Males' nipples are regarded as a sign that till a certain age, inside the mother's womb, we are not assigned to a specific sex. So the embryo prepares to produce either a girl or a boy; when the genetic information says boy, the nipple bud stops its development.
But in certain conditions, men can lactate. "Up until a certain age, boys and girls, as fetuses, are indistinguishable, really, so we retain-women retain some remnants of the vas deferens, which is the canal that sperm follows. If you have no Y chromosome, then certain hormones are released that say, 'Okay, we'll set up this child's breast tissue to develop at puberty so that she will be able to produce milk.' Men didn't [secrete those hormones], so we don't usually have breast tissue", said Jack Newman, a Toronto-based doctor and breast-feeding expert. "Actually a significant number of boys around the age of puberty do develop breasts, so the tissue is there, but it regresses."
here's a question. Should a woman be breast feeding her 4 year old boy? A woman tried using that as an excuse yesterday in order to get out of a trip to jail.
Most toddlers naturally wean themselves off of the breast between 3 and 4 years of age. While breastfeeding isn't NECESSARY at that age, the milk is still providing nutrition to the toddler.
That's disgusting. Surprisingly there are a lot of mothers who stand by breastfeeding their children for years. I can't stand those preachy mothers who think "breast is best". Bull fucking shit. Anywho, I got a little carried away. And lol @ that crazy bitch. I hope for the sake of the childs mental state she actually doesn't still breastfeed him/her. Grrroooossss!
Right now I'm taking a Human Growth and Development course and my teacher told us the other day of a case wher e a mother was still breast feeding her 14 or 15 year old. AND an 8 year old. I was completely disgusted about the teen. Like There are sexually active teens that age.
While the age of weaning in more traditional societies and many European countries is about 3 to 5 years of age, iin the US it's more around 1 year. The weaning process, however, can create conflicts between the mother and her baby. With the baby usually not wanting to end breast feeding and as a result will try to keep the mother breast feeding to maintain attachment. While it may seem odd to think about it this way but all mammals while breast feeding are unable to get pregnant during this time. This provides the current offspring with an advantage. The longer it can keep it's mother from being infertile that longer it can benefit from the mother's undivided resources and attention. Thus while in the industrail socties it's a bit less common, iin traditional societies and in other nonhuman primates the weaning process can create a lot of problems. There is empirical evidence in support of this.
As for breast milk. Some guys can lactate, even without breast tissue, in response to their partner's preganacy or recent birth. Oxytocin is a hormone that is released not when we are in love but also in forming mother-infant attachments and for producing breast milk. The difference however is males lack the essential nutrients and immunological factors (e.g., Sig A) to nutritionally sustain a newborn. For example, breast milk provides a newborn with essential digestive bacteria to build up it's immune system. Also in women breast milk dramatically declines in these values starting at around the first 3 months and by 2 years the milk does little more then provide some nutrients, however, it does not have enough calories to meet the demands of older infants. While I do not necessary think that 4-years is too old to breast feed. I do think it's rather silly considering the quality of milk at this time. But in these more extreme cases some women actually can become addicted to the release of dopamine and oxytocin that occur during breast feeding and hence may subconsciously continue the behavior because of this.
We are Human Development: A Life-Span View. 2nd Canadian Edition by Christine A. Ateah, Robert V.Kail and John C Cavanaugh.
Our teacher got canned half way through the course so this couse is not fun at all. More stressful than anything. It's helped me a lot with the presentation that I was preparing for the school division I work for. It's aimed at teen girls ages 12-16.
I am not familiar with that one, probably because it's Canadian. I bet my adviser is cited in that book, Bjorklund if you ever get bored enough to check let me know. What are you going to school for education? Your teacher must have done something bad for them to fire him mid semester. That would never happen at my school unless it was really bad. Mostly because many of my teachers are on tenure, but even when one does get fired it takes like a year or two for them to actually leave.
Breast being best is bull fucking shit? That's news to me and pretty much every medical and scientific organization... Unless you're referring to the idea that breast milk is the sole option a woman can choose and formula is poison. Then yes, that idea is a load of crap. However, breast milk actually is best nutritionally over all other options.
Well, she was pretty horrible. But I just started the program so I'm not sure how long this process has been going on of her getting fired. Really don't know. All I know is that it's become stressful. I was really enjoying the course at first. The teacher we have now is really great, she really knows her stuff. The other teacher always felt unorganized and caught off guard like she JUST found out that she had a course to teach 10 minutes before class... every class. Who knows? Maybe her home life was having an effect on work. If they had known they were letting her go, it'd be beyond unprofessional to release her half way through a course.
Some research I know of in my area has shown a slight IQ gain for breast feeding over bottling feeding, but this is nothing really to support any claims that bottle feeding is bad and should not be practiced. To say there is a advantage of a several IQ points in the end is not going to make a profound difference on your child's outcome. Other studies show that eating fish during pregnancy can also increase the baby's IQ but I will bet that there are not mommy groups admittedly preaching eating fish during pregnancy because the taboo becomes almost cultural, and less scientifically based, within the more extreme mothering groups. That is where you tend to hear these outrages claims that breast feeding is the only natural healthy way, which is bullshit. My brother and I were bottle feed babies.
Jenny, I was simply stating that the fact that crazy other the top moms that think they know it all who preach about breastfeeding, and belives that breastfeeding only in my own opinion is bullshit. Yes, it might be "healthier" for the baby and reduce gas/colic but when it comes down to it, there really isn't much of a difference between breastfed and formula fed babies. They're both getting the nutrients they need either way. Ella has started to ween herself off my boob, and takes to formula much better. I currently bf just for nightly feedings, and she's doing just fine.
Virginia, I'm not sure where you read that you can't get pregnant while breastfeeding because thats a crock of shit. There are plenty of women who get pregnant while breastfeeding. Hell you can become pregnant right after having your baby. Breastfeeding is not a forum of birth control, and should never be considered as so.
I agree then, it IS a crock of shit that breast milk is the only nutritional option in feeding a baby. I also hate the breast nazis that judge other women for choosing the formula option.
Virginia, there are a lot more advantages in feeding your baby breast milk over the other nutritional options, not just the IQ advantage - which I'm skeptical over the studies on that to be honest.
I would never say that breast milk only effects IQ. There are also immunological factors, such as SIg A that prevent digestive disorders such as diarrhea, a number one killer of infants in third world countries. IN addition there is always the attachment debates and recently I went to an interesting talk about the potential differences in early learning between bottle feed and breast feed babies linked to a particular pheromone that is released around the nipple area during initial breast feeding.
These are the arguments I am familiar with, but I am sure there are others. I mentioned the IQ b.c. I noticed that many of the pro breast feeding mother groups cite that study often as evidence for their cause.
Finally it's not as black and white as that. The baby's genes play a factor too in how the infant responds to the milk. It seems that breastfeeding and IQ is moderated by a genetic variant in FADS2, a gene involved in the genetic control of fatty acid pathways. Children with this gene expression have shown to gain the highest IQ advantages from breast milk. This gene variant is sensitive to fatty acids or the predominant long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LC-PUFAs) present in human milk, but not in cow's milk or most infant formulas, which opt instead for using docosahexaenoic acid and arachidonic acid.
Caspi and collegaues, which I have seen talk, have done a large amount of work on these effects: http://www.pnas.org/content/104/47/18860.full. But then again much more work is needed. On the more positive side this research is being used to create more effective formulas. Also another great source for information is WHO (world health orginaization) their website is very easy to use and contains tons of great studies on these issues.
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here's a question. Should a woman be breast feeding her 4 year old boy? A woman tried using that as an excuse yesterday in order to get out of a trip to jail. 
Most toddlers naturally wean themselves off of the breast between 3 and 4 years of age. While breastfeeding isn't NECESSARY at that age, the milk is still providing nutrition to the toddler. 
That's disgusting. Surprisingly there are a lot of mothers who stand by breastfeeding their children for years. I can't stand those preachy mothers who think "breast is best". Bull fucking shit. Anywho, I got a little carried away. And lol @ that crazy bitch. I hope for the sake of the childs mental state she actually doesn't still breastfeed him/her. Grrroooossss! 
Right now I'm taking a Human Growth and Development course and my teacher told us the other day of a case wher e a mother was still breast feeding her 14 or 15 year old. AND an 8 year old. I was completely disgusted about the teen. Like There are sexually active teens that age. 
neecole what book are you using for the class? 
Anyone willing to breastfeed a 24 year old? 
