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!

So you know exactly how down it can make you feel when someone says something insensitive so surely the best thing we can all do is shut up about what other women choose to do now?

My point is Jessie hasn't done that although some others did, and she has pulled them up on it too. So I think your both of the same opinion here.

Would just like to point out that people do pay for their use of the NHS and social care via taxation. It's only 'free' at the point of delivery. I'm not sure that ff should have to accept being lectured when they access a health service that they too, have paid for and have every right to utilise.

I would remove health warnings from formula. It is not a harmful product (even if it is not as good as bf) and just makes women feel bad, for a perfectly valid choice. You'd have to be living in a cave to not know the recommended course of action is to bf - there is no need to reinforce this once the decision has been made. If I was to put anything on the tin, it would just be a warning to make up the formula in accordance with the instructions.

Ah, pickles I was beginning to think some posts had never actually submitted, or I'd dreamt making them.

whatme has enjoyed a major sneer-a-thon in most posts. Despite being ill-informed about how breastfeeding works, what otitis media is, and a number of other points.

Nah, you just didn't like it that I proved you wrong - you aimed me at the papers, I read them and told you they didn't say what you thought they said, and - more to the point - I backed it up. Contrast that to your continual unsubstantiated assertion that BF has all these benefits.

And I said I hadn't a clue what Otitis Media was - which was why I looked up the paper referenced, and found - to no great surprise - that it contradicted the author's claim of any great benefit, as the data was a crock of shit.

It's very clear to anyone without a bias that the level of BF benefit is far less clear than the BF lobby would have you believ, and that the outcomes of FF vs BF are statistically irrelevant. THAT is what the research says, over and over again.

And as for your claim that there is some amazing thing that allows mothers to create more energy from nowhere when feeding a baby, I don't need to know anything about the mysteries of how breastfeeding works (assuming there are some) to know that is just patent woo-woo nonsense, you can't create energy from nothing - at least not in this universe.

Lambzig that's awful that you had people making comments and felt ashamed of having to FF :( And Midnight I know what you mean about the unspoken opinions too.

Breast can only be best if all other factors are equal or positive towards BF. There are certainly cases where FF is best, such as if the baby is losing too much weight on BF alone, or there are risky medications in the breastmilk, etc. etc.

Would just like to point out that people do pay for their use of the NHS and social care via taxation. It's only 'free' at the point of delivery. I'm not sure that ff should have to accept being lectured when they access a health service that they too, have paid for and have every right to utilise.

I agree - there needs to be a counter movement to pressure the NHS to give more impartial advice, it a "National" service not a "Middle Class Mummy" service.

And I think that the BF "research" needs to be vetted as rigoriusly as the baby formula manufacturers are.

And if they are going to make assertions of less risk/more benefit to BF to acually quantify it. There is a huge difference between asserting for eg the BF improves susceptibility to diarrhoea, and being shown the underlying data that in 1 study, 1 FF kid in 25 will have 1 more bout of it in a 6 month timespan, wheraes in 2 other studies no difference was noted. Etc etc.

Maybe now the NCT has backed down on Bresat is Best we will see the NHS pendulum swing back as well.

What I want (what I really, really want- - look it was a fun song) is for women to have true choices and information in the first place. At present they don't. Some women have medical issues, but for others:

It's not choice if you bf, because you feel too ashamed to ff.

It's not choice if you ff, because nobody told you about growth spurts, and you thought your baby would starve.

It's not choice, if the midwife tells you that you need to drink milk to make milk, when you're lactose intolerant. (I had this experience- fortunately I knew it was nonsense)

It's not choice, if your family guilt trips you into ff OR bf.

It's not choice, if the HV tells you the baby needs to be ff because he/she's not on the 50th centile. (Anecdotal evidence says that the same HV makes the ff'ed-from-the-start mothers feel guilty too.)

It's not choice, if you bf, because you think ff'ing makes you a bad mother.

I'm sure someone out there must understand what I'm getting at. Somewhere.

whatme, I have directed you to sources which explain how physiological changes during lactation (and pregnancy as it happens) enable mothers to produce X calories of milk without ingesting X calories themselves - it's not magic, it is physiological, and it is the result of changes in the way metabolism changes. Please read them.

You directed me to papers - I detailed the post in which you quoted the sib study. I have mentioned no papers at all - though I did mention 3 cohort studies which I gather you have not looked at either.

To whoever said they had seen no NHS ff leaflets - there is one which is linked to earlier in the thread, and there is the same info in the Birth to 5 book.

WhatMeWorry

I don't think tiktok said you could get energy from nothing. What I read was a claim that the lactating human female's metabolism changes to become more efficient, and extract more of the energy available from food. I don't actually know about this for myself, but it does seem like common sense.

Mammals are often quite inefficient at extracting nutrition, and I know that this varies from species to species. For example, most people know that rabbits eat their own poo, yes? They do that, broadly speaking, to compensate for an inefficient digestive system.

A change in metabolism for better digestion during human lactation doesn't seem that unbelievable. Did you know that before and after birth, baby humans have different kinds of haemoglobin (the molecule that carries oxygen) in their red blood cells?

There is info tiktok but it's fair to say it wasnt very forthcoming in my case anyway. But I said to you before the staff at hospital were very nervous to discuss ff at all and hopefully this will improve for those that need this type of help. Conversely of course Jessie had the sane problem only the other end of the spectrum.

By the way, when I explicitly refer to mammals, this should not be taken to infer anything about the efficiency (digestive or otherwise) of reptiles, amphibians, or any invertebrates. Etc. I've never read anything that mentioned figures for those, but I have slightly gleaming memories, concerning mammals. And we are mammals.

Thank you for reading!

I read that as slightly gleaming mammaries> not memories

It's a recurrent theme, isn't it pickles. A lot of HCP's think that explaining how to use formula equates to promoting it, and violates UNICEF's baby friendly initiative.

There's lots of "letter not the spirit" with infant feeding, actually. For example, magazines which have lots of perfectly normal pictures with a baby being ff, and a selection of very bf baby pictures placed so they're really intrusive, and can't be missed. They annoy one lot of people with a "normalisation of bottle-feeding" and they upset ff'ers with the really in-your-face We Support Breastfeeding, we do!

Oh great! Goldfinger poster, anyone?

Gleaming mammaries. Excellent!

My mammaries do NOT gleam! (Nothing gleams in my house-

The NHS leaflet on ff is here:

www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_124525

Maternity units and midwives and HVs should have copies for anyone who needs one. I do think there is an issue that some HCPs seem reluctant to give good information on safe preparation in case they are somehow seen as 'promoting' ff, but that's something that good training should deal with. Anyone who's had this experience should complain - it's poor care, whichever way you look at it.

I've had a search to find something that will show whatme that metabolic changes during pregnancy and lactation mean that the usual paradigm of 'X calories out means X calories in' does not apply, because it looks as though she is not going to seek this (well-established) info for herself, preferring to think I believe in woo and magic....which I absolutely don't :)

This stuff has been pretty well established for more than 20 years now, which is why my reference comes from Infant Feeding: the physiological basis (Akre, 1989), where chapter 2 explains that "changes in metabolic efficiency during pregnancy provide for the anticipated expenditures of lactation" and ...."the metabolic efficiency of women is considerably improved during lactation so that maternal food intake is more efficiently utilised than normally" and it discusses "a number of compensatory mechanisms that allow for lactation to continue with much lower energy and nutrient intakes or even with no caloric increase over the diet of the non-pregnant, non-lactating woman"(it adds that this does not mean lactating women do not need more food at all). Anyway, all this is referenced alongside reports from in the field of bf women and their babies who were all well-fed despite the mothers' marginal diets.

I can also quote from the Riordan and Auerbach textbook on lactation, but I'll only do so if whatme still persists in thinking she knows better :)

Always think it's a shame when just talking about something is deemed to be "promoting" it. Reminds me of Section 28!

Tis a shame. I think I should have complained probably but I was ill and tired and not feeling at my most confident.

Not too late to complain now, pickles, unless you are talking about too long ago.

I am pro breastfeeding BUT I love how its "you will lose all your baby weight really QUICKLY" constantly and then its "physiological changes during lactation (and pregnancy as it happens) enable mothers to produce X calories of milk without ingesting X calories themselves"

No, its not magic Tictok - its a fucking raw deal though

whatme, I have directed you to sources which explain how physiological changes during lactation (and pregnancy as it happens) enable mothers to produce X calories of milk without ingesting X calories themselves - it's not magic, it is physiological, and it is the result of changes in the way metabolism changes. Please read them.

Tiktok, with respect, you misunderstand what your own papers say. They are merely saying that the metabolic efficiency improves. That does not mean mothers need less energy in than they give out, it simply means they need less extra in to get the same amount out, than they did before.

All - and I mean ALL - things in this universe, need more energy in per unit out, there is nothing that is even 100% efficient - and certainly nothing that needs less energy than it gives out.

Which, back to the orginal point, is why BF is not "Free" - whether you put the energy into the mother or the child, it costs you money. The cost of a weeks' worth of formula is about £9 (assuming a big tin lasts about a week), the cost of a week's worth of those calories in the UK is about £7 from the shops, give or take a few £ either way depending on whether you get it from coke and crisps or organic cabbage (the better the calories are for you, the more expensive they are - which explains a lot of the obesity epidemic, but thats for another thread....)

The body will find the calories it needs to feed the child, from fat or food, but it shuts even that down if the mother is at serious risk.

whatme, I repeat, the research shows "a number of compensatory mechanisms that allow for lactation to continue with much lower energy and nutrient intakes or even with no caloric increase over the diet of the non-pregnant, non-lactating woman."

The compensatory mechanisms include i) increased metabolic efficiency ii) the fact that the body has already laid down fat in pregnancy ('cos the body 'thinks' lactation is going to happen and prepares for it - that remains if the mother does not bf)

In that sense, bf is 'free' because the fat has been laid down in pg already and because of the other 'compensatory mechanisms' - and the evidence is clear that she does not need extra food while bf. In fact, the evidence is that if she eats the extra 500-1000 kcal a day that breastmilk is 'worth', she'll gain a bunch of unwanted weight.

(some women are hungrier during the early days and weeks of bf - they should eat according to hunger for their own comfort and health. They will not actually need 500-1000 kcal more than normal)

Whatme, not all mums eat more when they are breast feeding than they did before they were pregnant. I know I didn't, as I never felt particularly hungry when breast feeding either of my boys. Therefore, it didn't cost me any extra to feed my DC as my grocery bills were no higher when breastfeeding than pre pregnancy. My body presumably found any extra calories needed from my body fat, as after both pregnancies I quickly lost weight and ended up slimmer that I had been before getting pregnant (size 12/10 to size 8). I know all women are different, but I'm not the only one of my circle of friends who had this experience.