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.

sorry missed a word out decided should be before 100% - maybe I am not so intelligent after all - maybe because I was bottle fed?

Oh 23balloons - you are falling into the 'my children are fine so it's all nonsense" trap - we are looking at a population level here.

Are you agreeing with the OP MrsH?

What about the intelligence of the father..... ,

Absolutely agree with 5DollarShake - the government & NHS have nothing to gain from promoting breastfeeding, other than reduced hospital admissions, and improved health for the population, and therefore lower cost burden on the NHS.

Perseverance beyond 6 weeks generally is the key to establishing breastfeeding - and it is a revelation once it falls into place. It's such a shame that many mums don't get the support they need to get this far.

Yes there are cases where some mothers cannot physically breastfeed - but these are proven to be only around 1% overall. Statistics show that around 50% of women are not breastfeeding by 6 weeks - the vast majority of these will have no medical reason for not being able to breastfeed - simply that they will have not been able to establish it - most likely through lack of support or real desire to succeed with it.

I do not consider myself to be one of the "boobygang" but truly believe that breastfeeding should be the norm in this country - something that we are way off with, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that the vast majority of people FF, and persuade others that it is as good as BF - it's not.

I think that bf is more the norm than you think nowadays ..I know many mothers that bf without making a song and dance about it ..thats making it the norm, not forever banging on about evil formula

Actually my stats come from quarter 3, 2009 - NHS. They are the latest available. Unless things have improved hugely since then, I would say it's still unlikely to be the norm.

usual, the initial rates are higher but the drop off is still pretty big and a large percentage of those women gave up before they wanted to. FWIW people only tend to start 'banging on' about formula when people come along and say things along the lines of 'it doesn't make that much difference' etc which is undermining bf and people feel the need to correct that to prevent the spread of misinformation.

Oh I meant to add that of those 50% who are still BF at 6 weeks - not all are exclusive. They are the rates to include exclusive & mixed feeding.

It's quite shocking isn't it MaryT? I find it very sad that 70-something % (must check infant feeding survey!) of mothers who stopped bf before 6 months said that they would like to have fed for longer. We are really letting those women (and their babies) down.

No I don't agree the bf I know don't make it their mission to educate the thick ff ...they just do it iyswim, thats what makes it normal ..no fuss .no judging

Well in RL people would probably be a bit more tactful and not be as inclined to correct you at the risk of offending you tbh.

You don't know what they're up to on Mumsnet though usualsuspect! I would never 'bang on' about this in RL but have been drawn into this debate! I'm probably saying what a lot of BF mums think deep down, otherwise why would they bother doing it?

Quite MaryT - I've actually had to bite my tongue a few times because of some of the things ff are saying about bf - not the other way around!

In RL that is!

Good posts Mary and totally right about the fact it takes time to establish etc - you said everything so well

Nope not having that ..you want it normal in RL stfu about how superior you are and just get on with it

You are not in the least bit supportive

Well thankfully thesecondcoming I hold everything you say in complete disregard and think you can definitely apply the word you love to dih out to everyone else to yourself and I will happily keeps disregarding you in the future

Why thank you MissyKLo

TBH I was embarrassed to admit to my friends in RL that I was still BFing at 9 months - in case they thought I was some sort of lentil weaving hippy (no offence to the lentil weaving hippes BTW!) :o

usualsuspect it's got nothing to do with feeling superior - just that I feel passionately that BF should be the norm. I'm not prepared to say any of this stuff to my non BF friends though as I care about my friendships with them, - but to strangers on the internet who spread incorrect info about, I couldn't give a toss what they think of me!

Usual - it's got nothing to do with being superior and everything to do with stopping people spreading misinformation. In RL I just get on with it, here, I am not just going to keep my mouth shut when someone says something to undermine bf.

This is in a completely different situation to being supportive btw - have a look at the Feeding board if you want to see the amount of support and encouragement that people get from the same people who are arguing with you here.

mary-have you read the thread?it was a bf (possibly a troll) who started this by posting some extremely offensive and inaccurate remarks followed by others and even the posting of a photo of a dead baby-admitedly she has apologised for that-people who have had no choice but to ff then became defensive as im sure you would if it was aimed at your parenting,nobody ever disagreed that breast milk is the best for a human baby, merely that with or without extensive support and perserverence they felt they could not continue to do so and that they di not appreciate people saying that made them of their babies less intelligent or more likely to die of an horrific disease.
Can i remind you all we are all women,with acommon goal,to bring up our children as best as we can in our individual circumstances.
Goodnight all,my ff baby wakes up far too much for me to still be here,i will regret it tomorrow.

Yes I've read the thread, and the OP was actually saying she believed intelligence was nothing to do with breastmilk. I don't agree with the posting of the pictures, but I also do not agree that people should pressurise breastfeeding mothers to give formula instead of giving them the support they need. And because FF is the norm in this country, that seems to be what happens more often than not. Anyway, I am off to bed now too!

goodnight all!