to think that cunting Cow and Gate with their 'clever' marketing about babies 'needing iron' and funding 'research' have fucked up the last 10 years of improving and supporting breastfeeding?

[AtYourCervix]

1. 3 of the authors of that 'research' are funded by formula milk or baby food companies.

1. physiological third stage anyone?

I understand where nkvd is coming from.

I don't think she is saying breastmilk is not more beneficial than formula milk. It's all about degrees.

We have loads of choices to make as a parent which will pull us in many directions.

For some people bf is so difficult and time consuming that the investment does not seem worth the perceived benefits. The problem with evidence based medicine is that it draws conclusions about populations rather than looking at individuals and their risk factors for certain illnesses etc. So the evidence has to be tailored towards an individual family choice. It's not too dissimilar to sleep position and SIDS.

As I have stated, I am a keen bf mum but I totally understand and respect those parents who make an informed choice not to.

@germum: To acknowledge the science of all this is not to denigrate the right to make choices, imposed or otherwise, of individual mothers.

I am always struck in these debates by the inevitable series of posts which say, 'yes, breastfeeding does have benefits, but not many/they're not proven/they don't matter/the research about them is contradictory/talking about them means judging mothers who don't breastfeed.

For a culture or society to fail to support and enable breastfeeding has health consequences.

It is perfectly possible to do this without saying mothers who don't breastfeed have made a 'wrong' decision.

I am not directing this at any individuals, but I think for many people the way they deal with any guilt they may harbour is to brush it aside and convince themselves that the science is wrong. I went the other way and dwelt on it so much that I made myself pretty ill. Both are very bad places to be. All any of us can do is the very best we can.

Boycott Nestle is all I have to say!

They don't make C & G though. Is it Milupa?

Totally agree with Gaelic that people brush aside the benefits of bmilk to deal with guilt

MsKlo, you don't know this. It's a sweeping statement. People may well be offended that you claim to know their motivation.

The level of science knowledge and understanding in the UK is not very high - our schools are pretty rubbish at teaching the concept of risk, and the skills of critical thinking.

This is one of the reasons why someone will post on mumsnet with a preposterous assertion that everything said about breastfeeding and allergies is rubbish because they know a couple of bf kids who have asthma, and that in their opinion (opinion!) it's all genetic anyway 'cos the kids' dad has asthma. Or there is no link between infant feeding and intelligence because they have a PhD and they were formula fed. Or formula feeding is great because their baby was formula fed and is now one of the tallest in the class.

I have no idea if it is guilt 'making' them say these things - but isn't it far more likely to be bog standard ignorance and lack of debating skills?

Oh hello MsKLO. I am so pleased you have found this thread to add your fact based and not in anyway judgemental or sweeping opinions. gaelic has made a suggestion about how some people deal with the gulit of FF. Her points are sensible and non generalising (though I would argue the use of the term 'most'!).

Can you not see the differtent reaction her post and your post would attract, all down to tone and delivery? Its not that you don't have valid things to say, just think about the way you say them?

Sorry, grammer and punctuation awful as posting from phone.

Link is broken?

You are right - the links with intelligence are marginal (apart from for prem babies). However - I don't class intelligence as a health benefit per se.

Oops sorry tiktok
I did mean 'some' people of course not 'all' people and there are other reasons people dismiss bf benefits

Wrote in a rush and thought I had said 'some' but obviously forgot

Nkvd

No, I don't find it confusing that people don't think like me, I find it confusing that, when all the benefits of bf are so well known, a woman would not choose to persevere or even bf in the first place if she can - it's just how I feel and I only being honest! Im not one who had an easy time breastfeeding - I had numerous problems so I am not just talking as someone who found it easy. To me it was a little like giving birth, I wasn't going to stop pushing during labour - i had to find the strength to push baby out and with bf I applied the same thinking to persevere as the benefits of bf to my babies meant a lot to me. Of course I am not saying anyone else should think that but just trying to say this is how I feel

Also I have to disagree with you when you say it's not as important as some make out - to me it is hugely important to Breastfeed

nkvd, thanks - I know that study and found it once more by repairing your link.

I asked for a study and you sent me one - however, it doesn't show what you are saying it shows - you are saying that this is a study which shows no connection between breastfeeding and long-term benefit (in this case, intelligence).

It doesn't - and I am not being picky, here, but scientific, or trying to be....the stats involved are at the edge of my ability to critique, so I may not be getting it right.

It shows that exposure to LCPUFAs is not a factor in (their chosen method of measuring) IQ at age 4.

The authors' own abstract is indeed confusing, but in fact what they have shown is buried in the discussion:

"Our finding that total intake of DHA in milk up to age 6 months was not linked with subsequent intelligence provides a further indication that the association between breast milk and cognitive development may not be due to the LCPUFA content of the milk."

I am not sure how significant it is, but the babies in the 'breastfed' group were breastfed for a mean of 20.5 weeks - obviously many would be bf for less than this time, and none for more than 6 mths (because they did not collect data after this date). It may be that another study not looking specifically at LCPUFAs exposure and with a greater variance of social class and maternal IQ could have found something different (higher education and IQ were seriously over-represented in the bf group, and only 6 per cent of them were on means-tested benefits, which reduces the effect of removing confounding factors).

Someone started a thread on Site Stuff asking if MNHQ would do a campaign to (my words:) get some balance and not let the news coverage wipe out the 'breast is best' message.

Using swear words in a thread title doesn't do much for academic credibility, if you want to shoot down the results of the study, to be honest.

Rather than rant here, if you have some links and can calm down a touch to put a short document together, you might do better over on Site Stuff.

PS I'm not involved on either side, so feel free to shout at the messenger if you wish, but I'm off the thread once this post is made.

Well said NetworkGuy. I know Mumsnet is a general parenting site, not a breastfeeding site, but I think it would be a very good use of "Mumsnet Power".

Have people seen this petition by the way?

two things

I 100% cant imagine that someone who wants to BF will be swayed by a cow and gate advert, fret ye not!

am I the ONLY one that thinks this 4 months weaning bla bla thing is NOT an attack on BF, just stating what many of us know which is that for many 6 months is a bit late to wean??? you can still BF and give them pureed carrot FFS

I KNOW the 4 month weaning thing isn't an attack on BF, but the media coverage of it has been. I think a lot of issues are getting conflated in the various threads tbh. I'm sure I'm a guilty party.

i agree, I said elsewhere they (media) should just refer to MILK, not breastmilk, MILK, cos at the end of the day thats what they are saying

sigh

i agree, I said elsewhere that they (media) should just refer to MILK, not breastmilk, just to MILK, as at the end of the day thats what they are saying

sigh

a paranoid person could see it as a dig at BF for sure

ooooops

Actually...although they have twisted it, the breastmilk thing might be correct if you think about it.

WHO class formula as a complementary food. Therefore their 'rules' are to 'practise exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months'.

By suggesting the WHO rules do not apply...they are technically assuming people will be breastfeeding ...and therefore breastmilk may not be enough.

Does that make any sense?

However the media jumped on that and made out that it was breastmilk not being good enough etc etc.

You also have the issues of gluten etc and whether that needs to be introduced...but that isn't to do with either BF or FF.