to think that breastmilk should be sold in the supermarket?

[paranoid2android]

Wouldn't it make sense? Then every baby could benefit from breastmilk, even if their mums don't can't/don't want to breastfeed. Women could sell access breastmilk to 'farms' to stock the shops.It does strike me as being quite bizarre that we feed powdered milk from a cow to our children, that mothers sharing breastmilk would be seen as unusual.

Thanks Tricky, that's reassuring. I have to admit I was thinking about places like India where surrogates mothers appear to be quite a big business, and are I think exploiting those from the poorest communities. Given that those children are given up as tiny babies I could imagine that selling the breast milk of the mothers might be the logical next step.

What you describe seems to be much more altruistic, and therefore less likely to be open for exploitation.

I agree breastmilk should be more readily available - but then we get down to the breastfeeding rates themselves.
I would rather DS had donated milk, be it from another breast, or from a bottle, had I at any point been unable to feed him. The risks of formula are played down. But on a simple level - its from another species. Think we sometimes forget that formula is cows milk, not a magic powder.

MillyR Of course the mother's health matters...?

Just as much as a formula feeding mother's health matters!

The point I was trying to make is that you don't have to be extra careful about what you do and don't eat as a breastfeeder.

You said, "You have to be very careful with what you do and don't consume"

This just isn't true. And it makes breastfeeding seem like some unattainable ideal which only the most careful, stringent, going-without martyr-type person can do.

You can consume whatever you want - the same as any person, especially any post-natal person- trying to look after themselves.

If you do eat a crap diet out of your own choice, of course it won't be great for your own health, but it's your choice that you're willingly making. What it won't do is be detrimental to the baby. The baby will still get all the benefits and goodness of breast milk, regardless.

Can you not see the point I am trying to make? Did you read the link on Kellymom that I put in my post?

Bertie, I think your right, more effort should be used to help women to breastfeed rather than put breastmilk on the shelves of the supermarket. I started this thread on a bit of a mad 5 minute thought, and have been brought back down to earth by your comments!
It is sad that the formula industry has marketed the milk so well, that many think it is weird or 'crossing a line' to give a baby milk from another mother.
Although many of us wouldn't want the job of pumping to express milk, others would find it easy, and enjoy it.
And although it's a lot of effort expressing milk doesn't seem like the worst job in the world, some women would do it, at the least on a part time basis for extra cash. i think of many jobs that would be much worse.
And it's a misnomer that you have to have been pregnant in order to breastfeed. Dr Sears (founder of attachment parenting) and his wife Martha adopted a baby, and Martha was able to breastfeed her.

I did have a shocked sort of snort about mentioning mother's health.

I assume people are aware that not breastfeeding has some quite significant health risks for mothers too?
Increased breast cancer rates, increased ovarian cancer rates and increased risk of osteoporosis.The risks of breast cancer in non breastfeeding mothers is quite large too. About a third higher, IIRC.

Are you really at more risk of osteoporosis if you DON'T breastfeed?

I'd always rather assumed that as I'd been sharing my calcium with other people for 7+ years (9+ if you count pregnancies) I'd be at pretty high risk of it.

Interesting thought about adoption paranoid2android - I wonder if it would be possible to breastfeed an adopted older baby/ toddler even if you had never been pregnant? Actually, even if you had breastfed your own children - what would social services view on this be? And I wonder if breastfeeding would have any special benefit for a child who had been neglected/ damaged by it's birth parents?

I would definitely choose another woman's milk over formula and would rather supplement with wet nursing than with formula if needed, however, as has been mentioned there are very few women who can't breastfeed though some of course find it easier than others. There are women who find it very hard to express so that would limit the supply chain, I was exclusively breastfed for 6 months but my mum couldn't express anything.
Love the Ina May breastfeeding book too, been using it to swat up before my first baby arrives in the spring!

Yes countess, it is perfectly possible (and acceptable to social services as far as I understand to breastfeed an adopted child without ever being pregnant. Women can induce lactation by having a baby suckle regularly. It's covered in the Ina May book I think but was also on a cherry Healy documentary (bbc4, find it on iplayer) about breastfeeding, told lots of people's stories from adoptive parents to babysitters inducing lactation. Also about wet nursing communities here in Britain.

BBC3 sorry

Carlita - thanks, I will look on bbc 3 iplayer. Good luck with everything, it's so lovely when you get to put your new baby to your breast for the first time

SOIS, I studied breast feeding and diet as part of my MSc. Diet does actually make a difference to both the mother and the baby. It isn't comparable to the difference between the impact of formula feeding and breast feeding, so it isn't undermining breast feeding to be honest about it. Depending on the type of oil the mother is consuming, the extent to which long chain fatty acids are available for the baby will differ. Breast milk will always be preferable to formula in nutritional quality (although formula feeding may be preferable to the mother for other valid reasons), but there is a difference between the nutritional quality of the milk of different mothers. This is not a scientific controversy.

This was not the point of my original comment; I was not talking about the baby's health. The point of my original comment is that breast feeding is work and does require the mother to be careful about her own diet because she will have additional dietary needs when breastfeeding. It isn't martyrdom to breast feed but it is an additional stress (including a physical stress) that many women feel they cannot take on with good reason.

I breastfed my own daughter for over 2 years, but your posts to me make me understand what mothers who have formula fed mean by militant breast feeders. I don't post on breast feeding vs. formula feeding threads because of such misleading posts and aggressive posting styles.

"The point of my original comment is that breast feeding is work and does require the mother to be careful about her own diet because she will have additional dietary needs when breastfeeding."

She doesn't need to be 'careful'. It's not complex surely? We're not talking about a woman having to weigh her food, to make sure she's eating x amount of protein/carbs etc a day. She simply needs to eat a normal, reasonably balanced diet for an adult woman MOST of of the time.

Have to say, I love the idea of a cottage industry of lactating mothers. I think breastmilk is a super-food, and the lack of widespread breastfeeding is one of the biggest wasted opportunities for widespread improvement of childhood nutrition in human history.

I bet adults could be persuaded to consume it, if it was sold in those little pots like Yakult. Breastmilk is full of prebiotics.

It isn't martyrdom to breast feed but it is an additional stress (including a physical stress) that many women feel they cannot take on with good reason

I feel that the above statement does undermine breastfeeding MillyR - Having a baby is hard work (and can be stressful) but for me and many others breast feeding was NOT an "additional stress" or a "physical stress* - the opposite if anything - produced lots of lovely chilled out hormones and the weight dropped off me.

Regardless of how you feel about it, it is factually an additional physical stress. It uses up more energy than not breast feeding.

Energy that is stored in our bodies during pregnancy as extra fat.

MillyR - there is no significant difference in nutritional quality of breastmilk between women, but that is not to say breastmilk is always identical....constituents do indeed vary in particular the make-up of the fat in the milk, as you say.

I think the other poster was concerned that you said breastfeeding mothers have to be 'careful' about what they eat or drink or do, and as this is a pervasive and arguably off-putting myth/misunderstanding about bf, she corrected you. I think that's ok, isn't it?

What isn't ok is that you then came back and called her 'vile' and now you are calling her 'militant' and labelling her posting style as 'aggressive'....?????

Milly - believe me, I usually try to avoid these threads too. Occasionally I get sucked in.

I am genuinely surprised that you feel my posts were militant and aggressive. I have re-read them and don't think they were at all. Although of course, I wouldn't.

I just very strongly disagreed with what you said. You said, and I quote, 'you have to be very careful with what you do and don't consume'. Now you've changed that to 'breastfeeding being an additional stress.' That's really quite different.

And by additional stress, that might be as simple as eating a few extra calories and drinking a bit more water. Hardly much in the way of additional stress. Some women don't even need to do that, especially not longterm, once they have it well established.

I'm sorry - I do feel your original statement does undermine breastfeeding in the sense that it makes it seem like it will be harder work and more demanding and requiring of sacrifice than it actually is.

Thank you tiktok. :)

Possibly this is not within the thoughts of many of you because you are focussed on losing weight, weighing out food and gain weight in pregnancy, but women are not meant to gain a lot of weight during pregnancy. Most women do not put on enough weight in pregnancy to have enough calories to breast feed a child for a long period of time without further calorie intake above the norm for a non-breast feeding mother. It requires a higher calorie intake while breast feeding - about the same amount of calories as somebody doing a full time job involving heavy manual labour.

About 10% of the population of the UK are malnourished or at high risk of malnutrition, many will be obese and malnourished at the same time because they are deficient in micronutrients. I am sure many of you have a 'normal, healthy, balanced diet' but the UK is not known for its healthy approach to food.

I really can't be bothered to argue with people spouting misinformation.

titok, google it. There is difference in nutritional quality. Women on low fat diets replace LFC with MFC in breast milk.

I really am not going to post on this anymore. If people want to post factually incorrect statements on the internet, that's up to them.

Milly, while it's true that breastfeeding is an additional physical factor for a mother, in the real world (where we're all living:) ) you have to compare that to the physical factors of buying the formula, transporting it home, boiling the kettle, making the powder with the water, and (of course) feeding the baby with it. None of that is terribly arduous, but it does require activity and if you added it up, I cant see that it is less arduous than making and feeding breastmilk (when bf is going well).

When economists have compared bf and ff, they actually do make these calculations (there is a strand of economics which adds mothers' breastmilk/breastfeeding into the GDP of a country). They also add in the economics of addition illness to the baby where the baby is not bf, and the time off work for the mother who needs to care for him.

(NONE OF THIS IS TO CAST ASPERSIONS on mothers who ff - this is economics which does not take into account the very real and personal reasons why some individual babies and mothers use formula - as is their choice to do so!)

Milly - why not say 'sorry, when I said 'breastfeeding mothers have to be very careful with what they do and don't consume' I was wrong about that' ????

You're trying to change what you said into a debate about the precise type of fats in breastmilk.

I don't need to google this. I know the science of it. I know that fat type varies with the diet of the mother. I know that breastmilk is not identical between mothers.

This does not affect (significantly - meaning in terms of impact on infant growth and health) the quality of the breastmilk or the breastfeeding. Unless mothers are chronically undernourised (including before pregnancy) they do not need to worry about the quality of their breastmilk - still less be 'very careful with what they do and don't consume'.

breast feeding decreases bone mass, also breastfeeding women produce less oestrogen which also affects the bones, allthough this goes back to normal after weening, bf mothers should increase their intake of calcium.

And.....those chronically-undernourished mothers do indeed need support with their diets/incomes to enable them to be in good health, and yes, bf would be an additional stress for them - but ff would be even more of a stress for them because their periods would return ( = loss of iron) as would their fertility ( = risk of further pregnancy).

None of this is an issue in the West, though when it comes to breastmilk on the supermarket shelves, I would worry that the mothers selling their milk for this purpose would be third-world mothers already coping with poverty - and that would be an unfair, exploitative action.