Mother Loses Child Over Breastfeeding

pstrongA mother in Urbana, Illinois is ordered to get a larger apartment, stop breast feeding in order to get her son back. /strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby PNN Staff/p pWe have been following the case of the mother whose son was taken away from her by the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services for her breast feeding practices.. The prosecution began when a baby-sitter claimed that the mother was breast feeding her 6 year old son against his will. The DCFS put the child in foster care in July and the Champaign County States Attorney’s office decided to prosecute the mother for abuse and neglect. Judge Ann Einhorn initially ruled that the mother had exposed her son to "enormous potential" for emotional harm. She reversed herself on Dec. 27 and gave the mother 6 moths probation and a list of conditions to meet in order to get her son back.br / The mother countered the allegations by explaining that she was practicing "child-led weaning", where the child would decide when to stop weaning. She claimed that her son gave her no indication that he was ready to stop breast feeding. DCFS also claimed that the son slept in the same bed with the mother and that this was a factor in his removal from the home. The mother explained to the court that she was living in a small apartment that did not have an extra room for him to sleep in. /pp La Leche League reports that several states have prosecuted women for extended breast feeding practices. A Minnesota case against a woman who was supposedly breast feeding a 6 year old in public was dropped when the child was found to be 3 years old. Similar cases of abuse were filed in Florida and Tennessee, but the women were either acquitted or charges were dismissed. The Urbana case would be the first in which a woman was successfully prosecuted for extended breast feeding practices. /pp The mother's insistence that she was practicing "child-led weaning" was ignored by the judge. Articles in the Chicago Tribune and the AP wire insinuated that there was something inappropriate about the mother's continued nursing of her son. A study on advanced aged breast feeding* that was admitted into evidence in the case showed that 34% of parents were still breast feeding after the age of 4. The Associated Press characterized this percentage as "rare, but not unheard of". The mother in Urbana was prosecuted for a practice she has in common with many American families.br / Recent studies have shown that breast feeding into late childhood can be advantageous to the health of the child. There have been numerous studies to show that there is a high correspondence between strong immune systems and breast feeding. There have also been studies to show that the benefits accrue with breast feeding beyond infancy. The US Surgeon General has called any child that is breast feeding at the age of 2 years, "lucky". The WHO reports that the average age of weaning worldwide is 4.2 years. Though this statistic has been called into question, it is clear that many cultures support extended breast feeding as common practice. /pp The most disturbing part of Judge Einhorn's ruling is that, in order to comply fully, the mother must move into a larger dwelling that has an extra bedroom for her son (which she has already done). If poverty is criminalized to the extent that children can be removed from single room occupancies, then few people would be secure in their family's safety. Would affluence have kept this woman and her son together?br / The mother accused the Illinois state Department of Child and Family Services of cultural bias and said they never fully investigated the situation. There is much foundation to thisbr / accusation. The mother explained her nursing philosophy quite clearly and the defense demonstrated that it is a common practice. The only condition that set her apart from mothers around the country was her poverty and it was this factor that made her a target of DCFS. /pp *The study by Texas AM anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler dealt with 1280 families who self-reported breast feeding practices. 375 were still breast feeding at age 4. /pp/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p