aibu to be sick of seeing bfing vs ffeeding debates?

[ImNotABarbieGirl]

That's it really. I've just turned the tv on and AGAIN...there it is! It just infuriates me.

I still bfeed dd (22 months) I already live with friends and family making me feel uncomfetable, ignoreing little funny jokes/comments about it. I really do not need to turn the television on and hear some woman spouting how its disgusting etc on national television.

It annoys me moreso (sp?) That it is never a fair debate. It is always two extremest type people who just want to point out how wrong, disgusting etc the other party is.

Surely most people have access to information and support out there to make an informed choice about what's best for them. So what is the point of all this then? It seems its just another way for us to belittle eachotherparenting choices


Please excuse grammer/spelling

[mynameisslimshady]

Yes discussed at length blah blah , still based on (flawed) statistics - you plonker

[Retropear]

Errr bollocks Mini.

SIDS is thankfully rare,if you avoid risk such as over heating,smoking,co sleeping,sleeping on back etc statistically there is buggar all implication from ff.

If you really want to scaremonger focus on the crap kids are weaned onto,the lack of fruit/veg,exercise etc,etc- far bigger impact.

[Minifingers]

I respect your right to have a view on the evidence. However, it's not unreasonable of ME and other people to think that the advice to breastfeed to reduce the risk of SIDS is important given that the MAIN UK SIDS charity has this information on their website listed under the tab: Safer Sleep

(below - cut and pasted from the Lullaby Trust Website)

THINGS YOU CAN DO:

• Always place your baby on their back to sleep
  
• Keep your baby smoke free during pregnancy and after birth
  
• Place your baby to sleep in a separate cot or Moses basket in the same room as you for the first 6 months
  
• Breastfeed your baby, if you can
  
• Use a firm, flat, waterproof mattress in good condition
  

So there you go, they consider it important enough to include with this very basic information for parents on reducing the risk of SIDS.

You, on the other hand think it's 'bollocks'. Myname thinks it's based on 'flawed evidence'.

Myname - if the evidence is so obviously and dangerously flawed PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE write to the chief executive of the Lullaby Trust and the NHS, and explain that they are including misleading and scaremongering advice and information on their website, and need to remove it.

Really - do this. The Lullaby Trust is a reputable organisation, so surely it's an absolute scandal if they are including the advice to 'breastfeed your baby' as one of a handful of basic things you can do to protect them from SIDS, if there is no good evidence that this is true?

*Information about The Lullaby Trust from Wikipedia:

Since The Lullaby Trust teamed up with the Department of Heath to launch the campaign to reduce the risk of sudden infant death in 1991, the UK sudden infant death rate has fallen by 75%, and has been hailed one of the most successful public health campaigns ever, estimated to have saved more than 20,000 lives.

The Lullaby Trust has gone on to become one of the world's leading authorities on sudden infant death, the UK's largest funder of medical research into sudden infant death, the main source of support for bereaved families and a major information provider."

But according to you they include rubbish, scaremongering, unsupported advice and information on their website.

[mynameisslimshady]

I have spoken to many doctors who realise the evidence is flawed, but its the best they have.

Its not dangerous advice, its advice based on a statistic. If they did a statistic about eye colour, hair colour, the colour that a child was wearing, the letter at the start of the name or any other information there is then something would come out as being 'worse' than others. That's how statistics work.

Certain things have been proved to work, other things are speculation, this is speculation.

[Minifingers]

SIDS is thankfully rare but it's still the most common cause of death in newborn babies in the UK.

Again - not a reason why everyone should breastfeed, but surely important enough to acknowledge in the debate on the pros and cons of different feeding choices?

Or perhaps not.

Sometimes I wonder what sort of planet other people are on. We're the most risk averse country in the world. Half the mums on this site will carry their baby into a service station when paying, in preference to leaving them in the car after refuelling just in case of a 1 in a million forecourt fire or car jacking incident, but don't seem to be at all bothered about the published link between SIDS and not breastfeeding, despite the fact that SIDS takes 300 babies a year. I don't get it.

Any how, I can tell that there are some people on this thread sharpening their pitchforks, so I'm orf.

[thebirdsandbees]

Human infants & all other mammals that are nourished with the milk of their own species are healthier/stronger & grow/develop at the optimal rate. Fact.

[Minifingers]

"Certain things have been proved to work, other things are speculation, this is speculation."

Why do you think the Lullaby Trust has included reference to it as part of their basic advice on reducing the risk of SIDS, if there is no more evidence of a link between breastfeeding and SIDS than, say, watching tv and SIDS?

My understanding is that this information was only included after LONG debate about the quality and scope of the evidence, at the DOH and Lullaby Trust. The link between bf and SIDS reduction has only been referred to on their website for a couple of years. There was evidence before then but it wasn't considered strong enough. They include it now following consultation with epidemiologists, paediatricians and research scientists. This is not the decision of one single person and it's not something which was included on a whim.

Again - I can't understand why there is such instinctive, blind cynicism about important health information being disseminated by such a respected institution. Those of you who are saying it's 'rubbish', and 'co-incidental' - do you really think the main SIDS charity in the UK would be so irresponsible and cavalier to include this in their advice to parents if there wasn't decent evidence of it? Really?

[mynameisslimshady]

As I say, I have spoken to probably hundreds of parents by now, I know a lot about the information that is taken and how it varies depending on the area and if there is a doctor in the area who is conducting studies into SIDS.

Because SIDS is so relatively rare it only takes a few people not being part of the studies or a few people giving a couple of bits of false information and the statistics are skewed.

There is no proof unless you can link me to actual proof that says bf reduces SIDS because of xy and z reason and here is the scientific and medical evidence to back it up then I won't believe it.

[Minifingers]

Oh - and all the advice on SIDS is about associations and not causality. We don't know what causes cot death, we only know about what practices are associated with a higher incidence of it: namely -

prone sleeping; smoking in pregnancy and in the baby's environment after birth; overheating; allowing covers to go over the baby's head; sleeping in a separate room; bed sharing; and bottle feeding.

We also know that prematurity and genetic factors play a part.

Why is the advice to breastfeed disregarded so casually and so widely when the advice not to cover the baby's head, and to protect the baby from a smoky environment is taken so seriously? There's research quoted by the Lullaby Trust suggesting that breastfeeding can HALVE the rate of SIDS, so it's probably not a trivial factor, but it's treated as trivial by everyone on this site. That is those people on this site who are even willing to acknowledge that it may be a factor at all, and who aren't insisting that any mention of a link is all some nasty lactivist plot to force mums to breastfeed.

[mynameisslimshady]

Thanks for the lesson I'll bear that in mind.

[HoneyDragon]

You do all know, insulting each other kind of devalues all of your arguments?

[Minifingers]

"There is no proof unless you can link me to actual proof that says bf reduces SIDS because of xy and z reason and here is the scientific and medical evidence to back it up then I won't believe it."

FFS - there's no proof that prone sleeping CAUSES cot death, there's just an association with lower rates of cot death for babies who are back sleepers. They don't know why apparently healthy babies who sleep prone are more likely to die suddenly, or apparently healthy babies who are exposed to cigarette smoke in the uterus. Causality hasn't been proven in any of these cases! So why do you accept one but not another? And why do you think the main cot death charity in the UK is willing to clearly link breastfeeding with reduced risk of SIDS if there is no reasonable evidence that this is so?

Seriously - ask yourself these questions. There is either enough reasonable evidence to support them giving this advice, or there's a massive irresponsible conspiracy by the NHS and the Lullaby Trust to mislead parents into believing that there is.

Which one do you think there is?

[mynameismskane]

minifingers
I agree with you. I'm passionate about bf and I care that bf rates are so low and that so many people choose to ignore the benefits of breastmilk over formula - and that the difference between the two is so huge they are incomparable. But here on mumsnet, you can't be pro bf as so many people are so so defensive about it!
Just be happy they you know the benefits and gave them to your children. For me, I did everything I could to breastfeed and am very glad I did.

[Minifingers]

"You do all know, insulting each other kind of devalues all of your arguments"

I'm just amazed at the lack of adult logic here, and the desperation to ignore the evidence. Maybe it's because as a culture we're so completely sold on bottle feeding and can't bring ourselves to accept that there might be any significant drawbacks for babies in doing something which is so acceptable and convenient to adults.

So we refuse to read the evidence, or we read it (like LazyJane) and see things that aren't there (she's convinced it includes data from developing countries and doesn't control for confounding factors - neither of which is true), or we just simply refuse to even think about it. We treat any one who takes the evidence seriously as a deluded fanatic, no matter how respectable or reliable the source of the research, and try to shame them into silence if they refer to it as part of a wider debate into baby feeding. We accuse people who are convinced by the evidence on health and are troubled by it, of hating mothers, and not caring about their mental health. I've seen so many accusations on this board that lactivists would rather babies died than were bottlefed, that there are many breastfeeding supporters who believe that women should all be literally forced into breastfeeding. Accusations that lactivists tell mothers who've had mastectomies that they can and should breastfeed. References to the third reich. Nazis. Taliban.

It's.... weird. And worrying. It's like a sort of mass delusion. Or a mass neurosis.

It's not beyond the bounds of possibility that there is very large scale mind-fuckery going on in relation to this issue. History is full of accounts of these things.......

[mynameisslimshady]

Why don't you do a bit more research into it yourself instead of quoting what is written on a website.

Go and ask parents about their experiences of being in these studies, go and speak to the doctors who conduct them, go and look at how they conduct them from area to area and then come back and tell me that the statistics are completely correct.

There are certain things that are checked and there is some amount of medical evidence that they hold a higher risk. Bf/ff is an opinion based on a (flawed) statistic for the millionth time.

[hamdangle]

I dont think you have actually read the research properly. the 2007 metastudy (as admitted by lullaby trust) was the most stringent in trying to control specifically for breastfeeding and SIDS. It revealed are SOME studies that show a difference in number of deaths attributed to SIDS when babies have been breastfed AT ALL.

there are also studies that have shown no difference at all.

It is not proven that if you are breastfeeding your child you might prevent death.

There is research to suggest dummies can prevent cot death. There is tons of research to suggest that co sleeping
Can increase risk. I never hear anyone on these threads promoting these facts though because co sleeping can improve ability to breastfeed and dummies can reduce it.

It depresses me that women get so worked up about something so insignificant in the bigger scheme of things as breastfeeding. Why do you care so much about what is only a person's diet exclusively for six months of their life when a third of children in the UK are obese? Children in poor areas are growing up on a diet of chips and gravy wedged in front of X boxes yet a load of middle class mums rock up to protest outside a swimming baths because ONE person complained about ONE woman feeding her baby ONCE!

[Retropear]

Applauds Hamdangle.

[Retropear]

What also gets me are the obesity comments when you're waaaay more likely to have an obese child if obese when carrying said child but no nobody thinks that is worthy of thread after thread.Far better to focus on some spurious link,very hard to link directly.

[SaucyJack]

I haven't seen anybody on here being defensive about their own feeding choices mskane

Simply that the vast majority of us have better things to do with our time than judge other people's.

Massive difference.

[DropYourSword]

Why is everyone jumping down mini fingers throat for CORRECTLY pointing out that breastfeeding is a preventative measure against SIDS. That's actually true, and I can provide people with countless well conducted studies to support that. But I'm not going to bother add this had become some sort of slanging match and it seems that people don't want to these on information but just each to argue. Yes, if you choose to FF that's fine and no one should judge you for that, but it's really rude to suggest this evidence shouldn't be shared because it might upset mums. Drinking, smoking and taking drugs also increase the risk of SIDS, but should people not be told that either in case it upsets smokers, alcoholics or drug takers?

[DropYourSword]

Oh, and Hamdangle you would know, seeing as how you enjoy critiquing research that the study on using a dummyv has a spurious link to reducing SIDS risk and wasn't noted in repeat studies. And co-sleeping, when removing other risk factors like drinking, smoking and drug ingestion (which all shoot up the risk massively) had not been shown to be a risk factor itself. So yes, we really do need to critique research, but all of it and notonly stuff that backs up your argument!