Nurse said something strange about breastfed babies

Breast milk is better but that doesn’t make formula bad . Formula is great for babies too. It’s more important mother and baby are happy and bonding what ever that looks like.

yes I would complain, it was an inaccurate comment designed to create guilt.

I'd call that "discounted research"

Jesus Christ. I am a huge advocate for breast feeding, it has loads of benefits but she is talking total crap.

What has really pissed me off is you have chosen to share with her that you are struggling and instead of being empathetic and acknowledging your struggles and sign posting you to some support. She to make a comment to make you feel like crap but also spread false information. I think this nurse is in the wrong profession.

I hope you can get some support if you want to continue breast/ combi feeding. The association of breastfeeding mothers and the breastfeeding network are both brilliant. Everyone’s breastfeeding journey is different but from my experience it does start to get easier after the first 3 months.

i bf dc 1 exckusively for the 6m till weaning. Then with food till 1.
they did get exceeded on all sats. Incl 120 on spag.

however they have asd and adhd. And very demand avoidant.
i did think she maybe gifted as she spoke extremely well very early. She could then do cvc work reading at 3 and chaoter books by 5. However she isbt gifted, is actually mostly hard work and has been activeoy disliked by almost all teacher and has few friends.
also had a lot of severe ear infections around age 3

dc2 also bf exclusively till 6m then weaned. And then bf until around 3.
she also seemed pretty bright. But again adhd signs. Though she gets along ok with teachers but does seem to have some social issues.

looking around their classes and year groups the brightest seeming kids
have dr parents...
or maths etc degree parents
teachers kids also do well because they work with them at home
so mainly genes
personality traits too though as
Calm, motivated, resilient, happy, friendly kids

objectively my dc was doing very well early on but other facrors like personality, provate school, good state school woth motivating rewards etc have made most difference

Bf can be really hard work (and some of the kids then dont sleep) so 'intelligence' probably just reflects that

Utter bollocks. Stealth boast but my formula fed babies both managed to get firsts from two of the top unis in the world and are both thriving in highly competitive careers.

The nurse does not follow up on every child she has ever seen, and monitored their feeding and their subsequent intelligence.

This makes me so sad that anyone makes new parents feel worse. There is way too much parental guilt without adding to it!
It’s lovely to hear so much support for you OP. I hope you are taking it in. You do whatever works best for you and your family. Parenting is a long road and things don’t always go as planned. That’s just life. Hug your baby and don’t give those careless words another thought.

I wasnt breastfed. I am currently unemployed. I have a PhD. All of these are true.

it is the truth that there are particular amino acids in breast milk that specifically build human brains. These can’t be found in other milks as our bodies make them specifically and they’ve not yet been able to synthesise them for formula. But there’s no evidence this directly links to intelligence, mostly because you couldn’t ethically do that study. So it’s possible but not proven.

Which has no relevance to the OP's child!

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8894195/#:~:text=Gifted%20or%20above%2Daverage%20IQ,the%20breastfed%20group%20(19%25).

Baby with full tummy = a happy mummy.
Fed is best. 👩‍🍼

Don't listen to the "only the breast is best "nazis.🙈
They would have you feeling like a failure for using formula - OH THE HORROR TARQUIN!
I personally am pro -choice, and you should do what is right for you and your LO.
Whether that's breast or formula, it's your call 🤗
Personally, I would complain.

Anecdotal evidence is important as most of us are only concerned about the health and wellbeing of our own children.

My sister was breast fed, I was bottle fed. We both have PhD’s. Our parents are both university educated and supported us through uni. My kids are one breast fed and one bottle fed, both are doing well at school. I think there’s a lot to do with better educated people having better paid jobs and getting things like paid maternity leave and just being in a stronger position when it comes to the newborn stage. Breast feeding is hard, and if you’re already struggling to make ends meet and having to work difficult shifts or something it’s just one thing too many. So I’m definitely in the correlation rather than causation camp.

Obviously the nurse is wrong but so many people coming on here to say their child was formula fed and is academically gifted or was breastfed and is of mediocre intelligence has about as much relevance as me coming on here and saying my DD and her best friend are consistently the top of their class and both were breastfed until they were preschoolers. Anecdotes are totally meaningless with this kind of thing, surely we all know that.

Ridiculous, my friend was bottle fed and has a double first from Oxford, she's literally the most intelligent person I know. Do what works for you and your family. A happy mum is far more likely to lead to a happy and healthy child.

The obsession with how other people feed their babies and the nonsense spouted about breastfeeding is ridiculous. It’s dreadful how many women’s mental health has suffered by being told that formula is absolutely awful and that they are failing their babies by giving formula.

The NHS is obsessed with telling mothers they must breastfeed and yet they don’t question the diet and lifestyle of the mother. I find it hard to believe that a breastfed baby with a mother who smokes, drinks and lives on a diet of UPF food is better off than one who is formula fed.

I say this as someone who both breast fed and combi fed. A fed baby with a happy mother is the best scenario.

This feels important now but in time it won’t. I wouldn’t bother complaining but just dismiss it from your mind.

My view too. Neither of mine had more than a small amount of pumped breastmilk. Not sure how DS1 managed a great degree result, or DS2 great GCSE results on formula …

What a load of rubbish. And it’s a good job she didn’t say this in front of me as I would have put in a formal complaint.

👏👏👏✊✊

She's batshit

There is some research that suggests this but I recall it being very minimal differences and not statistically significant. IME saying things like that is very discouraged in children’s/maternity nurses. Especially as there’s a lot of training around prioritising maternal mental health.

As healthy as the breast feeding mothers diet, not necessarily as healthy as can be.

Whether its true or not it was highly inappropriate of her to say it (out loud!) Reminds me of my first HV who said some spectacularly stupid things.

Formula is amazing and babies fed on it will be as healthy as any baby and as intelligent as any other.

You’re making formula sound a negative.

And of course fed is best and mum’s well-being is crucially important, but comparing like to like, one is upf and the other one is as healthy as food can be.