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.

Hmmm funny they look pretty miniscule to me.

The vast amount of posting,quoting,trawling for stats,over inflating etc is what makes people like yourselves Spud,Ruby and yes you Bubbly look obsessional.If you search enough you can find stats to back up anything.We can all do it but most sane people just can't be arsed.

I repeat again most people use common sense ,a bit of perspective and make choices based on their own circumstances and kids. Due to this mums in this country who use formula find it a great alternative to bm and have very little to worry about.

ruby and spud I think you are both doing a great job of trying to give out some interesting factual information and I am gobsmacked at some of the responses.

While I wont and cannot be bothered to start picking out names, I do think it is particularly disappointing that because someones posting style it encourages other posters to negate the facts of their posts.

BF has many many great advantages over FF, that is a fact and while there are many on going studies to try and map those findings, the advice from WHO, RCM, NHS and so on cannot and should not be ignored.

For all those who have shared their "my ff fed baby is smart, not been seriously ill" stories, as great as that is for you individually it is a population level where the overall benefits of BF are greatest.

Out of interest if a pregnant friend asked any of you how they should feed their baby, what would you tell them? What would be your honest answer?

i think mine would be along the lines of "If you can, you should try and BF, and get all the support you need to do that, and if you can't you should give them the next best thing, formula."

By your logic ie pounce on and over inflate every "study" you find, just putting your kids in nursery is instant doom,not providing enough sleep ditto etc,etc.

Hmmmm Ongak I think if you read the thread you'll see nobody is disputing that bf is preferable.

What the majority of posters oject to is the predictable scaremongering,stat twisting and over inflating of stats.

milamae I have read and been on the thread from the start and it is really sad that people get their teeth into how people say things rather than what.

I would not call it stat twisting, it is interpretation and critical thinking.

Sorry, I had read that you were disputing the benefits of BF. At least to my reading you find Bf and safe FF to be one and the same with no risks to the baby?

Like you say you have a brian and this is not a police stat so you can do as you please. We are fortunate to live in a country with good access to clean water and the NHS.

Out of interest what would be your response to a pregnant friend?

'You find one study which proves that infant feeding choices have no impact on cognitive development, and I'll find one which says it does'

'You have been provided with facts and figures over and over again'

• Research is open to interpretation on BOTH sides, what we need is a sub-division of this to work out how rational the interpretation is!

Can we not find some middle ground?
I hope that my breasting helped my DD in some small way (its right at the beginning of this thread) and I would never say otherwise. But having to give her formula was not only 'better than starvation', she thrived on it.

My response to a pregnant friend would be to do whatever was best for her and her family. That is my honest answer. I certainly wouldn't try and push the whole 'entire population' thing onto her.
If you think Ruby with her pictures of dead babies has 'done a great job' on this thread ongakgak then I already don't agree with you.

i wasnt going to bother with this thread but i am moved to new levels of fucking anger at the breast cancer comments.
I had breast cancer at 27 after breast feeding all 3 of my dcs,i had no family history and had to have my breasts both removed to prevent a recurrance.
I now do lots of voluntary work for bcc and i will be checking to see but i do not think there i a link to bc for non bf babies,i was bf for over a yr,bf is meant to offer the feeder a small amount of protection.
My dd's will be high risk due to early onset and i could not feed them as had no boobs.
To make sweeping statements like that is unforgivable and illustrates why you should keep your scare mongering to yourself.There is fuck all a person can do if they are like me and i will be worried enough about them getting it without feeling shit i couldnt feed them to stop it.
Would you tell a pregnant woman about the risk of miscarriage for example.Go and sit and breast feed untill you are sucked dry but shut the fuck up about stuff you know nothing about.

My response would be try to bf(if it works there will be situations you'll be grateful that it does ie in the middle of the night) but if it doesn't work out just enjoy your baby and feed it.

Out of interest.For my healthy babies who have a mother scrupulous at preparing bottles the correct way,who interacts well and gives her kids a healthy diet and lifestyle what exactly are the huge risks to my children posed by formula that I should loose sleep about.

I would always say give breast feeding a go first, if it?s right for them, no one on this thread has said other wise

They are very small reductions in risks as far as I can see MilaMae. Doesn't mean they aren't there but it does mean no sleep should be lost.

Also do your kids watch TV?

Countless studies have indicated areas of concern yet the vast majority of us wouldn't dream of banning it completely.

I don't get why some studies in child rearing we are expected to treat rationally and with restraint yet others we're supposed to blow up out of all proportion and worry over.

pomme I think ruby apologised for that and if you had read the thread you would have seen quite a few pages ago I was one of the many who said that picture was a mistake. Is it possible that you are able to move on from that? The benefits of BF are there and are in all the ante natal literature for all to see and read. I would not "push" anything on a pregnant friend either, you can see from my slightly earlier post what I would say. I agree with you, it should be the best thing for that family.

mila you are massively missing the point, and it isn't worth my time engaging with you to discuss that. You fed your child safely and well. No ill effects. That is great. There is no argument there, you are stating a non-issue.

I'd prefer my dc to eat vast quantities of greens given the benefits,I tried but they don't.

BF is the same.It has benefits so I gave it a go, it being the optimum baby food,it didn't work out. Not going to waste any sleep about in in the same way I don't over one of my dc eating zero greens.He eats plenty of other veg and healthy stuff,leads a healthy life etc etc.

He's got a loooooong childhood to get through bm is one of many ideals he won't take up.

Milamae - no matter how carefully you make up your bottles ff babies are at greater risk of certain illnesses than bf babies - illnesses that have nothing to do with the bacteria in formula eg respiratory tract infections.

Milamae, I think this is part of your problem, you see bf as 'having benefits' and 'an ideal' - it is not. It is the biologically normal way of feeding a baby. This fact always seems to offend people who couldn't bf but we can't just dodge the facts to keep everyone happy.

In a non smoking family without previous history how much bigger is the risk out of a 1000 babies?

Oh goodness - do we have to do this one AGAIN! Milamae - the controls allow for things like smoking to be taken into consideration.

OP

You are most certainly unreasonable. I am highly intelligent (as in got into Mensa) and my kids were bottle fed (because I wanted to bottle feed) and are both also very intelligent.

Bubbley, that really is the biggest load of hogwash i have read!!!

Yes, its natural, but when we didn't have formula and mums couldn't feed them, then the babies died. thats 'natural' is it???

Milamae is entirely right, its an ideal and has huge benefits. What is wrong with this very simple statement?

When have I said it isn't the biological norm?

Interesting point though given my twins were ICSI/IVF and frozen for a year,about as far from the biological norm as you can get.

Every thing you do in life isn't going to be the biological norm. Not being the biological norm doesn't make anything bad just because it isn't the way nature intended.

It's preferable to go down the natural route but as a species we often buck nature eg I give my kids Calpol when it's probably best to let them get over a bug naturally.

Bubbley

I was told that exclusively breast feed babies are more likely to suffer dehydration requiring a drip in hospital if breast feeding wasn't working than respiratory tract infections from formula.

(this is not the same as saying breast feeding causes dehydration)

Milamae from this study:

"27% of lower respiratory tract infection hospitalizations could have been prevented each month by exclusive breastfeeding and 25% by partial breastfeeding"

This is really unhealthy behaviour. Children fed, moved on. Do we need to rehash over it unless we are making decisions for a future child?

i apologised for my first post as it was emotional and not thoughtful in the least. sigh.

ledkr i am really sorry you feel so angry about the breast cancer comment. i was quoting jack newman as part of a response to milamae's no risks comment. sorry to have upset you