To think breastfeeding has made no difference to my dd and is massively overrated in terms of benefits?

[Placeanditspatrons]

I've nearly driven myself to a breakdown feeding my dd. She is 16 months now and I'm still feeding. She has been ill more times and worse than my formula fed from four months son. She does not recover any faster and she catches anything I get and gets it worse, despite supppsedly the antibodies passing to her and either preventing or reducing the severity of the illness.

I know it's anecdotal and the studies say overall bf babies are healthier but how much healthier? I mean I we talking one less cold? One less ear injection? Statistically? Many of my friends have said similar. Again anecdotal but I can't help wondering - after the colostrum which is more important I guess - does it really make any noticeable difference?

I actually think the order of priority in infant feeding is like this:
Maternal mental health
Breast feeding
Formula feeding

However in real life it has been skewed to this
Breast feeding at any cost
Maternal mental health
Formula feeding

Or in some instances maternal mental health is at the very bottom of the pile.

How is this good for infants and families, just how??????

May I just address Daydream 007 - formula is not handed out free to mothers on benefits. They do get milk vouchers - but they fall a long way short of the cost of formula feeding a baby. My God-daughter is one such mum and we all try to pitch in with whatever we can.There is one exception, and that is formula for children who have feeding/swallowing issues and that is prescribed - because the average family could never afford it!

I breast fed until my son was two. Mainly because it was it felt right and was easier than making bottles. Son is 7 now and had a fair amount of toddler illnesses but has had none since starting school. Think there are wider long term benefits.

Health benefits are global and include places where water isn't safe to drink making formula not possible or formula isn't available /affordable. In western countries and as long as you follow the preparation instructions properly the benefits are negligible. However many people don't follow the prep instructions properly and they have to aim the Advice at the lowest common denominator. Says my friend who is a nicu consultant.

My dd is top of the year group at school and hasn't been ill for 5years. Formula fed.

I have massive issues with the supposed benefits of bf as touted by some.

I was formula fed, my brother breast fed. My mum drove her self crazy over the fact she couldn't breast feed me. My general health was (and still is) better than my brother's, he is obese, I am not and I outperformed him at school, university and post-graduate level. The same is now happening with my own kids. Formula fed DS1 is never ill, is super skinny and very, very academic. Breast fed DS2 is often ill and has been referred to a paediatrician in the past. He is much chunkier than his brother and is struggling to learn phonics at school. That's only two examples but I feel that comparing siblings with siblings gives a much better picture than surveys that look at a random cross section of people.

BF for at least 6 months lowers both mum and baby's risk of cancer in the long term - for that reason alone it's been worth it, colds or no colds. There's really no need to keep going at 16 months if you don't want to. Knock it on the head and enjoy your little one.

My son is about to turn 14. His first three days were hellish. He was starving and I did not lactate. None of this "I couldn't because it hurt" or "I couldn't be bothered" . I DID NOT LACTATE! Midwives hooked me up to breast pumps, nothing. Because I'd wanted to breast feed they just didn't want to give up. But three days was enough. I got him on bottles. I made bottle feeding super simple. Going out with boiled sterile bottles of water....not milk. I had milk powder portions ready to add in my bag. If the bottle was warm or room temp...no matter. All went down the same way. Made traveling very easy. 14 years on....son (CBA with all the acronyms soz) has had no more than three days off school and nursery...ever. One of those was the nursery getting over cautious. I think having little toddler helping me in the allotment helped. He grabbed muddy spuds and bit into them, then bypassed the potatoes and just ate the mud! My house is a bit on the "lived in" side. Wee man shoved sand in his gob on the beach when he was teething. Must have felt nice. We worry way too much when they are small.

Is the same with everything from feeding, through vitamin d, to sleeping. NHS/PHE send out sound bites issuing diktats which fail to actually educate and empower people to make their own informed choice and leave HCPs struggling to support people.

Sleep for example -'The safest place for your baby to sleep is in their cot' well no! Not necessarily! It depends where else they might sleep, where the cot is, how they are fed, what is in the cot, what they are wearing/covered in etc etc etc why not talk about the risks? Overheating, overfeeding, lack of supervision, suffocation, prematurity etc etc and allow HCPs to give individual assessment/advice to families?

But the problem is that it has become so emotive that I, and I am sure others, hesitate before commenting on bf threads where women are actually asking for advice because I am afraid of being accused of putting pressure on. Someone can be posting that they are thinking of giving up because it is proving difficult, and the prevailing advice is always to switch to ff. And that may very well be the right decision. But so might persevering.

This

I tend to type out a post, then delete it as don't want to cause offence/add pressure.

LapinROse I agree with you 100%.

With my first, the BF mafia (midwife, hospital, general attitude of many mumsnetters etc) made it very clear that if you're not BFing you're failing your child and are a shit parent. No exceptions

BF is made out to be so easy and arseholes like the NCT (I hate them with a passion - long story) make you feel inadequate for even questioning it that the issues and problems are rarely mentioned.

Because of this the first few months with my first were horrible and I felt awful about myself. It wasn't until some friends with older children said "f*ck 'em - just grab the aptamil!" that I started to enjoy being a parent.

With my second I went straight on the bottle (or at least DS did!) and everything was so much better, both for me and him.

The parent's mental health is considered so unimportant compared to some silly campaigns people have.

Very good point that more affluent families tend to breastfeed in the West and there's no evidence that it isn't the benefit of wealthier parents that creates any perceived benefit rather than breastfeeding.

The breastfeed myth is the biggest fake news story going

Oh god, the pumps!!
I had one on each breast sucking away
I looked like a cow at milking time.
Jesus, it was awful 😞

badders I totally agree with you.

Our DDs benefitted far, far more from being born to graduate, MC parents then they could ever benefit just from BF.

I could have fed our DDs on condensed milk + sugar water + Haribo from Day One, and they would still have enjoyed a far, far better lifestyle and various social/academic benefits, than a baby born to uneducated parents living in poverty, that was BF from Day One.

You can't really believe that the researchers aren't aware of and haven't included socio-economic factors in their conclusions surely?

I agree with the op's op that the benefits are overstated. I've never been able to pick out which kids have had been fed on ff, bm or a mix in any room and the anecdata is enough for me!

It's always seemed common sense to me tbh...
Child 1 - bf, lovely home, non smoking parents, heeds advice re SIDS, gets their child immunised, attends regular HV checks, attends baby massage class and the like, is given good quality healthy food when weaned...
Child 2 - ff, dirty home, pets, smokers in the house, ignores adive on SIDS, misses HV checks and immunisations, is plonked in a travel system for hours on end, formula not always made as per instructions...
Is it the bf or the child's environment and carers who determine their long term health?
Also....if only I'd known!! No one gives a crap how you feed your child or ever asks you again once they are weaned.
All that angst!

I've never seen any studies that convince me offred...
I totally understand why some people get very angry with formula companies advertising in 3rd world countries.
I get it.
But without ff my ds1 would be dead. (And my prem 27 week dn)
I am so so grateful that as a mc person living in the west I could afford the formula and all the necessary accessories and that I am educated enough to understand how to use it properly.

The science does show that child 1 who was FF from birth has increased risk of infant mortality, poorer health outcomes etc though.... That's why the NHS/PH are pushing to increase our dire BF rates... just I think they are going about it in a really crap way.

I gave up breastfeeding at 13 weeks because I felt I wasn't getting anywhere (hungry baby etc). At 14 weeks my dd nearly died from a intersussception (bowel blockage in short). She had every sickness bug etc going for the first two years of her life following her surgery. I can only assume the antibiotics destroyed her immunity. In short 13 hard weeks for nothing. Do I regret giving up feeding her...yes at the time maybe but now in hindsight a healthy happy little bottle fed girl (and later a son who was only breastfed for 3 weeks) has turned into a beautiful 10 year old. Do what's right for you, do not beat yourself up....and I promise you in a few years time you will be worrying about something else!!! Children were sent to try us but you have to be healthy and happy too.

But offred...it's not that he/she wasn't bf?
Poor family, poor uneducated carers, missing vaccinations...why is that anything to do with bf?
Sorry I don't mean to be dense, but surely not being bf is the least of this child's worries?
These kids have poorer outcomes because they live in poorer areas, with poorer facilities, poorer parents...surely?

There isn't really a right answer to this one. You are entitled to feel however you like about it as it's your boobs day your child. I breastfed DS for 9 months he is now 8 and gets every single illness going and usually ten times worse than anyone in his class but he was in neonatal unit after birth due to complications had formula for the first 48hrs through a tube and generally a pain in the butt from day one. DD was home birth never lost an ounce in the days following birth breast fed from immediately after birth for 2 years and is one of the healthiest children I've ever come across. She's now 5 and has had 1 sickness bug and 2 colds. That's it. Do I feel like breastfeeding benefitted my kids? I like to think so at least a bit but they both were breastfed for over 6 months and are completely different children so whilst it can make a difference it can't work miracles. At the end of the day no one really has a right to pass judgement on anyone for how or what they feed their babies as long as they are fed. Go with whatever works for you. To anyone seeing this who is thinking about breast vs bottle when the time comes I do believe breast is worth at least trying because it saves buying formula and you don't have all the bottles and sterilisers and heating milk up etc it's just a case of baby wakes up at 4am stick them on the boob. But that being said if it doesn't work for you don't do it. The happier and more relaxed you and your baby both are the better.

Badders - so would my twins! They FTT and I mix fed them for a little bit. But equally if I had had proper BF support and they had had lip ties diagnosed and advice given they probably wouldn't have FTT!

I was told to give formula or they would make referral to SS but then told they couldn't give me any advice on how to FF because of NHS diktats on BF. I had no clue as no-one in my family had ever FF. I needed to be given support re risks associated with FF and how to sterilise/prepare/tears etc