Breastfeeding rates have been changing in recent decades and in recent years, apparently following the inertia of health professionals, who at different times have recommended different things.
By the 70s and 80s, when we were born we are now recent parents, the rates were very low because doctors recommended giving babies artificial breastfeeding. In those times the women who breastfed the most were those of lower educational level. Now, instead, the tables have changed and today it is the women with the highest educational level who breastfeed the longest.
Those of higher educational level follow health recommendations before
A study of 666 adult women with children born between 1958 and 2002 reveals how the habit of breastfeeding in women has changed over time.
In the 60s, for example, breastfeeding was the preferred way to breastfeed babies and it was also when breastfeeding lasted the longest. 61.3% of the lactations lasted more than six months. At the end of the 90s they were 29%.
In return, and as we have said above, the lowest rates were in the 70s and 80s, when what was most recommended was artificial lactation. At that time the women of higher educational level were the ones who followed the recommendations the most and their children were the ones who drank the least breast milk, or perhaps it was simply these women who had better access to health services.
From the 90s, when the recommendations were changing, breastfeeding rates in women with higher educational level were increasing, being today the group of women who breastfeed their babies the longest.
The rest of the women will end up breastfeeding at a similar level
Those of a lower educational level they will surely reach the same level, because it seems that they take the same path as the other women, although walking it a few years later, as if it were a snake.
When the recommendations were to give a bottle, women of higher educational level, in the head of the snake, dropped breastfeeding rates, at which point the rest breastfed more (saying that “breastfeeding is a matter of gypsies ”). Then the rates of the women of the snake's tail, those of lower educational level also fell. At that moment the head of the snake went back up and now it only remains for the tail to do it too, as the information also arrives.
PS: There are still those who say (I have heard doctors say it) that "breastfeeding is a gypsy thing" or that "that is only done in countries without resources" ... a few decades ago it could be considered true, now it does not make much sense (It is also quite bad taste to talk like that).
