Hi. I'm Emma Pickett, and I'm a lactation consultant from London. When I first started calling myself Makes Milk, that was my superpower at the time, because I was breastfeeding my own two children. And now I'm helping families on their journey. I want your feeding journey to work for you from the very beginning to the very end. And I'm big on making sure parents get support at the end. So join me for conversations on how breastfeeding is amazing. And also, sometimes really, really hard. We’lll look honestly and openly about that process of making milk. And of course, breastfeeding and chestfeeding are a lot more than just making milk.
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Welcome to episode one. We're going to be talking in the first few episodes about ending breastfeeding, and about weaning. But before we do that, this episode is about taking a moment, pausing for a moment just to acknowledge what you have achieved up until this point. If you know my work, if you've been following me on social media, you'll know I'm not particularly a spiritual person. There are other areas in the sort of maternal podcast space that are doing that and doing that beautifully. I'm not much of a hippie. I won't be wafting sage over your breastfeeding journey, or talking about the value of my latest crystal. But if you do that, that's totally fine. I support your crystal loving. However, even cynical old me can see that the breastfeeding time is a time where we do connect with our souls, perhaps sometimes for the very first time and the souls of the little people that are in our lives. When we are incredibly overwhelmed and busy and we don't have five minutes to spare, it's easy to forget to take a moment to stand back and pause and look at what we are doing. And more importantly, give yourself credit for what you are doing. So let's take a moment to celebrate what you have achieved up until now. Even if you're somebody who's thinking about ending breastfeeding, you have the right to do that.
However long you have breastfed for, if you're in the UK, particularly you have often been against the odds. We know from the last National Infant Feeding Survey in the UK that 63% of parents of 8 to 10 month old babies said that they had wished they'd breastfed for longer. We know that only about a third of babies in the UK are receiving any breast milk at six months. That was the last National Infant Feeding Survey which was in 2010. At the moment, England doesn't even count who is breastfeeding beyond six months or 12 months! Hopefully the national infant feeding survey will start again. But it's not happened yet. We've got some figures for six to eight weeks, but no one's counting for six to eight months. In Scotland, the National Infant Feeding Survey has still been going on. And we know something like 20% of toddlers are still receiving breast milk in the first few months of the second year of their lives.
If you are in that group, who is still breastfeeding beyond infancy, you've probably had times where you felt quite isolated. Lots of us were parented by people who gave birth in the 20th century. And not many of those were breastfeeding champions. So breastfeeding rates in the 80s and 90s were really very low indeed. And those are the people who were our supporters. And the health professionals who were supporting us were parenting around that time or being trained around that time. In many cases, they may have had insufficient training themselves, their trainers may have had insufficient training, they may have also had disappointing breastfeeding experiences themselves or may have seen their partners suffering. So when it comes to supporting new parents, they may have not given you the information you needed, or the emotional support you've needed.
If you live in the UK, you may have gone back to work in a workplace where there wasn't a formal breastfeeding policy in place. You may have had pressure to stop breastfeeding when you didn't want to stop breastfeeding. You may have had to scramble against the odds to protect your breastfeeding. Unfortunately, in the UK, we don't have robust protection for breastfeeding in employment and that's something we really need to work on. So if you've made it work, if you've managed to breastfeed through that, you really do deserve some congratulations.
Most of us live in a society where lactating parents and women take on the burden of labour inside the home, even when they're working full time. This is bloody hard. This is really hard and you've done it. You may have given birth in a pandemic or at the tail end of a pandemic or in a society where breastfeeding support never recovered after the pandemic. If you were parenting in the pandemic, you may not have had access to family support in a way that is normal. So you know, it's pretty standard for people to expect their mothers or their mothers in law or their beloved Auntie to come and stay with them in the first few weeks and months of a baby's life. That might not have been an option for you, because of the pandemic, you might even have had family members stuck abroad. You might even have lost family members in the pandemic. You might also be struggling with a cost of living and heating energy bills.
I know it sounds like I'm being a bit negative. But actually, I want you to acknowledge how really hard this is. And therefore, what an amazing person you are for having made this work. This is not an easy time to be a parent of a young child, and you have made it work and you have managed to breastfeed. And that is something that you really deserve praise for. Well done. I know I'm only some blooming woman on a podcast saying this. And I've probably never met you. But I really do mean that with all my heart. Even if you're thinking about stopping breastfeeding. Just take a moment to say, Wow, you really did this, you have given your baby a gift that will last them for the rest of their lives. You need to know that you've done something incredibly special. Even if now you are experiencing aversion and breastfeeding feels awful and you want to end it really quickly. You still have the right to say wow, I've done something amazing.
Let's take a moment just to think of some of those gifts you have given your child. Your baby was and is less likely to be hospitalised for vomiting and diarrhoea related infections. In a 2010 study of nearly 19,000 infants, researchers found that exclusive breastfeeding protected against hospitalisation for diarrhoea, and they reckoned around 53% of diarrhoea hospitalizations can be prevented each month by exclusive breastfeeding, and 31% by partial breastfeeding. You have reduced your child's chances of being hospitalised for respiratory infections. You have reduced their chance of dying from sudden infant death syndrome. There's also evidence to suggest that you have reduced their risk of some childhood cancers. There's also evidence to suggest that you've improved their chances of educational attainment. That research is a bit controversial. There was a study that came out the other day about GCSE results and breastfeeding. But when we look at other research from countries like Brazil, where the economic status of those who breastfeed is not the same as it is in the UK, we can be fairly confident that breastfeeding is helping you to reach your child's IQ potential. And potentially they're fulfilling their educational attainment as a result.
In The Lancet, so the Lancet, is one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world. They have done a breastfeeding series on a few occasions, they did a big breastfeeding series in 2016. And Professor Nigel Rollins said in that, that not breastfeeding is associated with lower intelligence and economic losses of almost $302 billion annually. You have also reduced your risk of your child having an ear infection. You reduced their risk of developing type one diabetes. And there is also research to suggest you've given them protection against wheezing and asthma, particularly if one of their parents has asthma. You've reduced your child's risk of dental decay at the beginning of their life and reduced their risk of needing braces. Research beyond 12 months and dental decay needs a bit more work. But we can certainly be confident that you have done what evolution would hope you would do. There's a tonne more you can say about the health impacts of breastfeeding. You can read about it on the UNICEF Baby Friendly site, they have a research page that they update regularly, if you want to really dive into some of this research.
You've also done some special stuff for your own health. By the way, I'm talking a lot about reducing risk and breastfeeding reducing risk. Obviously, you can work this flipped around the other way. So you can talk about not breastfeeding increasing risk and formula feeding increasing risk and formula feeding increasing the risk of hospitalisation and respiratory infection and sudden infant death syndrome. And, the reason I'm using the other language and talking about reducing risk is just because culturally, that's what we tend to do in the UK, because we live in a country where lots of people don't have the choice to breastfeed if they want to due to lack of support. So there's a little bit of sensitivity in the wording. But technically, you could say that not breastfeeding increases risk and you'd be right.
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You have reduced your risk of cardiovascular disease throughout your lifetime. Research suggests that the longer duration of breastfeeding makes an even more significant impact in reducing that risk of cardiovascular disease. You've also reduced your risk of breast cancer. So every 12 months of breastfeeding over a lifetime reduces the risk of invasive breast cancer by about 4.3%. You have reduced your risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes and we also know that choosing to breastfeed, making breastfeeding work, continuing to breastfeed has an impact on parental mental health. Also some suggestion, it makes a difference to your relationship with your child. You are getting doses of oxytocin. Not to say that people don't breastfeed, don't have bonded relationships with their children. But you've had that dose of oxytocin regularly throughout the day. You've had that that shortcut again, what evolution was hoping for.
Your breastfeeding has also benefited the environment at a time when we're really sensitive to that issue. So it's estimated it takes around 4000 litres of water to produce one kilogramme of formula milk powder. That's about giving water to cows but it's also about the processing and everything it takes to produce that litre of powder. Some research in the USA said that 550 million cans 86,000 tonnes of metal 364,000 tonnes of paper end up in landfill each year from formula packaging. So the whole of society has benefited from you breastfeeding, not just you and your child.
When a country breastfeeds it needs less investment in health care, there is greater productivity and a more efficient use of resources. So again, in that 2016 Lancet series, Keith Hanson from the World Bank Group said that if breastfeeding did not exist, someone who invented it today would deserve a dual Nobel Prize in medicine and economics. Breastfeeding is a child's first inoculation against death, disease and poverty, and also their most enduring investment in physical, cognitive and social capacity. I'm not suggesting you necessarily want to get that quote tattooed on your arm. It's not particularly snappy, but breastfeeding has made a difference that goes beyond just you and your baby.
You may have heard the myth that breastfeeding makes a child clingy. There is nothing that indicates that to be true. And I've written a book about breastfeeding beyond six months. I've read a lot of the research. There is nothing that indicates that to be true, although to be honest, the word clingy, what does that even mean? Someone's clingy is someone else's appropriately emotionally attached child. In our society, we do like to value children being ‘independent’ earlier than is necessarily biologically normal. We're quite reassured by children who will go to anybody and settle easily in childcare, for example, but to be honest, the ones that need some help and sometimes struggle are probably the ones to worry less about because they've been well attached to their primary caregiver. Let's challenge for a moment the cultural expectation that we've succeeded if our children don't need us. However, there is evidence that shows that breastfeeding increases your child's psychosocial maturity, there's a phrase. There was research in the Philippines that looked at children's school readiness and their successful adjustment to school life, and found that continuing to breastfeed helped children in that new school environment. So the opposite of clingy by anyone's definition of clingy. There's also a 2010 study in Australia that found a positive mental health outcome with longer duration of breastfeeding and this study looked at children right into adolescence. Breastfeeding longer is associated with positive speech outcomes, such as earlier polysyllabic babbling, and there's also research study that suggests parents have reduced concerns about their child's language skills and motor development skills.
If breastfeeding continues beyond nine months, there was also immense nutritional value from continuing to breastfeed. If you look at a 2001 study, when a toddler is breastfeeding at 12 months, and they're getting maybe half a litre of milk daily, that gives them a third of their energy requirements, 43% of their protein requirements, a third of their calcium, three quarters of their vitamin A, three quarters of their folate, 94% of their vitamin B. You know, effective breast milk contains things we don't even fully understand. It is magic stuff. There are stem cells in there, we don't even know what they're doing. We know that there are cells that consume cancer, alpha lactalbumin, and that's being used to study cures for cancer in the future. There are hormones and enzymes and clever things that scientists are learning more and more about that we'll learn more and more about in the decades to come. You are giving your child a gift that we don't even fully understand yet. And some of those aspects to that gift will be discovered in the decades to come. It's only recently we've discovered that human milk contains sugars oligosaccharides that weren't even for human digestion. They're in there so we can feed the friendly bacteria in the gut. And we're learning more and more about the microbiome and how the microbiome affects our immunity, our mental health, our entire health system. You have given your child that gift of the microbiome that they need for their optimum health.
I won't go on about the book plugging, but you can find these research studies in more detail in my book about breastfeeding beyond six months, and you can find it all with a Google.
So now I'm guessing you didn't continue breastfeeding, because you read about a research study in China that looked at cardiovascular disease risk, and you maybe didn't continue breastfeeding, because you learn about the microbiome, or you probably didn't continue, because you're really keen to reduce your child's risk for braces. You continued, I'm guessing because it just felt right, it felt right for you, it felt right for your baby. You might have continued to breastfeed for religious reasons or cultural reasons. Or you might have also continued breastfeeding because the idea of stopping seemed too much of a faff. Whatever your motivation was, you have done something extraordinary, you have done something that you have the right to feel really proud about. Even if you go on to practice parent led weaning, you have the absolute right to feel proud. Don't listen to anyone that implies that child led weaning is pure or the only way to be a true breastfeeding or chest feeding parent. That message is sadly sometimes out there on social media, you'll find it on Instagram and in Facebook groups. There is still quite a lot of judginess around parent led weaning and those who don't practice child led weaning. I think we've worked so hard to normalise breastfeeding beyond infancy, we're now in a place now where the message is sometimes not to stop before we need to. But I think we probably need a reconnection where we sometimes have to acknowledge that parents will occasionally need to stop in order to care for themselves.
This is about feminism. This is about bodily autonomy. This is about consent. You know, right now in human history, we're worried about women not having rights over their bodies around the world. We're worried about women not having access to rights over their own fertility and their own journeys around their fertility. Actually supporting women to breastfeed when they want to is part of that conversation. You are not less of a breastfeeding mom or less of a breastfeeding advocate if you need to put some boundaries in place and bring things to a close. Give yourself permission to pat yourself on the back and acknowledge this may well have been one of the most amazing things you have ever done. It took determination and strength and problem solving skills and bravery. And many, many hours. You might have been someone who had overcome positioning attachment difficulties, you might have been somebody who had to overcome tongue tie. You gave of yourself to that little person, and you gave them a start in life that was based on love and trust, as well as science and stem cells and alpha lactalbumin.
Look back on that first feed. Remember those first nights. You might have some photos of those times. Although it is amazing how often parents don't. Actually while we're on the subject of photos, take some photographs of yourself feeding before you stop. I know at the moment breastfeeding feels like it's really part of your furniture. You may not consider ever taking a picture of yourself breastfeeding right now no more than you consider taking a picture of someone putting on a pair of socks. But one day, you may look back differently. So take a moment to take a picture even if it's just for yourself and you never show it to anyone else. Think back to those very early breastfeeds. And take a picture in your mind. Where are you sitting? Or lying? What time of year is it? What are you wearing? What are they wearing? And think of a moment which felt amazing. And maybe if amazings too much, how about just special or positive? Think about a moment where their weight gain was down to you. Or you travelled and you breastfed and you made it work. Or you comforted them at a key time. Maybe at some family gathering you could help them fall asleep and that gave you freedom to do something else. Take a moment to think back to one of those early feeds. And tap into your crystal wearing sage wafting self and just give a moment to remember that.
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And also maybe take a moment during your next feed. Take a moment to step outside yourself and realise what you are doing. Look how much you mean to this little person. Okay, maybe if this is a feed where they're standing upside down and sticking their finger up your nose, that might be a little bit harder. So maybe it's easy to imagine doing this at night or at bedtime when they are sleepy. That can be tough because we're tired. When they wake up in the middle of the night, we're not in a mood to necessarily tap into our soul. But maybe just try and do it once. My grandmother once told me that some of the most precious times in her life was thinking back to the early feeds that she had when she was breastfeeding her children. And, you know, I was talking to her 80 years, 90 years after that, and those memories were still with her. You are making memories now that will last you for the rest of your life. Take a moment, even in the days when it feels really tough. You are helping this little person to feel loved and peaceful and calm and safe. You're making milk. That's pretty amazing. You're making food which has kept your little person alive for months. It is nutrition and it is medicine, you have been meeting your child's physical needs and their emotional needs. And the chances are, if you're listening to this, you've done it for longer than most people, you know, anyway, let yourself feel proud. And take a moment to do that.
We're not always great at acknowledging that we are good mothers. There's a bit of a cult of the perfect mother in the UK. And we often feel that we're falling short of that. But good mothers usually worry that they aren't good enough. If you're worried you're not good enough, that's probably a sign that you are. And let's worry about the people that think they're perfect mothers. You are enough, and you have done something brilliant and amazing and deserving of praise. You might even want to write down how you feel about what you've done. And I know that might seem a bit self indulgent. But I promise you, the grandparent version of you right now will be grateful. Do some journaling. Write a poem. You don't have to put on Instagram, you don't have to share it with anyone. Maybe get some breastfeeding jewellery made. I spoke to a mum yesterday who bought a kit from Etsy and made her own breastfeeding jewellery which I didn't know you could do. Take a decent photograph or ask a friend to take a decent photograph. Make a picture book using one of those online photo book companies. Do some celebrating. We're really rubbish in the UK, most of us, doing rites of passage. So make yourself a ceremony. Maybe you're just listening to this podcast while you walk your dog. But that doesn't mean another time, you can't really lean into what you've done and give yourself a chance to celebrate.
Allow yourself to feel that you have been enough. You're more likely to give yourself permission to end breastfeeding if you acknowledge right now that what you've done has been enough, more than enough. And while you're at it, why don't you tell someone else who's still breastfeeding that they're doing an amazing journey. And they should feel proud. Several times I've said to a client well done for breastfeeding until now. And they've said no one has actually ever said that to me before. Let's make that more of an everyday normal experience for women to tell each other when they've done an amazing job by breastfeeding for as long as they have. Comment on someone's social media post well done for breastfeeding up until now.
So as I said, in the next few episodes, we'll be talking about bringing breastfeeding to a close, we'll be talking about how to make the decision to wean. What different kinds of weanings exist. It's tough to imagine bringing breastfeeding to a close when it's at the heart of your child's world. Maybe you've got someone you would call a boobie monster, how on earth you're going to end breastfeeding in that situation? We'll talk about night weaning, we'll talk about what self weaning looks like, what's the difference between self weaning and a nursing strike. We'll also talk about what life feels like after breastfeeding ends. What are the physical and emotional effects and what does parenting look like when breastfeeding is finished? But we'll start by talking about the decision to wean. How do you make that decision? Is it natural to feel unsure? And how do you get to feel sure? But before we do all that, please do take that moment to recognise what you have achieved. And how special that really is. This is amazing. It is amazing. You have breastfed for the numbers of hours and weeks and months that you have. This is a really special thing. It's something you should always look back on with pride. And really, really well done.
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Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram @EmmaPickettIBCLC and on Twitter @MakesMilk. It would be lovely if you subscribed because that helps other people to know I exist and leaving a review would be great as well. Get in touch if you would like to join me to share your feeding or weaning journey or if you have any ideas for topics to include in the podcast.
This podcast is produced by the lovely Emily Crosby Media.