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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Stick to the carnival and football Brazil

28 replies

PizzaLegs23 · 18/03/2015 08:18

WIBU to travel to Brazil and find a mediocre average person who was breastfed and present them to the "scientists" behind the Brazilian study that apparently proves breastfed babies are educationally advanced and earn more money. Load of cack.

OP posts:

MaidOfStars · 18/03/2015 08:22

No, because your person is an anecdote, not data.

MaidOfStars · 18/03/2015 08:24

No = Yes (YABU), forgot which question I was answering.

Also, this is pretty patronising to Brazilian scientists....

olgaga · 18/03/2015 08:29

It's a 30 year study with a large sample size across all social classes. Hardly "cack".

dexter73 · 18/03/2015 08:29

Why is their study a load of cack? Just because you don't like what they are saying?

TheMoa · 18/03/2015 08:31

What exactly is your issue with the study, OP?

MaidOfStars · 18/03/2015 08:32

Also, the study doesn't 'prove' or even 'try to prove' anything. If you are hearing these words, it's more than likely from your English media. The correlation is there, whether you dismiss it as 'cack' or not. But that doesn't mean that breastfeeding causes anything.

There is serious value in discussing the study, the positives and negatives, the societal value, the political value. Rather than dismissing it as nonsense based on what?

TheXxed · 18/03/2015 08:32

Have you read the study? Have you found methodological flaws ?

TheMoa · 18/03/2015 08:34

And your thread title is a disgrace.

You you seriously think scientific rigour is fundamentally lacking in Brazil?

MaidOfStars · 18/03/2015 08:37

And your thread title is a disgrace
Agree. My earlier accusation of 'patronising' wasn't strong enough.

Original poster

PizzaLegs23 · 18/03/2015 08:38

It's a cousin of a Daily Mail front page screaming that tomatoes cause renal failure or walking on the cracks in the pavement causes cancer. I breastfed my baby before you all start. It's not that I don't like what it's saying, it's that it's just laughable cack.

OP posts:

Holepunch · 18/03/2015 08:40

As everyone else says above...maybe the link is because breastfeeding parents aren't the type to dismiss science as cack without even reading the report. So, there could be a link between breastfeeders and intelligence that has nothing to do with breastfeeding IYSWIM

NerrSnerr · 18/03/2015 08:40

I haven't read the research but assume you have?

Your title is just awful by the way.

dexter73 · 18/03/2015 08:40

Can you explain why?

Original poster

PizzaLegs23 · 18/03/2015 08:44

Holepunch, your intelligence caused you to bypass my post where I said I was a breastfeeding parent. And how delighted I am that my children will now be big earners and look after me in my old age

OP posts:

Holepunch · 18/03/2015 08:50

Well no, it was cross post (2 seconds between them or didn't you notice?). My point was that whilst there may be a link the report doesn't claim it's cause and effect, so sorry, not necessarily.

And, there's certainly no link between wealth and the likelihood that children will look after their (racist) parents in old age.

hackmum · 18/03/2015 09:05

The thread title is nasty, xenophobic and deliberately inflammatory. And, OP, you haven't given any reason why you think the research is "cack", simply that you think it is.

In epidemiological terms, it's a pretty big study - 3,000 children followed for more than 30 years. You might take issue with the use of IQ tests as a measure of intelligence, I guess, or you might argue that correlation does not prove causation. But in comparison with a lot of these kinds of studies, it seems fairly robust.

hackmum · 18/03/2015 09:08

Also the OP seems to have made a fairly fundamental error in thinking that finding one breastfed person who is an average achiever will disprove the entire study. But the study isn't saying that every breastfed person is more intelligent than every formula-fed person, simply that on average they do better.

Not every person who smokes cigarettes will get lung cancer; and not everyone who gets lung cancer is a smoker. It's about an increase in probability.

MaidOfStars · 18/03/2015 09:10

t's a cousin of a Daily Mail front page screaming that tomatoes cause renal failure or walking on the cracks in the pavement causes cancer

No. You are that cousin, not the scientific team or the editors of The Lancet.

Actually, you're getting a hard time here. I can't imagine why people aren't taking your opinion, as a non-scientist with no working knowledge of cohort studies/associated methodology/correlative data/appropriate conclusions nor 'scientific' reporting in the popular media, more seriously.

Notpregnantjusttubby · 18/03/2015 22:21

I personally don't see how it can be possible to prove that breastfeeding equals higher intelligence and better life opportunities. There are so many variables - hereditary influences, diet after the baby stage, environmental factors, medical factors, educational experiences etc etc.

I share the op's annoyance at yet another attempt to guilt-trip and pressurise mothers into breastfeeding when it may not be right for them. I was bottle fed so maybe I should hand back my masters and my salary as it's clearly all been a big mistake!!

dexter73 · 18/03/2015 22:35

They haven't proved it. They have shown a correlation between the two.

Original poster

PizzaLegs23 · 19/03/2015 15:27

But wouldn't there be a similar correlation if the study was performed on formula fed babies?

OP posts:

leedy · 19/03/2015 15:35

"But wouldn't there be a similar correlation if the study was performed on formula fed babies?"

They also studied formula fed babies. That's how they had something to compare the breastfed babies to. As you'd know if you knew anything about the study other than "I read a headline and I thought it sounded stupid, knowing feck all about it, or indeed, how statistics work".

Also think your thread title is xenophobic ("because hey, those Brazilians, eh, imagine them doing science, ho ho ho, they are only good at football and dancing").

pbwer · 19/03/2015 15:37

If you had bothered to check the study you would have seen that this was done on 6000 babies, not 6000 Breastfed babies. So the FF would be in that sample no?

leedy · 19/03/2015 15:38

Also (as I think there is an entire thread about elsewhere), just because you were BF and now work in McDonalds/were FF and are now an Oxford don, THAT DOESN'T DISPROVE ANYTHING.

It's a "small statistical likelihood", not "certainty". It doesn't mean that any given BF baby is going to keep their parents in luxury when they get older thanks to their millionaire careers (sadly, given that I fed both of mine into toddlerhood), or that any given FF baby is doomed to a life of burger-flipping.

pbwer · 19/03/2015 16:00

Quite - there are bound to be socio-economic reasons for people ending up in whatever careers they end up in.

I do have my worries about the study though as, of the 6000, the only ones that were included in the findings were those who then volunteered to take an IQ test - so it could be that this is skewing the figures ( if you accept that people from lower socioecominc backgrouds are less likely to BF [http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/6/e002765.full], and may be more wary of intelligence tests per-se if they don't perceive themselves to be intelligent)

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