Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Dec
27
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…Your Milk Normally Dries Up At 18 Months.”
“You’re still nursing? She’s probably not getting anything because your milk normally dries up at 18 months.” – Pediatrician to mother of a nursing 19 month old.
There are 42 comments to this post.
LOLOLOL. At 18 months I was still pumping because DS was still having breastmilk at day care because he wanted it. Pretty sure that stuff I sent in in bottles (to be poured in his sippy, since we were trying to get him off bottle nipples) was not an illusion.
He took a while to wean when my milk dried up (which it did because of another pregnancy) – eventually he got tired of no “reward” – but that was almost a year later.
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*My* milk doesn’t “normally” dry up until after my baby has been weaned for several months.
Last time, my girl was a bit over 3.
I expect my boy will probably be at least two before he stops.
If the child is growing, is learning to eat a balanced diet (and we all know it’s quite a learning process for some toddlers), and the nursing pair are both content, why discourage them from nursing?
Honestly, if the mother had come in and stated her toddler was drinking “Toddler Formula” between meals because she was a picky eater and the mom wanted to make sure she got enough balanced nutrition, would the doctor have been so discouraging? I somehow doubt it.
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Angelica Reply:
December 28th, 2011 at 8:47 am (Quote)
My doctor told me it wasn’t necessary unless a child has true nutritional issues, and even then he prefers something like Pediasure. Not much to do with your point, but not all pediatricians are crazy. This one would likely have had the same issue with nursing too, tbh. :-\
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I’ve heard this one a few times, as well as “but you can’t breastfeed while pregnant, it’s impossible!” but only from random people, not a doctor.
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Well dang it! My boobs never got that memo. I have been producing milk since January of 2004. None of my children even partially weaned until at least 30 months of age, and I have (mind blowingly) nursed through 2 pregnancies and even tandem nursed.
What’s typical and what’s possible are two different things doc….
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Funny, my mother, despite being through with menopause still produces milk.
Which is hilarious because she said the other day “are you even still MAKING milk anymore?”… So I uh pulled my boob out of the kid’s mouth and squirted her with it.
My kid is 20 months and I’m almost 9 weeks pregnant with #2, i’m still making milk!!!
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Seriously? When are medical professionals going to start branching out beyond their specialty? Just because you’re a ped, it doesn’t mean you should shun anything else medically relevant, but not directly related to children. Knowing their means of getting fed as babies would be a great beginning! And it will take you all of what? 10 minutes to get a decent idea on the topic. Stop listening to your old, retired colleagues with their old-wives-tail education and maybe your patients won’t think you’re a moron with a cracker Jack education!!
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jaed Reply:
December 29th, 2011 at 12:55 pm (Quote)
The scary part is that breastfeeding *is* part of a pediatrician’s specialty. Pediatricians are supposed to understand the physiology of breastfeeding, how and how long children typically feed, so that they can advise parents on weaning and the transition to table foods and also assist the mother if she’s having difficulty. For a pediatrician to think that breastmilk automatically dries up when *ting!* the 18-month timer goes off is like… like… I don’t know, an orthopedist thinking your cartilage automatically falls out at age 60.
As for the old colleagues, I find older doctors are often much better than doctors educated in the age of “management” and “timetables” and “index values”. Older doctors are more likely to understand that there is a spectrum of health rather than a single value that everyone should strive for. For example, an older doctor might think the average baby nurses for eighteen months, but would be less likely to interpret this as meaning the milk automatically dries up at exactly that age.
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Veronika Reply:
December 29th, 2011 at 5:59 pm (Quote)
Older practitioners often aren’t as attached to the clock as their younger colleagues, but oh boy, do they come with a lot of outdated ideas! I had a friend who deeply regretted scheduling her baby and weaning him at 3 months, leaving him to CIO, etc all on her older ped’s “expert” advice. The really tragic part? Her little boy had a twin who passed at a couple of weeks old due to hypoplastic left heart syndrome. She needed to get all the cuddles she could possibly get with her little one, yet he was weaned at 3 months old because her ped told her that her baby got zero nourishment from breastmilk after 3 months old and any breastfeeding beyond that age, was purely for the mother’s benefit. 
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It’s nice to know that this doctor is so familiar with this woman’s personal anatomy that he can safely state these facts as absolute truth! And here I thought the whole milk thing was supply and demand when it really just runs on a clock that “strikes midnight” at a certain number of months!
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