If whether you are able to breastfeed, or how long you breastfeed was primarily down to luck you'd see consistent rates of breastfeeding continuation across all sectors of society and between countries.
In Norway 80% of babies are still breastfed at 6 months
In the UK only 25% of babies are still breastfed at 6 months.
That's not down to luck, physiology or even (completely) down to good support.
Threads like this show why breastfeeding rates in the UK are so poor. Yes - women have poor support, but it's more than that. Breastfeeding is trivialised and seen as unimportant and pretty much irrelevant - there isn't the incentive to change things.
"I believe breastfeeding should of course be heavily discussed with parents, but so should formula feeding. Both have their benefits, whether they are health or lifestyle benefits"
Do you think that they are both equally healthy and offer equal 'lifestyle' benefits to both mothers and babies? Do you need to present them as equally healthy in order to make yourself appear even handed?
"Concentrating on one factor above all others isn't a balanced way of looking at things."
First thing - a baby who is fed formula from birth is ONLY fed formula and nothing else at all for 6 months (at least), so comparing it with other dietary choices after weaning isn't really sensible.
Secondly - why do you make an assumption that people who have strong feelings and beliefs about the importance of breast milk for babies have simply no interest or opinions on other aspects of child nutrition? I'm really bored with reading comments along the lines of 'People go on and on about breastfeeding and completely ignore the fact that loads of children grow up eating nothing but chicken nuggets and chips' on mumsnet. Because it's bollocks frankly. People who care about how newborns are fed generally also care about child nutrition and child health and don't ever argue that as long as a child is breastfed nobody needs to worry about any other aspects of lifestyle or nutrition. In fact it's one of those strawman arguments that is constantly being wheeled out on threads about breastfeeding in order to polarise opinion - I really wish people wouldn't do it. The irony is that those children who have the worst diet in childhood are also those least likely to have ever been breastfed so they get the worst of everything. :-(
"I just struggle to see an enormous crisis in loved babies being looked after and given formula. Maybe when all babies are loved and safe then comparatively we can all get hoikey pants about formula."
OK - who has talked about 'huge crisis'?
Again - you putting attributing opinions to me and others and putting words in people's mouths that don't belong there.
Why don't you ask yourself why you feel the need to create false arguments in relation to this issue? Why can't you deal with what is actually being said, rather than making things up and then knocking them down?
And I absolutely appreciate that you don't think this is an issue of importance but you have to allow other people to hold a different opinion.
According to that UNICEF research overview that I linked to, full breastfeeding would prevent more than half of all hospitalisations for diarrhoea in the UK of babies and more than 1 in 4 hospitalisations for respiratory illness. We all adore our children and try to care for them as best we can, but sometimes love is not enough to keep them out of hospital, but breastfeeding sometimes WILL. And I say that as someone whose much adored BOTTLE FED baby ended up being hospitalised with a gastric illness that they may have got from formula. Me loving her and being a good parent wasn't enough to stop her getting sick.
Again - to put a disclaimer on this: I'm not saying all women can or should breastfeed, or that women who don't are bad or implying that formula is 'evil' (another bloody stupid word that only ever crops up in the comments of people trying to criticise breastfeeding advocacy and polarise opinion on the issue - it's pretty much never used or implied by breastfeeding advocates themselves). It's not. I'm making a case that we should be able to discuss this issue like adults and talk freely about it without people engaging in character assassination.