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 don't think anyone is disputing that @green. Simply the posts which have said the benefits of breastfeeding are overstated and formula is just as good.

Ok, but that really is my point except you don't seem to think women should be given info on the risks re FF because they are so small that they don't matter but then you think they should be given only the information that fits your personal view about sleep safety and bedsharing.

You keep posting this 15% thing which even the study itself doesn't classify as 'physically unable' etc. The study found 15% didn't achieve the weight gain amount they set as a target for that study, it says nothing about 'physically unable' though it may say something about breastfeeding difficulty (though as tiktok explained not necessarily even that).

Tiktok has said to you you can read the actual study if you aren't clear what lullaby mean (though it is quite clear when they say 90% of deaths they should have written 90% of all SIDS deaths).

Sunshine come on!

My fiance is Irish, I have been with him in Galway and in more rural aras and not once have people remarked on us holding hands or kissing!

I'm more of the latter itsmine. It was really just this discrepancy between saying BF is not relevant because differences across a number of outcomes are only small according to research but then re sleeping even though there may be a small difference across the population re one outcome we should all be very concerned!

I wasn't the one going on about the importance/irrelevance of the research in either area BTW.

I feel that I wish we had a more supportive and less judgemental country. That we had more and earlier education on life skills like pg/child rearing and that we just helped people to mitigate the risks of bearing and raising children by giving them education and general (respectful) support.

Yy I get that - people tend to pick the things they like on emotional topics no matter how much information/education they have and we are all guilty of that! I still think it is a bit strange to use the same argument to argue in favour of one way for one thing, and the other way for something else on the same thread!

If it was a case of, like you said, and others; benefits across populations not being the be all and end all of individual choices/risks that's consistent and understandable.

Ha ha!

And I think many many pro BF people are concerned about the lack of support people get with FF in addition to worrying about the lack of support re BF. If you are interested in PH you want to try and reduce risks to PH in whatever way you can and that has to include comprehensive feeding support whether you are BF/FF really.

So many of the findings re formula can be reduced if people are given support with FF.

Alyosha - you are right on this one:

"It seems the consensus view is that bedsharing is dangerous" (consensus amongst people who work on SIDS, that is).

the blair analysis from 2 case-control studies, which is often used by cosleeping advocates and BF support people, actually produced the following result:

"The multivariable risk associated with bed-sharing in the absence of these hazards was not significant overall (OR = 1.1 [95% CI: 0.6–2.0]), for infants less than 3 months old (OR = 1.6 [95% CI: 0.96–2.7])"

which is in fact consistent with the being an increase in SIDS risk with cosleeping in the absence of any other risk. The reason I say this is because the upper bounds of the confidence intervals are quite high and overlap with the estimates from the other studies which did show a risk. In particular, OR 1.6 (0.96=2.7) if interpreted correctly is pretty much consistent with their being a risk of SIDS with "safe" cosleeping, rather than eliminating the possibiility of there being a risk (as this paper is often (mis) interpreted to say).

So what I'm saying is the Blair and the Carpenter SIDS studies are actually consistent with each other and with there being assoc between SiDS and "safe" cosleeping. (cosleeping as the only risk factor in the absence of any other risk factors).

If you're confused I can explain confidence intervals separately.

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.

Well a minority of babies dying would hardly lead to the eradication of a whole race would it? So what if only a few including mine died as long as the superior breastfed ones survive.

What a horrible thread this is. Breastfeeding is best, fine I don't take issue with that when it goes well. If it went well for you then you honestly have no idea what it is like to have your baby shrinking in front of you and ending up in hospital.

Why are we arguing about whether it's 15%, 2%, 1%. Whatever, it's still a substantial minority of people. 1% if there are 1M births a year is 10K women that this happens to in the UK alone per year. It's hardly rare is it?

Offred - I have never said parents shouldn't be told the risks of FF.

Au contraire, I think the risks of FF, BF and EBF should be clearly laid out in easily understood terms so people can make their own minds up.

There should then be adequate support to safely feed and sleep in whatever way mums want. If mum wants to sleep with her baby, she should know there's a slightly higher risk involved in doing so, and how to minimise this. Not hugely higher, but slightly higher. Just as there's a higher risk of SIDS with FF.

Offred, the 90% thing was from Unicef, not Lullaby.

15% might be wrong - but it's the only study there is. There's no study to show the oft quoted figure of 1%-2% is right either. No one knows. It's likely to be nearer 15% than 1% though.

scienceofmom.com/2014/09/26/bed-sharing-with-young-infants-is-it-safe-after-all/

This is a very nice, clear blog post on the differences between the Carpenter study and the Blair study (on bed sharing). It's also worth reading the correspondence between Blair and Carpenter themselves, in the comments on the Blair paper.

I don't think the overlapping CIs are significant, bigmamapeach. Both studies are respectable and well-designed. Both ask different questions (Blair states in his comments that their info on alcohol intake is important, for instance). As I have said, neither is the last word.

"What a horrible thread this is. Breastfeeding is best, fine I don't take issue with that when it goes well. If it went well for you then you honestly have no idea what it is like to have your baby shrinking in front of you and ending up in hospital."

It's only horrible if you think it's wrong to talk about difficult things, and to make sure that no woman who wants to bf doesn't end up thinking she can't because either she or her baby doesn't "work properly" when what has actually happened is that she has been misinformed or badly supported. How you feed your baby should, in the vast majority of cases be a proper choice, not something forced on you by circumstances beyond your control.

You are really quite unpleasant bert. I was not badly informed or missupported you have no idea AT ALL what you are talking about.

"You are really quite unpleasant bert. I was not badly informed or missupported you have no idea AT ALL what you are talking about."

Sorry? What on earth is unpleasant about my post? Could you read it again, please?

I really don't think bert was singling you out increasingly

My baby didn't work properly which is why he didn't bf. He still doesn't work properly years later and I find that phrase repulsive.

As I said Bert you have no idea at all what having your baby admitted to hospital is like.

And she was singling me out - I was quoted.

I was talking about people who are misinformed and unsupported. There are plenty of them.