By Amy Burton. Senior Lecturer and Health Psychologist, Staffordshire University
Breastfeeding beyond infancy is recommended by the World Health Organization, which advises that children should be breastfed until two years old or beyond, with solid food introduced at six months. For children, breastfeeding for longer is associated with reduced infections, a lower chance of misaligned teeth, a lower likelihood of obesity and higher intelligence. And for mothers breastfeeding for more than a year, it has also been linked to reduced rates of breast and ovarian cancer. In Rwanda, Sri Lanka and India, over 75% of children continue to receive breast milk at two years old. By comparison, the UK has one of the lowest global breastfeeding rates. In 2016, the Lancet stated that less than 1% of babies in the UK still received breast milk at 12 months old.
Some women choose to continue to breastfeed well into infancy. To better understand this experience, Amy Burton and her colleagues spoke to 24 women who were breastfeeding their children for longer than a year.