Global Breastfeeding Experiences: Canada

by Alanna Shaikh

category: Breastfeeding

Published May 04, 2009 @ 08:43AM PT

This is part of the ongoing series dedicated to breastfeeding experiences around the world.  If you'd like to share your own breastfeeding story, email me at alanna@change.org.

This interview is with Annie, who blogs at www.phdinparenting.com.

1. What country were you born in? Where are you raising your child(ren)? I was born in Canada. I am raising my children in Canada.

2. How old were you when you first saw someone breastfeed?

18 months. I am the oldest of 4 children and all of us were breastfed. My siblings all weaned between about a year old and 18 months old. I also did a year abroad in high school in Australia and lived with a family of 5 kids. My host mom was breastfeeding the youngest, who was a toddler at the time.

3. How old was your child when you stopped breastfeeding? How long did you exclusively breastfeed?

 I breastfed my son until he self-weaned at 2.5 years (I was 7.5 months pregnant at the time). I had to exclusively pump for him at the beginning because he wasn't able to latch on. He was 7.5 weeks old when he latched on for the first time. During the time I was pumping, I got a bad case of mastitis that severely affected my supply and I had to supplement a bit with formula for a week. Other than that, he was exclusively breastfed until we introduced solids at 5 months.

My daughter was exclusively breastfed for 6 months (never had any formula and didn't have any solids before 6 months). She is now 25 months old and is still nursing.

4. What were you reasons for stopping breastfeeding?

 My son self-weaned.

5. Were your friends and relatives supportive of your breastfeeding?

 Yes....at least to my face. If they are/were unsupportive, they never mentioned it to me.

6. Is breastfeeding standard in your culture? To what age?

90% percent of women initiate breastfeeding. 53.9% are still breastfeeding at six months (but only 14.4% manage exclusive breastfeeding to 6 months)

My personal experience has been that breastfeeding is fairly standard. Moms that end up formula feeding do so because they had troubles with breastfeeding that they could not overcome. Most moms that do take one year of maternity leave and are successful at breastfeeding seem to wean sometime between 9 months and a year, as they prepare to return to work. However, not everyone is eligible for leave and a lot of moms are now sharing their leave with their husbands, which could impact age of weaning, especially since there isn't a lot of support for working and pumping in Canada (since most people do stay home for the first year).

7. Were medical professionals in your country supportive of breastfeeding?

Yes, they were supportive. But that doesn't mean they were always knowledgeable. I got a lot of conflicting and out of date advice. I also found that when I did have trouble with breastfeeding, many of them were quick to suggest that switching to formula might be the best answer.

8. Have you ever breastfed someone else's baby? Let someone else feed your child?

No. I haven't and I probably wouldn't unless it was an emergency.

9. What could be done in your culture to make breastfeeding easier and more accepted?

Greater promotion of breastfeeding as a human right (it is enshrined in law here, but awareness is lacking, which means there are still incidents of women being told to cover up or to stop breastfeeding in public).

More acceptance and support of pumping in the workplace for moms that do want to return to the workforce and continue breastfeeding.

Better access to free lactation consultants (i.e. paid for through our public health care system).

10. Is there anything else you'd like to say about breastfeeding?

I think it is too bad that mothers that were not able to breastfeed or did not want to breastfeed get offended or insulted by breastfeeding promotion. Since 90% of women do want to breastfeed and only a much smaller proportion are successful, I think it shows that there is a lot more work to be done in terms of supporting breastfeeding mothers, educating people about breastfeeding, and creating a society that is more accepting of breastfeeding. Most people that are providing this support role do not do it to make formula feeders feel bad. They do it to support those that want to breastfeed.