'Breast is Best'

[OddSocksandRainbowDocs]

It's National Breastfeeding Week and I've seen the phrase 'Breast is Best' banded about quite a few times.

Whilst I agree breastfeeding is scientifically better, some mothers (myself included) physically could not breastfeed so chose to formula feed instead. I was made to feel like a failure by a midwife for choosing to do so.

My little one is now one and a half. She is happy, she is healthy.

I don't know who needs to hear this but 'Breast is Best' isn't always the case. 'Fed is Best' is most definitely the case. It doesn't matter how you feed your baby, as long as the baby is fed, that is all that matters

Breast is marginally better, but not much in a Western country where formula can be prepared safely (as shown in studies that control for other factors eg socio-economic status). I've provided links on other threads in the past about this which I don't have time to find at the moment but they are out there if you care to google…

And no discernible benefits after infancy. Nobody can deny that breast is slightly better in terms of infant health.... not worth a mum making herself ill over though.

I don’t get these anecdotal replies. What are they trying to prove? Who is saying you can’t be healthy and achieve things if you were breastfed? No one.

😂😂 what a weird comment to make.

Either way you can breast feed them all you like. Once they are teens they all eat McDonald's and start drinking when at uni. Getting rid of all that goodness you've fed them when infants

Where you have to sterilise bottles/ prepare it (shouldn’t really be done in advance). Honestly formula doesn’t necessarily mean more sleep.

It does if you're sharing the feeding with a partner!

Threads like this are horrible, and it comes up far to regularly.

Fed is best is factually incorrect, and it comes across in the same way as very overweight people saying that they love their bodies and have embraced their curves. All good, people should do whatever works for them, but they don’t need to try and convince other’s that their way is just as good.

Being significantly overweight is not healthy, no matter how happy a person is. Formula milk is not as good for human babies as breast milk. It’s a perfectly good substitute that people are free to use if they want or need, but stop trying to make other mothers believe that it’s just as good.

Just get on with feeding your baby and stop expecting other people to validate your method.

Breastfeeding women are pretty much shamed out of being proud of their achievement because of posts like this and that is horrible.

@brookstar

I don’t see it as celebrating breastfeeding but giving legitimate public health advice. Breastfeeding is generally better than formula.

Public health campaigns for older children and adults don’t just encourage us to eat food because if we don’t we’ll die. They encourage us to eat more fruit and veg etc and cut down on processed foods. Nobody demands they tone down the message because some people can’t cook.

It's really depressing how vociferously women attack any attempt to promote and encourage breastfeeding.

The UK already has some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, and it's generally younger mothers, those with lower education levels and with less money who are the least likely to breastfeed.

Apart from anything else, they are spending a ton of money needlessly .

A lot of the time, this is not because they can't or struggle to breastfeed - it's social pressure not to breastfeed, combined with the sexualisation and objectification of women's bodies.

Young women, especially from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, often feel embarrassed and awkward about breastfeeding, especially if they don't have any friends/family who bf.

Formula companies are making huge profits from poor women around the world, and in many cases, especially in less developed countries, that is putting babies at real risk.

It does my head in that privileged women in the UK put so much energy into denigrating breastfeeding

@bubblescoop 🤣🤣🤣 you're the most judgemental poster here!

actually no, I was content with my decision to feed my baby formula. It's some posters on this thread who have made me feel guilty and inadequate!

Nobody hear can make you feel either of those things, they come from you.

I have no idea why people would feel either for choosing whatever works for them. Certainly not if they truly believed it doesn't matter?

Formula was the very best for me and turn for my son. Allowed me to have breaks as a single parent.

Thats great for you. People should make the choices that suit them best.

But to be clear, that doesn't affect the objective fact that one fluid is superior to another.

because breastmilk is - for the vast majority of babies - nutritionally superior and entirely adaptive to the needs of that individual baby via the process of actual breastfeeding from their mother: not some generic factory made product.

How superior?

Formula is perfectly fine, if it works for you then that’s great.

As scientifically proven, breast milk is better. That’s not judgement, just fact.

The milk from the mammal who gave birth is best for the babies they gave birth to.

Kittens do best on cat's milk.
Puppies do best on dog's milk

But there are plenty of YouTube videos showing a puppy fed by a cat and a kitten fed by a dog.

There's even one of a cat breastfeeding ducklings. A meal is a meal. 🤷

We don't have to pretend that a mother's milk is not generally perfectly tailored to meet the needs of her infant in order to say formula is a perfectly adequate substitute and nobody should be made to feel bad if they can't or don't want to breast feed.

I say generally because things like meds the mother is on can make bf less suitable than FF.

But it is just as good. It feeds a baby, gives them nutrients and helps them grow.

Breastfeeding women are not shamed. There seem to be lots of Breastfeeding women who seem to be an army that like to belittle others who choose not to do so, for whatever reason. As seen by this post.

@BloodAndFire 👏👏👏👏

I'm loathe to read the 200 posts on this thread as I know how these threads always go. But yes, breast is best, formula is a very good alternative, and babies have to be fed.

We've struggled to get established both times and it can be hard work, so yes I feel proud that it's something I persevered with even though it was difficult. My pride and experience don't diminish anyone else's feelings or experiences. But I am proud of breastfeeding both my girls, just as I'm proud of plenty of other parenting things I've done (and not proud of others!).

I think some of the comparisons on here aren’t fair. Perhaps people aren’t meaning examples to be a direct comparison but it sounds like it to some reading them. Formula isn’t the equivalent of junk food or being overweight.

But it’s also a fact that the benefit is so tiny you can’t notice it unless you’re talking studying hundreds of thousand of children.

Nothing else with a benefit this small - organic food vs non-organic, filtered water vs tap water - is mentioned anywhere near as much. And we certainly don’t have public health campaigns about them.

I also think there's a lot we don't know about the science of breast milk and that we have still to discover. It'll be interesting to see if more discoveries are made in the years to come.

Breastfeeding women are not shamed.

Huh? My lived experience would beg to differ. Not sure how you can assert that anyway. In that case, I proclaim formula feeding mums are not shamed.

This is a long, complex and interesting article that looks at the relationship between socio-economic deprivation and breastfeeding rates, and what kind of support and interventions are needed to help more women, particularly from deprived backgrounds, to initiate and continue breastfeeding.

equityhealthj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12939-021-01393-7

But it is just as good. It feeds a baby, gives them nutrients and helps them grow

It does do those things. But it doesn't do many other things, and it IS not just as good.

Theres no need for opinions here, these are facts. Human breast milk is better for human babies than anything else.

Presuming you live in the UK

I swear this is the only country where women need the validation of others for either breast or bottle feeding.

I lived in many other countries over the years and the subject is not discussed. Because in truth ABSOLUTELY NOBODY else cares what we feed our babies.

The people saying either breast or fed is best just seem to need some sort of validation.

If you breastfeed great if you formula feed great too - congratulations for feeding your baby 😂. Seriously!

I don’t think anyone is trying to denigrate breast feeding. I think people are trying to point out that the societal pressure to breast feed is also prevalent and that it can be dangerous to mother and baby in extreme cases. Both methods are options and it is likely one will satisfy your personal situation better than the other. The impact on outcomes does not appear to be significant. There are many ways parents beat themselves up for falling short (no private school education, no holidays, not being able to buy the expensive toys) - breast fed or formula fed is not the hill to die on but women after pregnancy are particularly susceptible and it’s become such a big issue when really everyone just needs a bit of support to know whatever they choose they’re doing the best they can and their child will thrive.