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?

Your mum is misinformed mrmakersgloopyglue

The benefits of breast feeding are exactly the same. The risks of formula feeding will be less in developed countries (due to sterilisation equipment, clean water, fridges, education on safe use of formula).

Thank fuck we've 've moved on *onesie.

It's not that the benefits to the babies are reduced in the western world - they are the same for all babies regardless of where born,

• it's that the risks of not breastfeeding are reduced due to fast access to medicine and hygiene.

That is not a reason to encourage a belief that breastfeeding is unimportant past 6 months.

How many babies are still fb at 6 months? Or a year? I would imagine it is such a small percentage that it's a non-issue for this doctor to feel the need to put us over-attached mothers in our places.

Manatee, I think there is so much crap in our society that actively or indirectly makes women feel guilty/ashamed/like failures, that the issue of BFing has become some sort of whipping boy, because it's a controllable factor. And no-one wants to look at the guilt placed on BFers: sometimes, all it takes is the mere mention that you do, or have, BFed a child, and people presume you are saying it to make a point, or to make them feel inferior, or guilty. And heaven forfend you say anything positive about the bloody experience. BFers can't not Bf or not find it positive (if they do) just to manage other people's emotions and issues for them.

I totally agree with this! I always flinch when I say I fb my boys and wait for the response because I feel
I must apologise for it. And that is my issue with it, by saying there's no need to feed past 6 months it suggests that those doing it are doing do for their own 'weird' reasons.

I also never expected to bf a child who could talk to me but I fed him and he grew, he was still my baby and he'd always been doing it so it didn't become weird one day and make me shove him away we just carried on.

I was told by so many people 'they won't sleep through until you stop bf them' . Well ds1 was 12 weeks when he slept through and ds2 7 months both bf way past that so they must be the exception to the rule

Bloody autocorrect keeps changing bf to fb!!

onesie an awful lot more babies died then. And wet nurses have been known through history exactly because some mothers can't bf.

Mind you really am in favour of bf'ing - if you can. Formula is brilliant, absolutely essential if you can't and it's a shame there's so much guilt about it. (and people ending up feeling guilty because they have had to have a C-section baffles me intensely ... if it's better for baby or mother, then go for it - it's a shit load better than risking death!)

But on the whole I think that the reason it's still so out of fashion and there is this enormous debate and high feelings in the first place is because it's been a really successful marketting campaign ( bfíng is the normal way of feeding?!) , and because sometimes formula is plain convenient.

Where does this 6 months thing come from?

Once you have done the often really tricky bit for the first few months, and assuming you aren't going back to work or really don't like it or something, why on earth stop at 6 months?

At 6 months they (generally) start getting some food and can have water, BF is well established and so is quick and due to the other stuff they can have the amount of times you have to feed drops right off.

I could understand if 12 months was the magic number - the child can then have cows milk and a general full diet and so can move from breast to just normal food and drink without having to arse around with formula.

Why, when BF from 6 months to 12 months is (for most women who have got that far) much cheaper and easier, is everyone like this doctor and some on this thread and people like my mum saying NO NO NO STOP IT and switch to formula and spend lots of money and go out and buy stuff to sterilise with and bottles and all the rest of it?

I really don;t get it.

Is it because of the formula companies aren't allowed to advertise before 6 months and so all their ads concentrate on a 6 month "switchover"?

Does anyone know why it is?

There's no profit in breastfeeding.

I think we should all go back to the caves. Life was so much more wholesome then.

I BF my 1st for a month, my 2nd for a day and didn't even try with my 3rd. Reasons for all of this but these Drs who know nothing about us would not know about that. I do not feel guilty about any of them, as I had good reasons in all three cases!

He's just jealous 'cos he can't do it

'There's no profit in breastfeeding.'

That's it in a nutshell I'd say. Doubtless some pharmaceutical company somewhere is engineering a way to patent breast milk and charge women for the use of their own boobs.

It's not progress to feed infant humans with modified cows milk because people are squeamish about breasts though is it, surely.

progress

heh 1950s baby milk ads are super

That's progress for you

I think it's largely about misogyny, the medicalisation of infant care, successful ad campaigns by formula companies and the fact that images of breasts are so widely used in an entirely sexual context.

"Ok. You can do that for a bit, but as soon as you have to go back to work/ baby gets a tooth / baby can take solid food then they [your tits] need to go back to their "real" purpose."

AmandaClarke when you put it as succinctly as that it seems quite obvious!

I dunno that formula is essential tbh. Wetnursing is better.

Do wet nurses still exist? Can people afford wet nurses? Would most people be ok with someone else breastfeeding their child?

The answer is negative to both, because formula companies engineered it.

So while the ideal is to breastfeed for as long as possible, in countries where there is clean water, plenty of suitable food for a baby to eat etc. the benefits of breastfeeding past 6 months are much smaller.

Nah. As has been said, the risks are smaller. The benefits are the same - illness without decent hospitals, easy access to boiling clean water, and cost on hugely restricted incomes, are risks we don't have to contend with. But the baby gets the same pluses.

I've just signed up to donate milk to the local SCBU. Because they need it to be from a mum within 6 months of birth, you can only donate that long... but that's because milk they want milk intended for small babies to feed very prem or sick ones. That interests me; if there are no continuing benefits, why would it matter? What changes occur to make milk intended for older babies less appropriate for smaller ones, and vice versa? Does anyone know?