To think breast fed babies are more intellegent

[thecatamongthepidgeons]

Because their parents tend to be more intellegent not because they were breast fed?
More intellegent parents are more likely to choose to breast feed regardless of any dificulties they face if they think it will benefit their children.

"why are you unable to accept that on balance breast milk is just breastmilk..."

Errr, she does!

So does everyone else!

"and if other people don't\can't breastfeed their babies (or even if they just don't want to) you coming on every thread and using emotive language ie inferior milk,fake milk"

Don't know where this sentence was going.

Was it to say that it doesn't matter if no babies are breastfed, or that women who want to breastfeed can't because of poor care and advice?

If you could wind down the vitriol - can you not accept that some people have strong feelings about this as an important child health issue, and don't see it primarily as being about a mother's lifestyle choices? And that this doesn't make them an extremist or unreasonable?

oh dear. can't be arsed to read 24 pages. i was bf i am quite clever but dh was ff and is a member of mensa

Each page is pretty much the same after the first few. Going round in circles somewhat with a few giggles thrown in. P'raps someone here knits lasange....

I have finally, somewhat late in the day, looked at the pic that Ruby linked to - and it says absolutely nothing of any value to a western woman who formula feeds.

The points that the photo is making are:

It is dreadful that the woman was advised not to feed her daughter because sons are more important than daughters, so he 'deserved' the breastmilk more, and those advising her didn't know she could make enough milk for both.

Having had this poor advice, the reason that her formula fed baby died was due to poor hygiene/lack of sterilisation leading to disease and/or the high cost of formula leading to the formula being over-diluted so the baby doesn't get the proper amount of nourishment.

This is basically a gender discrimination issue, not an 'Evils of Formula' issue.

Formula milk is safe if properly prepared in hygienic conditions, and the vast majority of households in this country are capable of providing those conditions. Families on lower incomes can also get milk tokens to use to offset the cost of the formula milk.

So the two major issues highlighted by that picture have little or no relevance in an advanced or western nation.

I take my hat off to ladies that have BF'd I didn't with my DC's who are now 11 and 9, I hadn't made up my mind about it when I went to have first, and then when it ended up an EMCS I was annoyed with myself and as I had no-body to support me or help me I took the easy way out and Bottle fed.
My DSiL had her children at the same time as me, and BF'd. Of our children, mine are definately more intellegent, So yes in my case YABU.

someone intelligent wouldn't make grossly inaccurate statements

so thecatamongthepidgeon you are/were obviously bottle-fed and bit fick too

"i don't 'like' anyone with a single interest"

I have plenty of interests, but this thread is about breastfeeding. So we're discussing breastfeeding.

"i believe that when someone has stopped (or not started) breastfeeding then that boat has sailed,what the FUCK is the point of the dead baby pics and the language used. do you think people who are no longer feeding will attempt relactation just because a bunch of loons on the internet shout loudest...really. you do yourselves no favours"

Nobody is trying to persuade anyone to relactate on this thread. You know that.

Ruby and others were challenging arguments made by you and others here about the value (or otherwise) of breastfeeding.

Can you not find a point in my posts or anyone else's to construct a reasonable argument against?

Why do you have to keep making things up and then being really aggressive about them?

Anyway, do continue. I'm thinking of writing an essay on women's discourses on infant feeding.

There's a really interesting dynamic here:
on the breastfeeding advocacy side we've got pedantry, a distinct lack of humour, a bit of self-righteousness and mild moralising.

On the other side accusations of facism and cruelty, self-pity and self-justification, competitive suffering, aggression, vitriol, name-calling, and lots and lots of straw man arguments.

Very impressive.

StayingDavidTennantsGirl - I respect your view that you believe formula is safe. But I hope you understand that those of us who have seen evidence of significantly higher rates of hospital admissions for babies in this country who aren't being breastfed don't agree with you, and it's nothing to do with being judgemental or unkind, it's simply down to our understanding of the facts surrounding the issue. And also what we understand by the word 'safe'. I feel the safest food for babies is that which is least likely to make them ill, and as far as I and many people are concerned, that's breastmilk.

"Families on lower incomes can also get milk tokens to use to offset the cost of the formula milk"

Yes - women in this country can afford to buy formula. But the poorest women in this country are also most likely to have the sickest babies. Mostly that'll be down to poor housing and smoking, but some of it will be down to the fact that the poorest mothers in this country also have the lowest rates of breastfeeding.

As for the 'If you make it up safely you have nothing to worry about' - well, perhaps, in theory. But the reality is that parents do, regularly, get this wrong. I know they shouldn't, but they do. Even when they're well intentioned. As parents we want to do everything right but sometimes we fuck things up. Especially when our babies are tiny and feeding very frequently and we've had no sleep. And babies do get sick from drinking formula which hasn't been prepared and stored properly.

Just read the OP again....

...not very "intellegent"

spudulika hospitalised for what exactly? And on what evidence is this statement based?

...and BF babies get ill from mothers who drink or use drugs and then BF...there is no one single right answer. And to claim otherwise is naive at best.

"..and BF babies get ill from mothers who drink or use drugs and then BF...there is no one single right answer. And to claim otherwise is naive at best".

Drug using/alcoholic mothers are usually advised not to breastfeed. But they are a very small exception.

The VAST majority of babies in the UK are bottlefed - partially or wholly.

"hospitalised for what exactly? And on what evidence is this statement based?"

Respitory infections and gastric illness.

The evidence is based on a range of studies and is referred to in recent public health information about infant feeding published by the NHS, and the Royal College of Midwives.

You can look at a range of abstracts on the UNICEF site.

here

Would also like to point out that FSIDS are now publishing information for parents which points out that breastfeeding helps reduce the risk of cot-death.

Not sure if I should bother but here I go.

I could bloody cry at this thread and the hundreds and hundreds like it all across the internet.

I have BF four of my five children. I dont feel superior and I dont judge those who FF.
I have never been turfed out of anywhere for BF in public and I have never been tutted at for FF DS2. I didnt have any difficulties BF DCs 2,4 &5. DC1 was agony for about 3 weeks but I got through it - just.
I think there should be more information (accessible) regarding FF.
I think women should stop labelling each other with nasty, emotive terms which were probably made up by some male journo anyway.
I wish people would stop imagining that BF women look down on FF women. Its very boring, I dont care.
Most of all I wish people would stop sterotyping working class women. We DO BF and we just dont make a fucking big deal about it.

I am sure none of the above is mind blowingly original but I have been watching this ridiculous thread for days and I needed to put my two pennourth in.

Me = bottle fed. My IQ = 139!

[smug emoticon]

Why do people feel so strongly about this issue? ]

Why do some feel the need to tell others what to do and then call them names if they disagree?

I hate threads like this. I'm off.

"there is no one single right answer"

It's quite simple to say that breastfeeding is the safest nutrition for babies, when the mother is able to breastfeed and where there are no contraindications to breastfeeding such as HIV infection or alcoholism present.

Again I find myself shakin my head at the amount of people who continually try to play down the benefits of bf

It is very true that ff babie are more likely to be admitted to hospital as someon stated above and ff babies do get more ill - I see It all the time

There has been some articles in the paper about studies done on the intelligence thing and the studies supported this theory - just sayin that is what it says!

"Me = bottle fed. My IQ = 139!

[smug emoticon]"

But if you'd been breastfed you might have written

Me = breastfed. My IQ = 145. (given that bf may confer up to six points to IQ)

followed by

[even smugger emoticon]

at Spudulika

that dead baby photo - its not actually dead though, she died a few days later - is an absolute fucking diabolical tragedy. yes it was fed formula because of religion or what have you but the point is this: that baby missed out on something that was rightfully hers AND FOR NO GOOD REASON. so it is not the same as women being UNABLE to breastfeed for whatever reason as we have heard about on this thread, but there are parallels (whether you can see them or not) to the hundreds of cases of breastfeeding mothers and babies in this country that are given shit advice that prevent them doing what should be an absolute right, like that mother in that photo, and in some cases that advice does cause illness and unhappiness where breastfeeding wouldn't have done, like that mother and baby in the photo, although perhaps not to such an extent.

yes it is a shocking photo. and yes it was an angry post in response to some twit going on about how breastfeeding is 'inconsequential'.

sorry, perhaps should have spelled it out before

I saw those MissyKLo

here

Lol @Spudulike

Round and round and round. I do wonder though, as that delightful picture and accompanying article are TWENTY years old, whether this is still very much the case?????

Or am I being a tesky pedant?

TheSecondComing the fact that you keep saying that some people are expecting you to relactate suggests that you are not remotely engaged with this debate really.

and the trandems - are they tandem feeders because you are being quite rude about them too?!