To think that "97% of women can breastfeed" is a load of crap

No , I don't want unfed babies. You want there to be no breastfed babies? Just mind your own business!

If that was my post (this thread is fast moving), the issue was mainly not that there weren't substitutes but that they were often contaminated - so the same dirty water issue that the developing world suffers today, bacteria in feeding devices etc.

That's terrible. Luckily hospital told us we could just top up DD's feed with formula until my milk came in. We did that, and continued giving her formula once every day or two when DP let me sleep, until she was 6 / 7 weeks. Breastfeeding is so handy if it works for you but getting there isn't easy, and we didn't have any underlying issues to contend with. We were just lucky!

It isn't, or at least if it does we don't have sufficient evidence to be able to prove it. Because that would require us to be reliably identifying autism across the population, which we haven't got remotely close to doing. Reading down the article, they're citing studies as far back as the 80s and 90s, when the diagnostic landscape was so utterly different.

I don't get why some people are so attached to the dafter and more spurious claims about the benefits of breastfeeding, when there are some absolutely irrefutable pros they could focus on like fewer gastro problems.

Except that animal babies come out and both the mother and baby generally know how to feed. Yet humans don’t. Mother and baby have to learn to do it, there can issues with latch etc…

Perhaps it is because we have evolved over the centuries - wet nurses, formula etc have enabled babies to survive and thrive without every being breastfed by their own mothers.

I also had a baby that couldn’t really feed which does seem to be overlooked. I think breastfeeding should be encouraged but also not to the detriment of the mother and child’s health.

My first couldn’t latch at all when born (a bit early, small and floppy but not unwell per se, tongue tie and a tongue tie snipped on nhs, and regrowth re-snipped privately). He was syringe fed then finally took with a nipple shield and my partner still thinks this is why he was so unsettled and smaller as poorer milk flow this way. Despite going to so many breastfeeding classes where they would all start confidently- just try this or that presenting the breast - then looked shocked at his angry 0-100 Red face screaming at my breast until the shield went on and had no other ideas.

My more robust second latched easily but after a day it was excruciating each feed. I remember being in tears thinking I’m not sure do this again but it settled in a week or so with some tips and persistence.

In both cases it would have been easy to give up - for the second I’m glad I had support and experience so I didn’t, for the first I’m kind of proud of my persistence but I don’t know if it was worth it.

Yes, I was replying to a poster who suggested that babies who weren’t breastfed would have died. My point was that sometimes they ended up surviving on less than ideal options to breastfeeding. I was not trying to claim that most women aren’t able to breastfeed.

Bf might offer some protection to start with but makes no difference in the long run because a person's living, eating and general health habits end up having the biggest impact throughout their life.

Foods from all around the world weren't available like they are today, so it's natural that allergies could be more common to foods less familiar. Celery for example is one of the 14 major allergies (within the EU) but in the UK it is not very common as it's been grown here forever and is in so many things our immune systems are used to it.

It doesn’t matter really. What matters is women who want to bf getting adequate support and people not wanting to BF being able to ff without judgement.

Of course there are several factors. As with most things. But BF gives a protective factor

ps how does ‘food being available from all over the world’ give a small child allergies. I’m intrigued.

Lack of effective support and education are the reason so many women “can’t” breastfeed.

Well of course both things can be true.
Even if we assume that the oft quoted 97-98% is accurate, that means 2-3% or about 1:50 to 1:30 are not physically able to breastfeed exclusively. That may be a minority but it is a lot of women over all. It seems probable that most of us would know at least one or two people possibly more in that group when you consider how many other Mums you meet over a lifetime. It's not that rare.
Equally there are lots and lots of Mums who are led to believe that they don't make enough milk because their babies feed fequently, cluster feed or are deemed to be "unsettled". I was born in the 60s, my siblings in the late 50s, and my Mum was very much of the "give a bottle every 4 hours and leave the pram in the garden" school of baby rearing that was prevalant at the time. Formula was promoted as "modern" and "scientific" and babies needed to be fed by the clock and keep in a strict routine. She was convinced that there was something badly wrong when I had a newborn who was latched on pretty much 24/7. Those beliefs and habits still hang over even now. A "good" baby feeds regularly, not too often, and sleeps all night. That's not biologically normal but it has become the social norm and lots of new mums get their confidence knocked when their babies behave, well, like babies.
So women with genuine supply problems most certainly do exist, but they are outnumbered by women who are made to believe they do. Plus of course that not infrequently becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as the suggested "solutions" do then lead to a drop in supply.

Allergies aren't on the rise because people aren't bf, there are several factors including environmental, genetics, and the foods available from all over the world now.

I'm sure it is 97%
And you just need support lol
If an ill child can have a bottle, why on earth can't they have the breast?
Bizaare perspective

Ability to lactate is one thing, successfully breastfeeding is another.
I don’t know why you have approached this topic in such a bombastic fashion, if it is because you plan/have tried to breastfeed & are struggling/facing criticism then I sincerely wish you the very best but if you are looking to stir up trouble/ research then please don’t.
The pressure to breastfeed can be overwhelming. When you are desperate to feed your baby but struggling it can take you to a very dark place. Judgement of a mother & her feeding decisions is a private & deeply personal thing.
I fed all my babies colostrum. I stopped feeding the first when he was vomiting my blood & pus. I fed babies two & three until I cried with pain. Baby number four fed like a dream. All four grew into healthy children.

Wish I'd said this to the HV who said this to me!

I struggled with breastfeeding a LOT with DD.
She had tongue tie, severe reflux and colic, I was in and out of hospital, I had PND, and low supply.
I was so lucky and so grateful that there is amazing support for lactation where I am. I would rock up to a milk and you class and just cry. A Health visitor told me to go onto formula and genuinely used 'fed is best'.
I didn't want to. I was exhausted and in pain and depressed but I'm so thankful and proud of myself I didn't. She's now 8 months and combi fed, but she was EBF for 6 months and I couldn't have done that without the right support, which I sought out.
I can't think of anyone else to be honest who had more of a reason to give up than me, and I wouldn't have blamed them.
The fact remains that UK has some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the western world. Any support given is so important.

There’s loads of studies. Here is one. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1876201819309505

before MN delete me - it’s not that formula causes autism, of course not. It’s that BF has a protective effect. Same as with the other conditions.

Source on autism? I thought that was a myth

I’m constantly shocked at the narrative that breastfeeding is always pushed. I volunteer as a breastfeeding counsellor and it’s certainly not the experience I hear. Formula is pushed more than anything (Midlands). It’s the easy option because babies will put weight on and then can be discharged. I had this experience myself when I struggled to breastfeed my first.

I think this ignores the fact that many many mothers want to breastfeed but lack support. For some, it’s easy. For others, much less so. I always tell mothers its a skill they both have to learn. I absolutely do not demonise formula. It has it’s place and I always say we’re lucky in this country that it’s very tightly regulated and we have clean water available.

It’s the same as giving birth vaginally, with the right support, most women will be able to. Of course not all. But being constantly monitored and a cascade of interventions, means that caesarean births are more common than they need to be. Which is major surgery, a tough start to life as a parent and consequently can have an affect on milk supply and breastfeeding.

I just did and it’s not true. I’m sick of people just making stuff up on MN. It’s the real Reform/ Trump way and it’s insidious.

Because overall non breastfed kids are more likely to suffer from a number of conditions including leukaemia, asthma, allergies and autism. All of which are on the rise. Of course most who are formula fed don’t suffer from these but overall ff babies are more likely to than BF.

So it does affect society as a whole.

That’s why it matters.

Google it if you care enough.

I have given birth and breast-fed with no problem to 20m.

However, I'd say the hospital environment for breastfeeding is probably very contrary to the natural conditions it.

BF didn't click for me until I got home and got the bloody useless midwives to fuck off and leave me alone. That's a very different environment to cuddling up skin to skin in a dark cave with only members of your immediate tribe around you (which is partly why family visits are so contentious - in the wild, nobody would "visit" a different pack's newborn - my cat practically skinned a Old English Sheepdog when it sniffed at her kittens).