Aibu? to be pissed off at this: "The cost and social implications of using an infant milk should be considered when deciding how to feed your baby."

[Selyna]

WTF do Hipp mean by social implications?

Both methods of feeding a baby are acceptable so fuck off with the whole acting like ff is poison! my dd is perfectly fine but i hate this constant making me feel like a failure because i failed to bf although i tried so so hard!

has anyone actually said that on that thread

The people who become obese and go on to have diabetes face huge social implications due to disability .....maybe that's what is meant.

I'm guessingyou're going to be told there's no link and it's just common sense that it's less to do with infant feeding and mre to do with weaning

Only 35% of women ebf after 1 week theres going to be a lot of overweight diabetics about

i repeat, increased risk does not = certainty

and there are a lot of obese adults and children, yes

but almost half of women are still breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks

There are and the number is rising.....

Just pointing out that in areas of higher FF, you see higher incidences of chronic illness already, it's happening now. That is why the government wants people to breastfeed. (Although goes about it in perhaps the wrong way)

I will never understand (having FF myself) why parents who FF get so het up and defensive about it. Considering that at 6 months only around 1% of babies are EBF, where are all these supposed judgey formula hating EBF 'nazis' coming from?

I also find it bizarre that formula companies advertise absolutely everywhere, but no one sees that as 'pushy'. Yet try and promote breastfeeding and it's immediately seen that way.

I would like to see a total ban on the advertising of formula. All it does is normalise FF and for some reason BF is seen as something special when really it's just the biologically normal way to feed a baby. It shouldn't even be a choice, let alone some sort of equal one. I don't mean that women shouldn't have a choice as to how to feed their baby, but we should assume we will breastfeed unless there is some specific reason not to, not be choosing out of two methods as if they are somehow equal.

Whatmeworry - I think your argument about the cost of calories seems to be forgetting that the vast majority of people in this country eat more calories than are required on a daily basis anyway, hence the obesity crisis we keep hearing about on the news. For the vast majority of people there is no real need to be adding a load of extra calories above what they normally eat. Not forgetting that most women have an ample reserve of fat deposits left over from pregnancy which the body has laid down in preparation for feeding. You say that 24 pounds of extra fat is required for the first six months of breastfeeding, I think most women have at least over a stone, if not 2 to lose after giving birth.

Following on from this, I would have thought that women's health in general must be being adversely affected by the extra fat that is not being used for feeding, and the resultant number of women who may find that several years down the line they still haven't lost the 'baby weight'.

bf/ff totally mothers choice

i mainly bf but did use formula too so in no way do i think its 'poison'
the only thing i will say though is that its definately not the same as bm.

Bm changes all the time in direct correlation to what the baby needs (eg in v hot weather bm changes to quench thirst and keep hydrated whereas iff you may need to offer cooled boiled water too)

bf babies cannot be overfed whereas ff can. most people want their baby to finish the whole bottle cos otherwise they 'might not hav had enough' (i put my hand up to this) bf babies will just turn away when they dont want anymore

formula is not 'poison' however it can easily be made up wrong which 'could' end up making baby ill.(lots of people make it up withe boiled water that has been left to go cold before mixing with powder when in reality you are supposed to make it up with water that is warmer than 70 c but not boiling in order to kill off any bugs that are in the powder. And this is supposed to be done every feed in order to reduce the risk of those bugs making baby ill but in reality most people make up bottles in advance)

i was very lucky in that bf was fairly easy first time around (although was hellish with ds2 but i was determined to keep going)

bf/ff its up to you, but there needs to be support for both,
mothers should be just supporting each other regardless of how they are feeding cos those first few months are tough, why do we all insist on competing with eah other

Ah now I was just getting cross as it seemed a positive for ff

Dad can feed baby
You can feed anytime without 'offending' people with your norks
Ff babies get to be held by more people making them more sociable etc

I think I'm right tbh, otherwise they'd go on about 'health' benefits

just to add that with ds2 i was convinced he wasn't 'getting enough' cos iwas giving him 1 bottle a day and even by 4 months he would still only take 3-4 oz . because i could see how much he was taking that freaked me out that he wasnt getting enough whereas if i was just ebf i wouldnt have worried so0 much as he was weeing/pooing nicely etc. He was just a little and often baby whereas My 1st was a guzzler!

I had a similar experience, though with bf. DS used to feed for hours and hours and hours (and hours). Feeds blended into one another, there was little time when he was awake and not feeding. He always fed to sleep, until about 16 months, so I never 'stopped' feeding him, other than putting him down fast asleep.
The I had DD. A few days in I was feeding her and after 20 mins she just stopped. I tried everything toget her to latch back on but she just refused. Then it dawned on me...she's fine, she's just finished her feed!!

Problem solved, you're all fabulous, well done. can we all be nice now?

my medal's too SHINEYYYYYYYYY

Can anyone tell me a single 'social implication' of formula feeding?

I think BFing is wonderful for those who can do it and want to do it, but OP I am completely with you in saying a huge FUCK OFF on this one.

gives round of applause to Midori!

that's what we're trying to figure out Hilly - whether it refers to the health implications or the environmental issues

Well health implications are fairly straightforward - they are just that - health implications. Not social ones. And environmental issues are an entirely different thing as well.

Yes, I was wondering if the social implications related to the social aspects of disability resulting from chronic health problems such as obesity and diabetes or just the social aspect of being obese eg// reduced ability to join in certain activities.

Yes that's what I thought - social implications seems a odd way to phrase it.
As someone else mentioned though, I doubt it was dashed off in a moment they must have planned it to be exactly as it is - just wish I could figure it out

I hope they are not trying to suggest that as babies from lowe socio-economic groups are more likely to be FF and also more likely to end up in prison or obese or achieving poorly in school and the workplace that FF is somehow directly responsible for that, and if you BF your child then all those issues related to deprivation will somehow magically evaporate? If they are then they need a lesson in causation v. correlation.

Sounds like they're just stating the obvious to me? there are cost implications with ff- formula, bottles, sterilisers etc, and there are social implications with ff- having to make up feeds and take milk when out and about, being able to share feeds etc... Certainly doesn't sound like a dig at ff mums!

FF is linked with obesity.

Utterly disagree Midori. If you want to see an example of the bf 'nazis', look at the link I posted up thread about La Leche League.

I have no issue with people promoting bf, at all. I do take issue with them making other people feel like they doing something wrong. It's perfectly fine to advertise your product - it's a free country. Unfortunately organisations like LLL don't recognise freedom, when censoring images they personally don't like.

I think it's fine to normalise ff, so long as one doesn't promote the view that it is better than bf - where is the value in making someone feel like a pariah for doing something which isn't wrong or harmful, but is, in the views of many, a valid choice and often selected for very good reasons?