The cover of the latest Time magazine showing a nearly 4-year-old boy using a step stool breast feed off his mother’s chest is bound to shock readers.
Next to the image reads, “Are You Mom Enough.”
The woman featured on the cover is Jamie Lynne Grumet. She is an attractive supermodel-looking woman donning super-skinny jeans, ballet flats and a spaghetti tank top.
Don’t forget about the part where her strap is pulled down so her son can attach himself to her breast to have lunch.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends women should at least breast feed until their children are two-year-old, “or beyond.” However, most American mothers only breast-feed for six months. The “beyond” part is the real question, because the WHO never states when a woman should stop breast-feeding her child.
“It has been estimated that a natural weaning age for humans is between two and seven years,” according to the WHO. “Family physicians should be knowledgeable regarding the ongoing benefits to the child of extended breastfeeding, including continued immune protection, better social adjustment and having a sustainable food source in times of emergency. The longer women breastfeed, the greater the decrease in their risk of breast cancer. There is no evidence that extended breastfeeding is harmful to mother or child.”
Three quarters of American mothers initially nurse their babies, but less than half continue to breast-feed until they are 6-months old and just 15 percent of mothers nurse their children past the age of six months, according to the CDC’s 2011 Breastfeeding Report Card.
Grumet’s mother breast-fed her until she was six. She describes her memories of breast-feeding to Time magazine, “It’s really warm. It’s like embracing your mother, like a hug. You feel comforted, nurtured and really, really loved. I had so much self-confidence as a child, and I know it’s from that. I never felt like she would ever leave me. I felt that security.”
