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

[KissMeHardy]

I see the OP got what she wanted then..........yet another infighting debate on bf/ff

[Retropear]

Bfing won't prevent SIDS.

[Minifingers]

Ham - the doctors and researchers at the lullaby trust have read the same evidence as you, as have panels of epidemiologists and paediatricians working for the NHS. They have concluded that despite the limitations if the research the evidence of a link between bottlefeeding and SIDS is still strong enough to justify including 'try to breastfeed' in their basic advice to parents on reducing SIDS.

I appreciate that there are many women who are willing to disregard or dismiss this ONE piece of advice while rigidly following (and expecting other people to follow) the other recommendations. That is their call. It is not mine or that of many other women who want to do everything in their power to keep their baby safe, and it's unreasonable of you to see this as excessive or neurotic.

As for the issue about obesity - why do you assume that someone who has a strong interest in infant feeding issues has no interest at all in the diet and health of older children? Or is it that you're just projecting that opinion onto me in order to trivialise the issue of breastfeeding by comparison? I think ALL children deserve the best possible diet, one that protects them from illness as much as possible and provides an opportunity for them to reach their full potential, particularly the tiniest and most vulnerable children. The sad and ironic thing is that those children who are least likely to be getting the best nutritional start in life by being breastfed are also those most likely to have suboptimal diets in later life. They're also most likely to be exposed to prenatal and postnatal smoking. There's evidence that breastfeeding may protect children from some of the ill effects of smoking and of later poor diet, by reducing arterial stiffness so the argument, 'why bother if they go on to eat a shit diet later' is a bit lame really.

[Retropear]

Talk about stat twisting pmsl sorry but bollocks to bfing protecting against smoking,just what a crock.Best get those lung cancer patients on the breast milk ASAP.

The numbers of SIDS are tiny,the stats are tiny re bm given that most babies are ff and given how crap the science is sorry but other factors are far more worthy of following re reducing risk of SIDS.

[TheGinLushMinion]

Yawn, there are only 2 children whom I give a shit about how they were fed & they are mine so, meh.

[MorrisZapp]

Yyy hamdangle. Much hand wringing and for what. Your kid gets bigger and you cringe at how you obsessed about every ounce of liquid ingested.

Our kids are lucky and privileged beyond belief, because they were born at this time in history, in this country. Bf/ff is window dressing and nothing on this or any other thread will convince me otherwise.

[DropYourSword]

Yes retropear, breastfeeding wont 'prevent' SIDS, but it provides a protective measure against it. Just like eating right and exercising won't 'prevent' you having a heart attack, but it will lower your chances of having one. Same thing.

And you have totally misunderstood the smoking thing! If a mum smokes during pregnancy or anyone smokes around her baby after birth, it increases the risk. I'm not suggesting BM for adults... way to twist my post!!

[Retropear]

No it isn't the same thing,far from it.

If you stay slim,eat right,don't smoke,don't have obese parents and exercise well your chances of getting a heart attack and other illnesses of which there are high incidents plummet.

Very few babies die of SIDS (so we're talking a tiny amount anyway)and the odds of your baby dying if you bf won't plummet.Sorry bm is not the elixir of life.

[DropYourSword]

I'm not saying it's life's elixir. I'm stating facts. The number of SIDS deaths have decreased due to public health campaigns which inform mother's important things such add sleeping babies on their backs etc. Just because statistically very few babies die of SIDS doesn't mean it's not important to talk about preventative measures. We are still talking about thousands of deaths a year. And even if we weren't, how can you possibly marginalize it and say it's not important because it doesn't happen often... I think that would be incredibly insulting to say that to a mum who had lost her baby to SIDS.

[Minifingers]

Nobody says its the 'elixir of life' . Again - straw man argument, trying to make breastfeeding advocacy out to be silly, naive and unrealistic. Of course its not a silver bullet or a guarantee of health. Nothing is. But breastfeeding is thought to prevent the incidence of SIDS by up to 50%. And while SIDS is uncommon it's still the commonest cause of death in babies, and accounts for the equivalent of a jumbo jet full of babies every year. That's not trivial or unimportant. Not in my book anyway.

And BTW - SIDS is not the only important health issue. What about type 1 diabetes? NEC in pre term babies? What about higher rates of hospital admissions and GP appointments for babies not breastfed? Are all these negligible? Irrelevant? Not worth acknowledging?

Apparently not suitable subjects for discussion. Irrelevant. Scare-mongering. Yes - the NHS, UNICEF, WHO , the American Academy of Paediatrics, the Royal College of Midwives - all scare mongerers, radical lactivists, extremists, plonkers. They must be - all of the links between ff and higher rates of the illnesses I've mentioned on this thread (and many more I haven't) are presented in their literature as supported by a good evidence base and are all at the very least least worthy of serious consideration.

[MoominsYonisAreScary]

And yet another one. I'm with gin

[GangstersLoveToDance]

But breastfeeding is thought to prevent the incidence of SIDS by up to 50%

I will try to find the research article - but actually, that is now widely believed to be a 'myth' (or more accurately a misrepresentation of cause and effect)

Babies who are bf are also more likely to co-sleep. It is thought to be the co-sleeping that helps to lower the incidence of SIDS, not the actual bf - just, by chance, those that cosleep also very often bf.

[Minifingers]

Course you are Moomin.

I'm with the NHS, the RCM, the AAP and UNICEF on this one myself. because I'm just a mad fantasist, whereas you lot are thoroughly objective and well schooled in the evidence

Sigh.

Denial. There's a long history of people denying the bleeding obvious because they've got a powerful emotional investment in turning their faces away from the truth.

[Retropear]

The reason there was a sleeping on back campaign was because it was proven to have a big effect on numbers,not so bf.

Oh and re diabetes a baby has more chance getting that if the mother is obese than if she ff.

Bfing is but one tiny parenting choice.What they're weaned onto,lifestyle and parental eating habits are waaaay more important as they have a bigger impact.

Re hospital admissions if you adhere to guidelines which any monkey could(but many don't) the chances of your baby being admitted is very low.Even I ffing 3 in one year on a treadmill of exhaustion managed to do it properly.

[Minifingers]

Ok - I suggest you all write en masse to the Lullaby trust and tell them to remove the advice that breastfeeding reduces the likelihood of SIDS by as much as 50%

[Minifingers]

"So stating its a fact, is hugely incorrect and also a load of tosh!!"

Tosh like the sort they put on NHS Choices?

Or like the advice parents are given by the main SIDS charity in the UK?

Why would they put the recommendation to breastfeed to reduce the risk of SIDS on such mainstream sites if there was no good evidence to prove that it does so?

You do know it's not just some work experience person cutting and pasting random information onto the NHS Choices website? Or the Lullaby Trust website? You do know they will have panels of doctors and researchers pouring over the evidence on cot death before making a decision about what the important things are that parents need to know to keep their baby as safe as possible? And that they have decided that breastfeeding, along with putting a baby to sleep on its back etc is one of the things parents can do to reduce the likelihood of SIDS.


"Oh and re diabetes a baby has more chance getting that if the mother is obese than if she ff."

Proving, what? That breastfeeding doesn't matter in relation to this issue? When you are thinking about optimising your child's health, do you think 'reducing salt has a much bigger impact on blood pressure than maintaining a healthy body weight, therefore I'll allow my children to become overweight and not consider its impact on their blood pressure?' (hypothetical point - don't pick it apart). I don't get your logic. I don't get where you confidence comes from that you know enough about the research on diabetes and obesity and breastfeeding to confidently make the pronouncements on the role that these different factors might play.

In fact that's what jumps out at me from a lot of these responses - people talking confidently, angrily about risk etc off the top of their heads, with not even a nod to what the medical evidence has to say on this issue. And the rubbishing of established medical knowledge about breastfeeding - incredible. Describing information that appears on NHS Choices and the information page of the main SIDS charity as 'tosh'! Where do you guys get the self-assurance to do this? I'd love to be as certain about something I knew fuck all about to confidently be able to dismiss medical advice from every major health organisation in the world as 'rubbish' and 'scare mongering'.

Such is the way with this debate and so it will always be. The equivalent of people standing with their fingers in their ears going la la la la.

[MoominsYonisAreScary]

Yes mini I am, as long as they are happy and looked after I couldn't care less how someone else chooses to feed their baby.
.

More support for those who want to bf , more information on correctly making up formula and why it is so important yes, but people making an informed choice to ff because they don't want to bf? No why should I care about that

[wordfactory]

See the way I see it, the choice of whether to FF or breast feed has a reasonably marginal effect in the west. Not so in developing countries of course.

Yes, I'm pro BF, but frankly there are much much bigger issues facing DC here in the UK.

[MoominsYonisAreScary]

They also say the safest place for your baby to sleep is in a cot by the side of your bed but people still choose to co sleep

[wordfactory]

Life involves risk. Being human involves risk.

Yes, we minimise it where we can, but some risks are so small that we balance them against living this beautiful life!

Here in the UK, many of our lives are so relatively risk free. We are absurdly lucky. It makes no sense whatsover to augment small risks into big ones. In fact it smacks of self absorbtion!

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Agree word

God if we looked up risks for everything we'd never do anything. All we can do is what we feel is best and try and make those decisions as safe as possible. Life is to short to get hung up on statistics and then panicking when your child just naturally doesn't fall in to the plan or just can't so whatever it is you were trying to do.

Sometimes no amount of support or effort or a billion suggestions just does not work. And you have two choices. Panic and scare yourself stupid looking up every increased possibility of risk. Or just try and make the best of things, do what you can to reduce risks and enjoy the time with your baby. That time spent worrying and panicking is time you will never get back and before you realise it your baby is no longer a squishy newborn it's walking and talking and you missed it as something below blame such a huge focus.

We all just need to do our best and love out children. And be thankful that we live in a country where there's this amazing choice that can be done safely and easily.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

Something else became

[MrsMook]

I think a major problem is that "BF Vs FF" isn't an open choice for so many people. Many people would be unwise to choose to BF because of medications, physical conditions that are problematic with BFing. Many who start BFing then change to FF as it is best for them at that time because of their's or baby's physical or emotional health. It would be interesting to find out people FF at 4-5 months how many made an open, and informed choice to FF, how many weren't aware of the additional benefits of BF (I say additional, because formula is certainly good enough to raise a healthy infant) and how many changed feeding method because of difficulties, and therefore didn't have a free choice. I think that's why it becomes such an emotive issue.

In other parenting choices there is a genuine open choice, someting like cloth nappies has no impact on health, it can be done full time, part time, not at all. It can be done to will and change your mind, so although there will be polorised views, it doesn't have the emotional guilt and defensiveness that gets dragged into feeding methods.

[Wheresmycaffeinedrip]

It's the hypocrisy that annoys me more. That people will sit there posting medical stuff and statistics and the whole "I'm
Better than you/know more than you " attitude.

It's apparently not ok for people to "ignore" the benefits and choose to formula feed and will ram stats down the throats of those who don't agree. Yet every single one of them picks and chooses what rules they follow and don't follow, co sleeping, dummies, drinking in pregnancy, rf/ff car seats, weaning before 6 months,own room or not own room, then produce some blog from 1584 that backs them up.

That's fine that's their decision and I don't care, but don't ram stuff down people's throats when you yourself ignore just as much stuff because funnily enough you have to fit things in to you life the best you can like the rest of us.