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?

In any case in the U.K. there is a strong correlation between high rates of breastfeeding and prolonged breastfeeding and the lowest rates of obesity. Not suggesting causation, but just flagging up that breastfeeding for comfort doesn't seem to be resulting in highly disordered eating in adulthood.

bangingmyheadoffabrickwall

You really have no idea how infant feeding affects health. Children don't roll off the production line as identical humans do how could you ever measure the impact of anything at an individual level?
You can't tell whose mothers smoked during their pregnancies, or the children who have truly appalling weaning diets. My nephew is 3 inches taller than my son who is the same age, has beautiful skin and is incredibly slim and fit. He has - no exaggeration - NEVER eaten any fruit or veg. None. My ds eats it every day. Should I conclude that it doesn't matter if kids live on frankfurters, pasta and white bread from this?

People were weaning babies onto solids at 5 weeks for decades because the damaging effects of early weaning weren't obvious at an individual level. Ditto smoking in pregnancy. When science shows you you know better, and when you know better, you do better.

I have to say I think it's unlikely extended BF causes disordered eating.

It must be very nice for anyone of any age to wake up, and have their favourite person immediately come to them, offer them a tasty snack and give them a cuddle. I'm this is not just a BF phenomenon!

Mini luckily we live in enlightened times where evidence shows that the major, confirmed benefits of BF are a lower risk of colds & ear infections, and a slightly reduced risk of breast cancer for the mums.

We also know that EBF is correlated with a substantial risk of dehydration in the first week of life. This is something you almost never hear HCPs talk about, despite it potentially leading to some very bad outcomes for babies.

We can tell women the population level data for all of this and then let them make their own minds up.

Isn't "comfort feeding" more about the cuddles and the sucking and less about the food? Else dummies wouldn't be so popular with infants without the milk intake. Also, by the toddler age you're presumably not producing nearly as much milk, I'm certainly not for my kid. I don't think it's a full belly he's after when he's comes for a comfort feed, so find it a bit of a stretch that he associates food with comfort just from extended breastfeeding.

Alyosha you asked me if I think mothers should be warned their choice to excl BF has a risk of dehydration.

I think mothers need skills, information and support to be able to assess when BF is going well, esp in the first week - they should know how to check for poos/wees, how to be aware of their baby transferring colostrum/milk (and not just appearing to by being at the breast and sucking a bit), how responsive and frequent feeding is important. Hcps should know all this, fix it when it seems to be going awry before it causes problems, and they should weigh at evidence-based intervals (particularly on day 3/4 which helps ensure weight loss is WNL).

Do I think mothers should be told 'hmmm....exclusive breastfeeding, eh? You do know your baby risks dehydration, don't you?'

No!

Any more than I think the mother who wants to FF should be told 'hmmm....formula feeding, eh? You do know your baby risks gastro, brochiolitis and ear infections, don't you?'

Why all this about dehydration? The risk is not 'substantial'. Even severe neonatal hypernatraemic dehydration does not have sequelae (per the Oddie et al study which followed every case in the UK over a period of years) when treated.

Obviously, dehydration needs recognising and treating as soon as it appears. Serious consequences of dehydration happen when this has not happened. I am not minimising - I have been close to babies where BF has not been effective in the early days leading to very worrying weight loss and it is scary and upsetting. But in the case I know best, for example, it was spotted on day 4, the issue was fixed, and BF continued with no problems.

In some other cases, you might have to supplement.

Alyosha you forgot to mention SIDS, NEC and breast cancer in mothers.

In any case, why should breastfeeding have to prove itself? Where is the evidence that ff isn't associated with poorer short or long term health? Where is the evidence that ff babies are no more likely to be admitted to hospital or need GP appointments? Why is the biological norm on trial here, rather than a radical, and in historical terms very recent, new method of feeding babies on non-human milk ?

Where is the acknowledgement that all humans deserve a diet of fresh foods? Why is acceptable to feed one sector of society a diet consisting solely of freeze dried reconstituted processed food? For the sake of convenience? Would we ever use that as an argument for feeding older children or adults a diet completely lacking in fresh foods and a variety of tastes (as breastmilk has)? Why don't we forget the health issues for a moment and talk about quality of life? It's the hugest irony that in an era where more and more people lay claim to being foodies, that most babies are fed on a product which smells unpleasant and often results in horrible smelling nappies. Constipation is incredibly rare in exclusively bf babies but has become so common in ff babies that it's now seen as a normal baby ailment and it's never even raised as something of concern. Note - constipation is a symptom of disease, lack of activity, dehydration, or poor diet. Why is it common in small babies? I can answer that - it's because they are on a diet - formula - which their bodies don't process well.

The feeding habits, growth patterns, smell, and toileting of ff babies is now seen as the biological norm for babies. They're not! The fact that breastfed babies smell different should alert you to the fact that formula is not as innocuous as people want to believe..

I still can't get my head around the fact that some people care SO much about how other people feed their babies.

mini fingers - maybe bf is 'on trial' because it is the method that is claiming superiority. If formula was claiming to be best (as opposed to equal), then formula would have to prove itself.

There has been a huge amount of research on bf and the provable benefits very limited.

Basically, if you make a claim, you should be the one to prove it, and the beast is best campaign certainly makes a lot of claims!

"We also know that EBF is correlated with a substantial risk of dehydration in the first week of life"

Is it? Substantial? And is it if the woman is properly supported?

"I still can't get my head around the fact that some people care SO much about how other people feed their babies"

I don't think that's an accurate characterisation of how some people feel about breastfeeding.

I don't care very much how people feed their babies in the abstract. What I do care about, is that we live in a society which has told women that our bodies are inferior and a bit shit and has disempowered us from feeding our babies from our bodies (which is the normal way for all mammals to feed our young) and given us such negative messages about doing that, that many of us are at the very least very ambivalent about it.

I think it's worth de-constructing those messages and analysing why there's such a shit-storm every time we discuss this issue. That's caring about the issue itself, not about how individuals choose how to feed their children. I support individual mothers whatever their choice. That doesn't mean not critiquing the cultural context in which those choices are made, however.

Well said AskBasil

The very fact that benefits are seen only at a population level indicates that the benefits are limited. To take another nutrition example, vitamin D and/or calcium deficiency causes rickets, or vitamin C deficiency causes scurvy. Have two groups, give one a regular diet and one a diet absent in vitamin C and three months later, you will be able to tell the difference between them both at a population level AND at an individual level. So simply because it involves nutrition does not mean that individual impacts are impossible. It means that the impacts of infant feeding choice are marginal for healthy term infants.

Healthy, fed babies are what we all want.

For what it's worth, I was exclusively formula fed, weaned early and until I first got pregnant at age 33, my last sick day from school, university or work was at age 5. I get a mild cold once every couple of years and have cold sores. I still haven't had an illness that wasn't pregnancy-related. But that proves NOTHING.

We also know that EBF is correlated with a substantial risk of dehydration in the first week of life

I have to admit that, ironically, it was stuff like this ^^ that got me through the hellish first 6-8 weeks of getting BFing established.

In my head, I figured that there may be all sorts of difficulties associated with breastfeeding - but none of them are surmountable - because, otherwise, we humans wouldn't be here today.

Breastfeeding is the biological norm, it's what we mammals do, and so I must be able to do it, as well.

That's what kept me going. Looking back, I was pretty naive, but it worked.

Other mammals seem to be able to get on with it far more easily than we do, but nonetheless, in my head, I figured I had to be able to do it, and that was that.

EBF may well be correlated with substantial risk of dehydration in the first week of life, but, I mean, so what, really. We humans are still here, millions of years on, in spite of that.

Oh and OP, if you want to stop, STOP.

• insurmountable

"mini fingers - maybe bf is 'on trial' because it is the method that is claiming superiority"

What, you mean breastfeeding, which is a physiological function like breathing, which involves a substance made by the body as complex as blood, a function which has been honed over the entire period of human history, is claiming superiority over a commercial product made in the past 60 years by process of trial and error and never tested in properly controlled laboratory trials involving large numbers of babies, followed up over a period of years?

The pretty much wholesale switch of populations to feeding babies on processed animal milk has been the biggest, most radical, fastest and worst controlled dietary experiment in the history of human nutrition. But hey it's fine - babies can't talk or advocate for themselves so we can just crack on.

Absolutely what AskBasil said.

On comfort feeding - my older two are 12 and 9, bf pretty much on demand (that demand of course declining as time went on - at the end it was once every few days) for 4.5 and 3 years respectively, and don't comfort eat. One of them likes his food and will eat for appetite sometimes as opposed to pure hunger (and has very eclectic tastes - loves salad every bit as much as crisps), but not for comfort. Both are very slim. I might even surmise that the reassurance of access to bf/comfort when needed has actually helped build a more relaxed relationship with food - obv that's a supposition only, but I don't think it'S any less justified than the supposition that 'extended' (or natural term) bf leads to comfort eating. (This is a bit of a tangent, but I think a lot of the deprivation of small children of sources of comfort (such as sleeping in their parents' bed) in the name of breaking 'habits' (or not allowing them to start) proceeds from the flawed supposition that 'habits' won't change by themselves as needs change and maturity increases).

Oh, and tiktok - you helped me massively under another name with that now 12yo, whose bf got off to a very bumpy start indeed. I'm now 19 months into bf no. 3. I've had a long MN break and am very pleased to see you still here and still giving patient and robust information. You rock :)

Mini yes we can just crack on.

It's the most scrutinised food,research after research and time and again very little is found against it. And what tiny stats there are are often refuted by subsequent research further down the line.

I was a 60s SMA baby,my mother is in her 70s and a ff baby. Generations have thrived on it. There is no need to demonise it. By all means push for better support for those who want it but demonise formula? Sorry there is no need.

Atenco - that point wasn't about comfort feeding leading to comfort eating it was about sleep associations/associations with comfort eating for toddlers.

If you have taught a toddler that they get comfort/go to sleep with feeding then it is much harder for you to then break that association between feeding and sleeping/comfort. Many many people will replace that comfort feeding with a dummy or follow on formula or cow's milk etc which is worse for teeth.

That is the point I was making about habit.

There is a window developmentally speaking where you can successfully introduced more complex sleep and comfort associations and I chose to do that because I did not want any of us to get into a habit of feeding/sucking to sleep.

And I will say it again. Extended breastfeeding (though I think it is a tad ridiculous to apply the term extended to 1-2 years) is NOT the same as comfort feeding. If you do attachment parenting it is not necessary to comfort feed a toddler with BM or FM. It is possible to be an attachment parent and never BF. Attachment parenting is about responding to your child's needs.

Oh and 3 ff babies, not one bout of constipation. I was always scrupulous how I made the bottles up.

And yy to quality of life for both the mother,baby and other children in the family. My babies and I loathed breast feeding. We were all significantly happier and healthier after switching as were older siblings who count too.

Thankfully we live in a time that enables quality of life in many areas we didn't have before. I call that progress.

BF provides effective comfort, it is vastly better than comfort feeding formula (which a lot of people also do). It can and does lead to comfort FF for a lot of people when they decide to stop BF. They idea that toddlers must be demand fed through the night or you aren't doing it properly also leads a lot of people to stop BF altogether when the misery they are feeling due to sleep deprivation could be solved by breaking the sleep association with feeding and they could still enjoy BF.