to think that the formula companies are succeeding with their campaign to promote formula to be as good as breast milk...

[MissyKLo]

...when it isn't?

this article rang true in so many ways

www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2010/10/how-breast-is-best-came-to-be.html

Breast milk is of course, full of amazing antibodies and nourishment etc that formula can never replicate - but the formula companies are winning in their campaign to make people believe that formula is as good as breast milk aren't they? A lot of people don't see bf as a big deal and that babies are 'perfectly fine' on formula. But what about all the benefits of breast milk and the fact that so many babies don't ever get these?

Breast milk cannot be beaten on so many levels so why are the formula companies allowed to get away with this?!!!!!!

that bm doesn't have protective antibodies ?

than bf ..sigh

The BFers will love this one. I live in North America, after having my 2DS in the UK I have just had a DD over here. There is no newborn formula advertising in the UK at all and no info on bottle feeding as I remember.

Anyway, I go to purchase a nursing bra at a big chain maternity store here and get asked if I want to fill out a form to be entered into a prize draw, then two weeks before my due date I recieve a big box through the post containing a Nestle branded changing bag, a tin of Nestle Good Start formula and a Nuk bottle, now if thats not undermining breastfeeding I don't know what is.

But I am confident in my decisions, DD is now 11 weeks old and I gave up BF at 8 weeks, I simply could not keep up with the boys and sit breastfeeding for hours, that was my decision and i'll be damned if any one is going to make me feel guilty about it. Lets give individual women some credit to make the right decision for them.

No increased obesity rates are due to the amount of fat and crap children eat these days and a sedentary lifestyle-fact.

You could exclusively bf your child for 6 months but if you wean it onto a crappy high fat diet with little exercise it will be overweight,probably obese.

clinkers- really? So someone who has antibodies to fight off a disease is not better off than someone who doesn't? The person without the antibodies is not at greater risk? Really?

Clinkers I feel for you bubbleyummy just doesn't understand.

I haven't actually got a clue what you are arguing
No, I can see that.Never mind. Back to the OP

well someone, please explain it to me then :) I would love to know what it is that you are actually arguing against :)

Its not so much that formula carries risk.

Its that not breastfeeding does.

Or more to the point, that BF conveys benefits and protection

Breastfeeding is the biological norm.

You can't say that breastfed babies have 'extra' protection from breastmilk unless you accept that formula feeding is the norm against which you're comparing it.

Medical comparisons don't use the social norm as the base against which to measure the efficacy of an intervention, they use the physiological norm.

Breastfeeding is not 'best' or 'the gold standard' - it's just the biologically normal way to feed a baby.

If formula feeding doesn't measure up to this basic standard then it's fair enough to call it 'deficient' or 'incomplete'.

In some cases the harm it causes is measurable (such as in higher blood pressure and arterial stiffness in adolescents ff as babies), but usually it isn't. This is true for many things - not just infant feeding.

There are dozens of children running around in every school playground who appear to be completely healthy who are being fed diabolical diets at home, full of salt, fat and sugar and lacking in fresh fruit and vegetables. Just because we can't see how these things affect individual children doesn't mean they don't.

I personally can't understand how adults can accept the logic of this in relation to other aspects of children's diets and refuse to acknowledge this reasoning in relation to infant feeding.

And along came..............

doesn't bf play an important role in affording protection (due to maternal antibodies) to infants who are not yet vaccinated?

You cannot say formula feeding is harmful, it is an incorrect statement. It is less beneficial than BF but it is not harmful.

"Its not so much that formula carries risk"

No - it does carry risks. Your baby is more likely to be admitted to hospital with respitory and intestinal illness in the first year if you ff. That's because your child isn't being fed a physiologically normal diet.

Ok - I see what is going on - you are looking at it from the "breastfeeding has benefits" pov rather than the 'breastfeeding is the normal standard' pov :)

Cleo - you are expressing yourself much better than I can with a squirmy toddler on my knee :)

"No - it does carry risks. Your baby is more likely to be admitted to hospital with respitory and intestinal illness in the first year if you ff. That's because your child isn't being fed a physiologically normal diet"

You've contradicted yourself a bit there - its not formula feeding that is providing the risk, its not breastfeeding

See what I'm trying to say?

Because they are not being fed a physiologically normal diet. But not specifically because they are being fed formula.

You could say the same if they were being fed spaghetti bolognaise.

But back to the OP then, if formula companies are not, in fact, claiming to be as good as breastmilk, what is the problem? They are claiming to be the next best thing if you decide not to breastfeed for whatever reason, but surely that is true?

No wonder women feel guilty when they CAN'T BF you're saying they are harming their babies by feeding them formula. This is exactly the kind of wording that makes people feel terrible when often they had no choice.

They are not harming their babies they are just not giving them as many antibodies as if they were BF!

"arent their some health problems associated with bf though"

Not really!?

ellangirl , I already tried. They are determined to have the same old catfight again...