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!

"Society thought it would be 'a good thing' if women gave up any thought of gainful employment once married for the sake of their children" - and did the NHS, the WHO, the RCM, the RCPCH, the Indian Pediatric Academy, UNICEF and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all have policies on this, and urge governments to put measures in place to support it?

Utterly rubbish example......

I agree Still - why limit to health?

Babies are the one group who it is seen acceptable to feed a diet of freeze dried, reconstituted food for the convenience of those who care for them, and that this radical change in diet was introduced without any evidence that it would have no bearing on health in the medium or long term.

I think babies, like everyone else, deserve the pleasure of freshest, safest food, and that means breastmilk.

I think in genersl the bf mums are mc so do eat the freshest,safest foid whereas the bf mums i know are.mainly eating iceland stuff or other very cheap food. i wonder if it makes a difference but i expect it has never been researched

For the convenience for those that feed them shagmund? I think it's rarely true that a mother chosen to ff because they cannot be arsed to bf. it's comments like this that really get my back up.

Not just the RCM, RCPCH, NHS, Shagmund, but the WHO, UNICEF, NGOs the world over, the Indian Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of Pediatrics, the Australian one, the Canadian one, the NZ one, all other health services and relevant professional bodies worldwide (at least, I have never heard of one that does not expressly mention breastfeeding as something that deserves support and protection - the ones I mention are just ones where I have read what they say )....it's an amazing, worldwide conspiracy of people and organisations who know the truth but are too scared to say it!

There is a hige difference betwen WHO, UNICEF, India et al who are funadmentally trying to solve developing/3rd world child health, there breastfeeding absolutely is the best option as the mother's immune system is used to santisise the mil.

Where the resaercvh does not support BF as a major benefiot is in the west. Quite why all these countries jumped onto it I don't know but I suspect for a starter many of the smaller ones followed the lead of the larger ones without asking too many questions.

Which brings us to why the larger countries decided on a policy not supported by evidenec - I really don't know, but it won't be the fisrst time a fad starts in medicine or in many other areas, and then takes on a life of its own.

The whole Bresat is Best thing grew out of the 60's hippy/back to nature movements in teh 6-0's so I isuspect it was popular/fashionable among MC progressive mothers (who tend to be trend leaders) long before any data actually came along.

Actually, for a start, many mothers start out desiring to breastfeed, for personal convenience, and switch to formula, out of genuine concern for the health and wellbeing of their baby! Many women end up convinced that growth spurts represent a permanent low milk supply. That's ONE example. Shagmund, I think that was awfully unkind, below-the-belt and inaccurate thing to say.

Stillor seeing you post that Nazi Germany was an emotive example made me really happy!

whatme, NCT is not back pedalling....It has always been thus, actually.

Hey, argue with them,, they're the ones who made a big splash about teh change in direction. Unless you sectretly know they didn't really mean it?

Discussing the sibling study is not very productive - you are still misrepresenting it, BTW, and focussing on one aspect which is not very relevant - and ignores the fact that overwhelmingly the research supports a public health position that enables more and longer breastfeeding.

Focus on one aspect not helpful? That'll be the one aspect - the main finding of the reiport in fact - that showed that there was at best no benefit to BF in 14 out of 15 things tested for? This study does not "support a public health position that enables more and longer breastfeeding", it flatly contradicts it.

Unfortunately for you its a later one, using sibling pairs to strip out confounding data so is probably pretty good as BF science goes.

Sounds to me more that this study is an inconvenient truth that you would prefer to ignore.

My answer is usually something like 'the research tells us that the best health outcomes are seen in breastfed babies, and we know this from looking at many thousands of babies across many studies. In any individual baby, no one can predict the effect, and most formula fed babies grow up well and healthy - formula has to be made to internationally-agreed standards, and as long as it's prepared correctly, is the only safe way of feeding a baby who isn't breastfed. If you use formula you need support and information to do this."

Whereas the correct answer would be that the studies in the west show is there is virtually no difference so feed your baby the best way for you and it.

Whatmeworry You do come across as having a personal chip on your shoulder about this issue. You began arguing that cost wise there wasn't an advantage to bf, which is utterly ridiculous. Based on your attempted argument to discredit a financial advantage to bf, I'm afraid I don't have much faith in your attempt to discredit all the research to support the health advantages of bf. Tiktok comes across as very professional and well educated in her field. Are you an expert in the field, or have you just attempted to find evidence to back up what you want to believe via google?

Some facts:

• NCT has done no reassessment of the evidence into the health effects of infant feeding. The 'change' is one of emphasis and explanation of what we actually do which is at it happens what mothers say they prefer - support to make bf a good experience and campaigning to make this possible (so better training for HCPs, removal of obstacles to bf anytime, anywhere, more positive attitudes and so on). evidence-based medicine/health care is a comparatively 'young' discipline (fostered by the Nazis, as it happens....) and the wider research into the health effects of an infant diet (as well as other factors) really only started in the 1940s (with the first cohort studies tracking infants into adulthood - there have been three more recent notable ones since then, Dundee, ALSPAC and the Millennium cohort study, all of which confirm health effects, all easily googlable); other research only really took off from the 1970s. So looking at social attitudes towards non-working mothers in the 1950s is not relevant to this debate - those views were not based on evidence of the health effects. That's why it is a rubbish* example.....if we are going to bring in social attitudes as an example of consensus then of course you have a wide territory - homosexuality, race, mental health. Point is, these attitudes are not based on god evidence or research. it is not true that studies in the west show 'virtually no difference' - I genuinely don't understand why you say this unless you have a personal reason; even the sib study you have cherry-picked does not say this, and instead says: "This study provides persuasive evidence of a causal connection between breastfeeding and intelligence." So this study supports a link - a causal* link between bf and intelligence - would that not be a good reason to support public health measures to protect breastfeeding?

Really still. I thought it was perfectly acceptable for posters to register their agreement or disagreement with things other posters have said . I did earlier in the thread challenge whatme on her argument about cost but she appeared to just ignore that, I can only assume that she didn't have an adequate response and so she moved on to challenge Tiktok on other research. And I do think it's a bit much for you to chastise me for what you call an unconstructive comment in support of one poster over another, when you don't add anything further than your support of one of the aforementioned posters .

I gained the impression from looking at info from the nct tiktok that they are happy to support all mothers in the area of feeding wether they are ff bf trying to bf, etc. would you say that was the case?

I think the bottom line is breast is best for marginal health reasons and a lower cost, but that formula prepared correctly is fine.

Also, health officials should probably spend more time and money addressing larger nutrition issues for children such as sugary and processed foods.

pickles, that is right - NCT start from a 'mother-centred' position, and recognise that dividing mothers into 'breastfeeders' and 'formula feeders' is not welcome, it's not helpful, and it's not even accurate (as the vast majority of mothers do both.

That's good to hear tiktok. I'm hoping to have another baby this year and I hope that I'll have a much better experience, and of course it will be a second so I will have a lot more confidence whatever happens.

Whatmeworry You do come across as having a personal chip on your shoulder about this issue. You began arguing that cost wise there wasn't an advantage to bf, which is utterly ridiculoushmm

It's hardly ridiculous. A baby needs about 500 calories a day, on average, You have to shovel those calories into the mother first or straight into the baby, you can't create energy from nothing, that's basic physics.

And those calories are not free, that's just basic economics. Whether you buy them as formula or as mother's food, it costs you. Nature has a way of making mothers take them on during pregnancy, but they still cost money.

The general rule of thumb in the UK is it costs about £1 per 500 calories for a balnced diet, so about £7 a week. A tin of formula lasts about a week, they are about £9. Do the maths.

You can choose cheaper ways to load up on the 500 calories (crisps and coke, toast and peanut butter) if you prefer, or more expensive (organic veggie diet)

This is very, very basic stuff that even a kid can work out - and yet by pointing it out I somehow have a chip on my shoulder?

Based on your attempted argument to discredit a financial advantage to bf, I'm afraid I don't have much faith in your attempt to discredit all the research to support the health advantages of bf. Tiktok comes across as very professional and well educated in her field. Are you an expert in the field, or have you just attempted to find evidence to back up what you want to believe via google?

Actually, I just read a paper tiktok pointed me too - and it showed her that it, far from casting a benevolent eye on BF as she thought it said, showed that - and I quote - "after taking sibling differences and estimating the within-family model, PVT score is the only outcome (out of 15 tested for) that remains significantly correlated with the duration of breastfeeding". It was pretty much at random.

The difference I think is that, as a statistician, I can actually read these papers and see what they are really saying.

whatme You already quoted all that upthread. You say that nature has a way of making mothers take on calories during pregnancy, but you have not acknowledged that this means that all mothers have already paid for these extra calories. Therefore if you go on to breastfeed you do not need to lay out any further expense, but if you formula feed those extra calories you've already paid for are not used for feeding, and you have to pay for formula. Therefore formula feeding is more expensive. Why can you not accept this??

Therefore if you go on to breastfeed you do not need to lay out any further expense, but if you formula feed those extra calories you've already paid for are not used for feeding, and you have to pay for formula. Therefore formula feeding is more expensive. Why can you not accept this??

Because the reason you are wrong is blindingly obvious, a kid of 10 could work it out - but not, it seems, determined to BF adults.

None so blind etc....

Well whatthecall, I think what me is making a lot of sense- frankly if you have nothing more constructive to add than "I agree with x and and not you" then I really cant see the point of posting at all

still i'm afraid i don't see the irony in this post. Do you mean that you were being sarcastic here or deliberately used words that would convey the opposite of what you mean? Could you explain it to me?

And by the way I don't think we did agree on 'the pointlessness of cheerleading other posters'. I believe I said that I didn't see anything wrong in posting in agreement with what a previous poster had said, which I don't (no irony here).

whatme could you explain why what i've said is wrong?

whatme could you explain why what i've said is wrong?

The FF mother doesn't need to spend the money feeding herself in the future, until she has got rid of all those stored extra calories.