To not understand why anyone cares if other mothers choose to feed their babies breastmilk or formula.

[honeytea]

I am a new mum and have only recently come across the breastfeeding/formula feeding debate.

I breastfeed my DS because it is free and he is growing well and it is easy I don't think we would leave the house if i had to think about bringing steralised bottles and milk with me

I like other people's babies but I can't say I have an opinion on how other women feed their babies, so long as the baby is fed it is really nothing to do with me.

Why do some people care so much about what a baby eats? There are so many things in the world to get angry about, starving children, children with freezing homes, abuse horrid horrid things but so many people seem to get het up about well loved children drinking formula.

Am I missing something?

In a literal sense, formula is liberating. I am very grateful there is an alternative to not being to go back to work for years.

I very much see your point, Shagmund.

I worry much more about the reasons why in my country there are consistent disparities between wealthy and impoverished areas (that makes for different rates of breastfeeding).
But as I said, there are issues that concern me more, about women's choices, and children's rights.

Breast feeding is not a priority issue for me because:-

Babies/children can't advocate for themselves in anything namely far more pressing issues which have a far bigger impact

There are commercial interests in everything to do with raising babies/children as shown by the ads shown on MN which 9 times out of 10 aren't parenting ideal choices

If you believe that bfing will increase social mobility you're absolutely off your rocker

If you adhere to guidelines your baby won't get sick

........and a whole host of other reasons I can't be arsed to list.

That is still much higher than in the UK and infinately so when compared to the US. But the point is that their welfare state hasn't erroded like ours has.

You clearly know nothing about Sweden so need to stop using your imaginery facts to support your spurious argument.

Do children get free eye tests in the UK? They don't in Sweden anymore.

Do pregnant women still get free dental treatment in the UK? They don't in Sweden.

Do you still get to see a doctor for free in the UK? You don't in Sweden.

How much do you pay to stay in hospital when your baby is born in the UK? You have to pay in Sweden now.

If you are on a low income in the UK can you still get top up benefits and help with your rent? You can't in Sweden.
Disabled people being deemed fit for work by Atos in the UK? Same in Sweden except they go by a different name.
Student grants gone in the UK now? Same in Sweden.

The welfare state has erroded and is getting worse and worse in Sweden, just like in the UK.

I don't believe that it makes any difference to an adult how they were fed in the first few months of life. And isn't that the point of being a parent? To produce a fully functioning, well adjusted adult?

It can make a big difference to an adult's health. One of the reasons I was so determined to BF my DD was to minimise her risk of developing diabetes (as DH is type 1 and it can be hereditary) and it's the reason that I've continued into toddlerhood. Yes, she may develop diabetes anyway - and yes, she may have never got it, regardless of how she was fed. But there is a correlation between FFing and diabetes, so it can make a big difference to an adult how they were fed.

I wish I lived in a world where breast feeding or formula feeding was the biggest issue facing a baby

"- that thousands of babies in the UK will experience higher levels of sickness, hospital admissions and antibiotic treatment because they have not had access to an optimal diet, despite the fact that this optimal diet is (for the only time ever in their lives) free, and pretty much universally available.

Where is the evidence for this"

Here: here

Do you think NHS recommendations about infant feeding and promotion of breastfeeding within the NHS is based on.... a whim?

I think you'll find that publicly funded health promotion in the UK has to be based on a sound evidence base these days.

Unlike formula promotion. Which is actually all about making money.

Shag re smoking,diet in later childhood etc,etc the fact is these all have a massively bigger impact on a child's life and statistically and can be directly attributed to the cause.

That is the whole point.

Oh you mean the worldwide UNICEF research that also took into account countries where sterilisation and clean water are not available.

Thought so. Could you show me the uk based research please.

As I said if you adhere to guidelines(which many don't) babies don't get sick.it's not rocket science either my 8 year old could follow guidelines and make up a safe bottle of formula.

this - nobody said that it's the most important issue for babies. (although if your mother is one of the hundreds of additional women who get breastcancer in the UK because of our low rates of breastfeeding your mother's choice not to breastfeed may well turn out to be life-changing for you).

But if you carry on implying that breastfeeding advocates think it's the only thing that counts you can chalk up loads of points: it's called creating a straw man argument, and it goes on all the time in relation to the baby feeding debate.

Shagmund, you are making a lot of assumptions about why people hold their views, why not just accept that your arguments aren't persuasive to many well informed people? It's nice to advocate for what you believe is best for babies but you really can't demonstrate there is a meaningful difference from breastfeeding.

What should we do about the millions of women who will never have children or breastfeed? Public health alert.

this - nobody said that it's the most important issue for babies. (although if your mother is one of the hundreds of additional women who get breastcancer in the UK because of our low rates of breastfeeding your mother's choice not to breastfeed may well turn out to be life-changing for you).

I'm leaving the thread now because you are something that I can't say on here.

"As I said if you adhere to guidelines(which many don't) babies don't get sick.it's not rocket science either my 8 year old could follow guidelines and make up a safe bottle of formula."

Formula contains more iron. It needs to because iron in formula is less bio available than iron in breast milk. However, having lots of iron in formula makes it a better medium for bacteria to grow in, hence one reason why ff babies have more problems with vomiting and illness.

And however easy it is to make up a bottle there's good evidence that a high proportion are made up wrongly, whatever the best intentions of the parents. Too concentrated, too weak, too hot, left sitting around for too long, not prepared properly. Hence the very significantly increased numbers of ff babies needing treatment for gastric illness compared to exclusively bf babies in the UK. Oh, and burns to the mouth and throat. Every A&E department will have had experience of treating a baby for burns caused by milk being too hot.

I have a strong intellectual attachment to the idea that on a personal level, it doesn't really matter how I fed my baby during those first few months. This is not because of guilt I don't feel guilty but because I have not seen any convincing arguments otherwise. For every study you want to throw at me about supposed health benefits, there's another study rubbishing those claims.

There's also the fact that my son is ridiculously healthy and happy. Why on earth would I feel guilty? Such a weird thing to think, that those who disagree with you are just guilty or uninformed or misguided or too stupid to live or something.

I think rather I just have a different approach to parenthood. I don't see my son as an optimisation project. He can still turn out great even if I'm not ideal in every single aspect.

Chandellina - you can't do anything about higher breastcancer rates among childless women.

But you can encourage more women to breastfeed, and to breastfeed longer, as part of a wider campaign to encourage a range of lifestyle changes that lead to lower rates of breast cancer.

Perhaps there should be more vigorous promotion of preparing formula correctly with say prime time TV ads etc.........maybe not,it would be seen as promoting bfing so we'll throw common sense out of the window shall we.

Sorry, not really a strong enough argument to say all women should breastfeed.

Fuck 'the evidence'. I mean that sincerely.

I'm aware that every bit of research done on the subject will say that BF is best. I know it is. I believe it. I don't need to read research papers or to understand methodology etc.

But we don't generally prioritise The Research over experience in any other aspect of our lives, so why are we expected to do this with infant feeding? You know the script. Person says here 'I know x many people who were breastfed and now have every allergy under the sun, while x people were formula fed and have never sneezed or been sick in their lives.'

Cue chorus of 'the plural of anecdote is not data' etc etc. Well no, it isn't. But if a new mother is thinking (for whatever reason) 'hmm, I think I'd like to formula feed. It certainly hasn't harmed anybody I know of.' then to me, it's a bit of a stretch to expect her to then digest a research paper and decide that due to the small risk proven therein, she will ignore the evidence she sees before her eyes in the world around her, and make a huge decision based upon dry statistics.

I don't know if it was on this thread or the other one that someone mentioned the Hanna Rosin article, but I just read it and it's quite good:

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/the-case-against-breast-feeding/307311/1/

"After a couple of hours, the basic pattern became obvious: the medical literature looks nothing like the popular literature. It shows that breast-feeding is probably, maybe, a little better; but it is far from the stampede of evidence that Sears describes. More like tiny, unsure baby steps: two forward, two back, with much meandering and bumping into walls. A couple of studies will show fewer allergies, and then the next one will turn up no difference. Same with mother-infant bonding, IQ, leukemia, cholesterol, diabetes. Even where consensus is mounting, the meta studies?reviews of existing studies?consistently complain about biases, missing evidence, and other major flaws in study design. ?The studies do not demonstrate a universal phenomenon, in which one method is superior to another in all instances,? concluded one of the first, and still one of the broadest, meta studies, in a 1984 issue of Pediatrics, ?and they do not support making a mother feel that she is doing psychological harm to her child if she is unable or unwilling to breastfeed.?"

Dreaming - is there any other health advice regarding your child that's disseminated by the NHS that you choose to disregard on the basis that you don't accept the validity of the evidence base?

Have you ignored the advice on safe sleeping from the FSIDS? (the foundation for the study of infant deaths - main UK cot death charity).

FSIDS recommend that breastfeeding reduces the likelihood of SIDS. here

Do you choose to disregard this too?

Do you choose to dismiss the advice that breastfeeding reduces the risk of breast cancer which you can find on the Cancer UK site too?

here

I think the self-obsessed hysteria surrounding women's desperation to justify their decision not to breastfeed by rubbishing the evidence that it has health benefits, is fucking DANGEROUS if it's now suppressing sensible discussion of basic health advice.

'I am very grateful there is an alternative to not being to go back to work for years.'

There are lots of alternatives. Just that the sacraficing of a baby's health is the easiest one (by that I mean society/commerce in the choices they make available, NOT the individual woman).

That's pretty horrible to think that babies are admitted to hospital with throat and mouth burns. I think childrens health is really important. There should be a health campaign to show parents how to make up feeds safely.

If we just shuffle nervously and say 'read the packet' then many parents will fail to FF properly and children will suffer.

I'm off this thread now because I'm finding the sheer levels of denial and ignorance about this issue frightening and depressing.