to wonder why people are so offended by Dr Christian's comment about breastfeeding?

[Justholdthesmile]

He basically says that breastfeeding is good for the first 6 months as it helps a babies immune system. However after 6 months it doesn't have an effect anymore, but as long as the baby is getting a healthy diet then it's fine to continue. He then says that breastfeeding older children may make them psychologically dependent on their mother ....

The last part I have no idea about. I suppose it might could potentially be true? But ultimately I believe it's yours and your childs choice and if you want to listen to expert advice then by all means go for it, if you don't then that's fine too.

It seems to have stirred quite a lot of anger. I'm not trying to get into a debate about ff and bf - each to their own 100%.

I'm asking more whether someone would find this doctors advice offensive?

OK, babies don't ever need to be bf, and I'm sorry if we've made you feel bad lightning. I don't think anyone on here is trying to make any mother feel bad about ff. Though it's a shame we can't have a debate about the positives of bf without someone coming on and saying that we're making bf mothers feel bad.

I get that it's an emotive subject, I really do. Over a year after DD's birth and I still feel like a failure because I had a c section and couldn't birth her in the natural, better way. But I avoid any threads about pregnancy and birth because that's my problem. It wouldn't be right for me to come and post on a thread someone had started about a traumatic but natural birth saying 'just be grateful that you did it naturally!', or accusing someone on a home birth support thread of making c section mothers feel bad, would it?

Anyway, let's reword it as 'there is no benefit in breast feeding past 6 months' which is still at odds with the official nhs advice.

Yes please, original article.
Any takers other than those who 'want' to be offended?

Because saying "Breast milk is beneficial to a baby's immune system for the first six months" and "but there is no harm in continuing to do it" creates the impression that it's not beneficial after the first six months (just not actually harmful). And that's just wrong; breastfeeding for longer than six months is still beneficial to the baby's immune system and many immune factors in breastmilk actually increase in the second year. There's plenty of evidence for that in proper research published in credible peer-reviewed journals.

Dr Christian is not an expert on breastfeeding. He's a private GP with a particular interest in sexual health and HIV. GPs receive virtually no training on breastfeeding and I strongly suspect that none at all of that minimal training is devoted to breastfeeding past 6 or 12 months (would be interested to be proved wrong). He's not an expert on breastfeeding. He knows he's not an expert on breastfeeding. Yet he accepted a platform to portray himself as an expert and used that platform to give out inaccurate and misleading advice, advice that will be used to berate natural term breastfeeders ("it's for your own benefit rather than the baby's past six months, Dr Christian said that it doesn't help their immune system after that").

I'm not offended, I'm pissed off. There's an important distinction there.

I had huge problems with bf but my two were not able to have formula and I had to struggle on. I felt like a failure every single day. It was horrible. Now I know more and would be more assertive with HCPs to get allergy formula if I had another child. Maybe because I did BF, I dont think much about it but I felt like I seriously let down my DCs when they were babies.

However noone is saying that you have done a bad job - its coming from you. You did the best for your child. Formula is pretty darn good stuff - amazing what science can achieve.

I do wish closer had put the "there is no problem feeding a 4 year old" into the article.

I am studying biology and my teacher recently spoke about how breastfeeding gives the baby antibodies up until 6 months, I asked her how and why breastmilk changes so there are no antiboodies after 6 months and she said it doesn't, babies are just strong enough not to need them after 6 months.

From personal experience of a 13 month old with d+v I am very glad I still breastfeed him as breastmilk was the only thing he could keep down. Not even water stayed down but breastmilk was just fine.

I cannot stand Dr Christian, he's a sexist twat, which he displays to full effect on Twitter.

Original article (well, a photo of it anyway) evolutionaryparenting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/closer-idiot.jpg

(obviously some GPs those who have this as an area of interest will have extra optional training on breastfeeding)

Thank you, at last.

(also, I based my previous post on his amended version. His original statement was not just misleading, it was actively wrong. Not "oh, we learn new things every single day" wrong, not "well, the research isn't clear on this" wrong, just plain wrong. As wrong as a very wrong thing that has just been awarded a Ph.D. in Wrongness from the University of Wrong.)

Zing at around 6 months the baby has often lost their iron stores IF the cord was cut before it stopped pulsating. Formula has more iron in it than BM BUT it is less able to be processed by the baby's body than iron in BM.

Starlight

yep, that's the one - I knew there was something about iron, just couldn't remember.

thanks!

although is that the reason why weaning is to start around 6 months - so baby gets iron from food?

(excuse pg brain, it's fried plus up since 4.45 am with Dear Daughter )

I bf all 3 Dcs to various degrees but pretty much hated it and then did mixed bf and ff. Interestingly, the one who took to it best and who bfd longest was dd2. She has had the most illnesses and broken bones and has the worst immune system of the three of them. Nor convinced that bfing raises the healthiest adults on my experiences!

Yes, if the baby has no underlying health condition and is eating a varied diet from 6mo as well as bf then there is no need for iron supplementation (this is quite possibly true even if the diet is less varied, because of the iron in breastmilk being more bioavailable, but that's a bit fuzzier).

"Nor convinced that bfing raises the healthiest adults on my experiences!"

That's why the research has been done on sample sizes greater than three.

I find it offensive that a doctor can give such factually incorrect and misleading statements in such a public way. Even the revised statement is wrong- NHS guidance is exclusive bf for 6 months and then to continue along with solids. Saying it's not harmful massively underplays the huge amount of benefits from breastfeeding past 6 months. It adds to the stereotype that it is wrong or weird to feed past 6 months.

I did say based on my experiences!

chrohnicallyfarting. You speak much sense! I was trying to think of a C/S analogy (as I had one too) but couldn't word it eloquently enough to post

I think a lot of people on the thread haven't read the article. They are talking about an eight year old. Being BFed. Not a toddler or a little baby. I BFed my eldest until he was 3, my second for two months, my third for six months btw.

Nothing objectionable in what he is saying in the slightest.

Also

"Advice on breast feeding is always changing." -- no, it isn't. Current WHO recommendations have been in place since 2001 and current Department of Health/NHS guidelines since 2003.

"The World Health Organisation recommends breast feeding for up to two years" -- no, it doesn't. It recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, and continued breastfeeding alongside other sources of nutrition for at least (not "up to") two years.

"while the NHS recommends breast feeding for the first six months." -- no, it doesn't. It recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months and recommends "breastfeeding alongside solid food" after that point.

Bear in mind that this is the opening paragraph of his clarification after he'd been criticised for giving out inaccurate information. You'd think getting it right would be a priority for him at this point. He'd had plenty of chance to check what he was saying and still every single "fact" in the paragraph is inaccurate.

ninja that's not what we're objecting to. We're objecting to being told there is no benefit in continuing past 6 months when that is contrary to WHO and NHS guidelines and just plain wrong.

As a medical professional, and a famous one whose opinions many people will take as verbatim, it is disgraceful to basically spread lies about an important topic. Not only is he totally factually incorrect, he stated that he's quoting the NHS guidelines, which is not true, as they support longer BFing.

OP, this is not an issue where there's a clash of opinions or studies with wildly varying results. Every single study on breastfeeding and breastmilk delivers the same results, every time; that it is the optimal nutrition for babies, that the longer they are BFed the better, that longer-term BFing simply does not psychologicaly damage children, that BFing, esp. for longer, ultimately makes children more independent, and so on. These are the facts; anyone, including Dr Christian ShitHair, who claims differently, is either woefully misinformed and shouldn't be trying to pass themselves off as knowing about the subject, or they have their own weird, negative agenda.

BM also continues to change as the child grows and ages, to deliver what the child needs at each stage. No other foodstuff on Earth does that. The nutrients in milk from other creatures, and formula, will always be the same. BM is like tailored nutrition. The longer a mother BFs for, the more health benefits she garners for herself, also (lowered chance of certain cancers, etc.).

And for the poster who asked who on earth would want to Bf a child until they were 8, the answer is: Mongolians. BFing up to 10 isn't unknown, and they claim that their menfolk are the toughest on Earth precisely because they breastfeed for so long as children. Genghis Khan was said to have BFed until he was 8; I've heard he was fairly tough and independent.

As with all comments about BFing, I hasten to add that none of what I write implies any criticism of not breastfeeding, through choice or circumstance.

Psychologically, not psychologicaly, bloody sausage fingers, grrr.