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?

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3594675.stm

The research institute mentioned in the BBC article - Monell - helps develop snacks for Nestle etc. Why do you think they research how infant formula affects newborn taste buds.

Err what has a study which concludes that when weaning you should introduce a variety of foods have to do with your claim that formula companies put things into formula to make them like junk food?

So what special choccy munching inducing ingredients are they putting into formula?

It must be widely known and the gov must be outraged. After all considering how the maj are fed on formula it must be the cause of our obesity epidemic. Halting it would save billions. Must be loads of reputable studies and investigations on this. Can you link to them and name these added ingredients please.

newbian, rubbish, really. Fortunately all infant formula in the UK has to comply with legislation that specifies nutritional parameters. Internationally, all infant formula has to comply with Codex regulations on ingredients and amounts (you can check this on the web). This precludes any secret chocolatey lures, I promise you.

There is little doubt that formula manufacturers are fixated on profit as they are commercial entities with obligations to shareholders rather than babies - but your conspiracy theory does not hold water.

I was BF til I was two, how come I'm a chocolate fiend then!!! No fair!!!

No, itsmine. The WHO don't conclude the whole thing is biased, they really don't.

I don't think it is the be all and end all either.

I am not sure what point you are making.

Hmmm
Ds1 - ff - no sweet tooth at all. Never eaten chocolate or sweets and only drinks water now at 13
Ds2 - bf and ff - chocoholic haribo fiend
Make of that what you will.
Ds1s paediatrican who had 4 kids himself was very keen on formula for FTT babies like ds1 for the reasons tiktok states

That is genuinely the funniest thing I've read today.

The human brain is hot wired to desire fat and sugar, breastmilk has the same levels of fat and sugar as formula, there is no nefarious plot to churn out millions of tiny chocolate addicts.

Hey ho, makes a change from Big Pharma shit I guess.

You'd be better off focusing on cat food addicts (of the feline kind, obvs). There's definitely a Whiskas Plot, and as for Dreamies, cat crack in a bag.

Observational studies by their very nature are full of biases. Yes you try and control for them as much as possible but they are still biased and as such are put way down the list as far as scientific evidence is concerned. Observational studies can only ever show correlation not causation and are vulnerable to all sorts of confounding variables which you may or may not be able to identify. If the WHO do not conclude that an observational study is subject to bias then they really need some rather basic research training.

Observational studies are useful though for identifying trends and associations that may warrant further research.

itsmine, I am not splitting hairs when I say 'the whole thing is biased' (and therefore dismissible) is not what they are saying. Studies can indeed be 'subject to bias', and can, to differing extents, attempt to address this by number crunching the data to control for (in the case of infant feeding studies) socio-economic factors. This would be especially important in the UK, where infant feeding has a particular socio-economic profile, but less important in (say) Scandinavia where virtually 100 per cent of babies are BF, most of them for a year or so. It might be an issue the other way in countries where the elite FF and poorer families BF, and you might see if BF closed any of the health gap between rich and poor (it seems to).

It's sensible to bear all this in mind - as the conclusion says we should - not to dismiss it, but to remember that specific circumstances may apply in any study.

What dogs infant feeding research is varying definitions of BF. Exclusive? Length of time? Predominant? Use of formula or other milks/foods?

I weaned my dd on puréed vegetables etc. I have to confess that (whispers to cover her shame) some of the veg wasn't organic. And I may have boiled them in unfiltered water straight from the tap (runs away, mortified).

Eh?

What I'm trying to say is that there is what is "perfect " and what is realistic.

tiktok the whole thing is subject to biases and if they don't say that they are wrong. No amount of 'number crunching' can change this and with more 'number crunching' you start introduce other types of bias. It is not that studies can indeed be subject to bias, all studies ARE subject to bias even gold standard meta-analyses of high quality double-blind randomised controlled trials. There would likely be strong bias in Scandinavia where only a very few people formula feed if you are comparing the two.

Why does Scandinavia manage nearly 100 bf?

Perhaps they are just better mothers than we are.

Interesting fact on breastmilk - in an individual feed the first part of the milk is higher in protein and the end part the baby's pudding as it were - more carbs. It's very very clever stuff which cannot quite be copied in a standard formula feed but it really isn't worth women getting upset about their choices. Most of us do what we feel is right for the baby.

My mother's family were all poor and of course breastfed in those days. My father's were a bit better off and in 1928 a special cow (a real milk cow in a field) was ear marked for his bottle feeding which was certified as free from TB. I suspect my mother and her 52 first cousins who were all breastfed had the better deal in the 1920s in terms of infant feeding anyway.

For example, if we look at just one type of bias all study types suffer from: publication bias. A study with a positive finding e.g. 'Breast feeding increases rate of hair growth' is much more likely to get publish or accepted at a conference than a study declaring 'breast feeding has no effect on rate of hair growth'. They are both equally valid studies but only the first is considered 'interesting enough' to publish. When you then do a systematic review and meta-analysis of all papers on breast feeding and hair growth there will be a strong bias towards showing a link even if the overwhelming evidence actually pointed to no link. Avoiding bias is incredibly difficult and impossible in observation studies.

Of course all studies are subject to bias. I have an academic background in public health stats and I am fully aware of that. Even lab studies on bacteria will have their own biases. The point is to acknowledge them as far as possible and to control as far as possible and to be aware there may be biases you haven't thought about....it does not mean that results can be dismissed.

Scandinavian BF rates are high because they never embraced formula feeding. They were poor countries in the earlier part of the 20th century and after WW2; their populations were small and scattered. No one ever marketed to them or their hcps in the same way. When it looked as if formula was getting a foothold (in the nineteen seventies) governments took action to protect breastfeeding. It's all a bit more complex and multi layered than that, but that's the basics.

Tiktok sounds like she knows what she is talking about.

2 kids. 1st bf to 4mh then weaned off. I went back to work at 6mth so no choice.
2nd not bf due to tongue tied. Couldn't maintain latch. Was on bottle within 24 hrs of birth.
No marked difference in child health issues.
Go with what suits you.