was stopped by TSA agents when she tried to bring her ice packs for pumped milk through airport security.

Traveling without your baby for the first time can be tough. And if you're breastfeeding, it can be even tougher, as you have to pump milk every few hours to keep your body producing enough, to avoid an enormous amount of discomfort and to prevent risk of infection.

But for Emily Calandrelli, taking a recent work trip away from her 10-week-old son was far more challenging than it needed to be.

Calandrelli is a mom of two, an aerospace engineer and the host of the Netflix kids' science show "Emily's Wonder Lab." She was recently taking her first work trip since welcoming her second child, which included a five-hour flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. Calandrelli is breastfeeding her son and had planned to pump just before boarding the plane. She brought ice packs to keep the milk from spoiling during the flight, but when she tried to go through airport security, the TSA agents refused to let her take some of her supplies.

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When a baby won't take a bottle, you do what you gotta do.

Having breastfed three babies who didn't take kindly to being given a bottle, I can attest to the fact that a hungry baby will not automatically eat what they're given just because they're hungry. My babies seemed genuinely offended whenever someone would try to feed them with a bottle, even if it was breastmilk inside it. Offended and angry. Spittin' mad. It wasn't pretty.

When you're trying to get a breastfed baby to take a bottle, there are some tips and tricks people recommend. But one grandpa created his own method that seems to have worked smashingly for the kiddo, while also providing some entertainment and laughter for everyone else.

In a video shared by Wendy Rangel on TikTok, a man is shown putting a bottle through a hole in his t-shirt with a caption that reads, "My godson won't take the bottle so my dad tried something." The man checks to make sure milk comes out of the bottle's nipple, then cradles the baby to his "breast" to eat—and it totally works!

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