Not wanting to breastfeed

[Cocklodger]

99.9 percent sure I'm going to be causing a bun fight, really hoping that doesn't happen.
My LG is a few days old. I don't want to breastfeed.
I just,don't want to. Its difficult, It feels unpleasant (I have tried) I really don't like it, Its much easier for me to FF and I know FF is almost as good.
When I told my MW I didn't want to I felt forced to try, still don't like it now.
But I've had a couple of (negative) comments already about it, I don't feel like elaborating hugely so just say ''I just don't want to'', soon to be ex h has had massive a strop about it, My sister and mother have commented also.
Is it U for these comments to be made?
Surely its my right to choose how my baby gets fed without judgement.

I know Brooms I used to think lucky old seals.
FWIW neither FF nor BF DC turned out to be particularly intelligent (probably hereditary).

And those other mammals starsorwaters are probably not singleton births. They would be in a cosy den with siblings in the case of hares. It is more important for human babies to have lots of touch from the mother as they are usually singletons.

Also, toxins accumulate in fatty tissue. My health visitor remarked once that I wouldn't give a baby milk from a 34 year old cow, and she was right, I wouldn't.

WTAF??!!

So women over 30 shouldn't breast feed as they will be poisoning their baby?

That HV sounds nuts!!!!

They wouldn't Kitty ! They'd be all alone in a convenient patch of grass known as a form. As would any siblings. (Predator avoidance). Seals (usually single births) on an uncosy shingle beach. Animals are far from Disney in real life.

Lol on the articles being posted. You can find them to support either side.

Here's one that shows it's marginal to irrelevant, We can all use google. Seeking out the positive Ones only to support ones position is a bit silly, shall we all post links? 😂

www.ntnu.edu/news/breastfeeding

Why are we talking about hares and seals?

Shouldn't it be gorillas and chimps if we're going to compare to animal relatives?

Zara yes that's true but I do object to the notion that new mothers give up or don't BF because they are befuddled or confused.

Maybe a tiny minirity are but in my experience most women are more than capable of making decisions for their bodies.

Well now that is very interesting starsorwater. All by themselves in random patches of grass - I'd never have believed it. Don't know where I got my idea of hares from. I don't think there are any Disney movies featuring them.

bluntness I linked to research that followed 6k people til they were 30. Although the one you linked to had 17k it only went up to they were 6. It's not silly to post links of research. Otherwise it would just be our opinions.

No - and she doesn't have to. Nobody here is saying she should!

This discussion has gone the way this subject always goes.

1. Everyone acknowledges repeatedly that it's the OP's decision, as though there are people out there who are suggesting it's not and they need to challenge this view. I've not actually come across one person in my 50 years on this earth who has implied that it isn't or shouldn't be the choice of individual mothers how they feed their babies, yet for some reason people need to state this repeatedly in any discussion about feeding.

1. 100% of mums who ff will say that their child has literally never been ill.

1. Everyone will say a baby WILL be fine on formula because they have a crystal ball and can see into the future

1. If anyone challenges this view they're accused of being judgemental about mothers who don't breastfeed.

It's depressing that we can't find a better way of discussing this issue. :-(

Anyway, like everyone else here I think the OP should do what she likes, however I do think right thing to do is make a choice on the basis of good quality information and not just on the basis of anecdote or on a whim. There's something wrong if people spend less time researching what they're going to give their child to eat for every single meal for a full 6 months than they do researching what buggy to buy, particularly when the scientific literature shows that how a child is fed can have important health implications in the long and short term. I'm sure the OP is a responsible person and will give the decision some serious thought, which is all you can reasonably expect of someone in relation to this issue.

Or, the discussion went like this:

1. Everyone acknowledges that this is the OP's decision and nothing to do with anyone else.
2. A small number of people use the opportunity to make under-the-counter boasts about how difficult they found BF but how they 'know' this was significantly better for their child than what the OP decided to do, as well as snide remarks about the OP's choices.
3. A small number of people challenge the stance taken by those who argue that BF is clearly significantly better.
4. A small number of people start throwing around dubious science to support their instinctive views.

Again, a fairly classic BF/FF debate.

What posts refer to 'dubious science?'

I don't think the differences are marginal - look how many ff babies are hospitalised in their first 6 months compared to bf babies.

I saw a blog post recently where a mum who expressed reguarly put milk side by side , one from when she and the baby were well and another expressed when the whole family was ill- the milk from the time the family was ill was much darker, almost like colostrum as bf changes to provide specific antibodies in response to infections in the environment. I think that's quite amazing!

My baby had clear skin and sparkly eyes, when I started giving him formula he broke out in spots and his eyes looked dull. I went back to breastfeeding and within a day his skin cleared up.

And mine had milk spots and it looked like he had acne. Breastfed till he was 14 months.

The posts that say BF is significantly better because it contains X, Y and Z are very dubious because they don't link to outcomes. The posts that link to marginally better outcomes are not dubious in and of themselves but they are used to support conclusions they don't actually support, so they slip into the territory of being 'dubious' there.

m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/9296968

Rhythm: I don't know those statistics, but I do know that BF is a class marker - it is likely that the mothers and fathers of BF babies enjoy better health than the mothers and fathers of FF babies, and this could easily explain any difference in the rate of hospitalisation. Equally it could be explained by educational standards: mothers and fathers of BF babies are generally more educated, so are likely to seek intervention both earlier and from a wider range of sources, leading to fewer hospital admissions. It is not necessarily to do with the formula milk.

trifle where on earth is that based on? Was every Academic BF? Was every Olympic athlete BF? No, of course not. This attitude of "breast is best" (read: the only acceptable option) is just ludicrous

Marginal is such a vague concept when you're talking about things measured on a population level and their effect on the individual child. If your IQ is in the 120s, 4 points means not a lot, in say the 80s it could be the difference between having the potential to learn to read or not. And of course 4 points is an average, so the effect on the individual child could be zero or three times as much.

And for some children the benefits are not marginal by any description. I'm currently in the NICU with premature DD and the benefits of breast milk for premature babies are very, very clear. But even then it seems like less than half of mothers here are giving breastmilk and they shouldn't have to feel bad because many of them have been very ill themselves or had great difficulty producing milk. Formula is keeping those babies alive, so thank God it exists.

Happy: I don't quite know what you mean. I think we're on the same side in this.

happydays00 the point isn't that a baby can't grow up to be an academic or an olympic athlete if ff. The point is that the baby who already had the genetics, environment etc to be an academic would now be an academic with an IQ 4 points higher if bf.
As for the olympic athletes, I personally dont' think bf would help there much. There is a big difference between being a generally healthy person and having the genetic potential to be an elite athlete.

Soloman: Not everyone agrees that IQ is even a meaningful measure of intellect. And it is has been the consensus for some time that intelligence is as linked to genetics as it is to social factors. You are describing correlation, not causation.

The point is that the baby who already had the genetics, environment etc to be an academic would now be an academic with an IQ 4 points higher if bf.

Oh dear...

Namechanged for this.

2 kids, one bf to a year, one had a couple of weeks at best.
One at the top of the class, one needs extra support in their lessons.

When I was pregnant there was a whole section in the yellow book about the benefits of Breastfeeding and I had to sign each one to say I agreed with them. But there was no evidence to back it up, links to studies etc so it all sounded a bit far fetched tbh.

And let's not get into the whole 'I'm not allowed to tell you about formula milk as I am banned from talking about it' shite either.

The research is actually quite interesting. Loads of interesting compounds in breast milk - it's very interesting stuff. But... actually pinning down and quantifying the benefit is not easy

I have read quite a lot of the literature (I'm a a scientist) and it's actually surprisingly difficult to quantify what, if any, benefit it has. I'm sure breast is best, if nothing else due to the biologics, but in countries with clean water and good health care it's really difficult to reduce all the confounding factors and pick out specifically what breast milk is doing. The Brazilian IQ study is widely cited but if you read the methodology it's not clear that they have adequately controlled for socioeconomic factors etc (in my opinion, but I am quite qualified to make that opinion.)
Breast may be best on a population level but on an invidual mum/baby level what's best is what fits that mum and baby. That can be formula, breast or a mixture of the two. To have a mum struggling to breast feed and tell them that formula is risky and inferior is, in my opinion, both cruel and inaccurate. There is no risk in a country with safe water and good hygiene practises. The risk to the mother's mental health from feeling guilty/pressured/inedaquate however is significant.
Formula is a safe alternative.
No one should be made to feel bad about how they feed their baby. I breast feed but if I have another I will mix feed, because what is best for me on an individual level is ehatever I want it yo be.

So op. Do whatever you feel is best for you

But wipingmyarse noone's suggesting you can take two different people and make one have a higher IQ than the other by feeding that child breastmilk.
What the research shows is that statistically your top of the class ff kid might have been even brighter if bf and your needing support kid might struggle even more at school if s(he) hadn't been bf.