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?

Rather unscientific that.

Not scientific, really, I agree, Offred. We know about Vitamin D and all kids should be getting that (op's kid is prob already getting it). But vitamin supplements really show up very poorly in research as having an impact on immunity. Maybe urkidding doesn't believe those statistics, either.

Odd, as the Undercover Economist is pretty keen on evidence, including statistics.

All statistics to do with breast-feeding align with middle-class parents.
The children are also supposed to achieve more.

As far as I'm concerned, the breast-feeding enthusiasts make some mothers feel miserable and guilty.

I don't think you can have RTFT, urkidding, but that's fair enough as it's long :). But the whole thing about correlation and confounders and controls and observational studies has been discussed already. It's not actually the case that BF is correlated with middle classness (and better health outcomes) in every context, anyway, or that this presents an insurmountable difficulty, or that it is relevant in every outcome.

Of course no one's enthusiasm for BF should impact on others ' well being or confidence - again, well discussed earlier in the thread :)

Can't find anything The Undercover Economist has written about infant feeding btw - have you got a link?

Guava, understanding stats and research and being a critical thinker is something I'd love to see taught in schools. I never knew a thing about it until I was well into adult hood and I sort of taught myself....then did a postgraduate degree and learnt more, formally and informally.

There are several ways to make sure your confounders are accounted for in a study - and choosing the right way or combination of ways is important to maximise the chances that your study is studying the topic or intervention or whatever you say it is.

If you google something like 'how to control for confounding variables' you get a load of hits. If you select something that relates to public health or epidemiology, that doesn't look too advanced, you might find help. The website healthknowledge.co.uk is good.

This study looked at siblings specifically.
researchnews.osu.edu/archive/sibbreast.htm

That sibs study has been quoted to death. It's so easily refuted. Nothing especially wrong with the design of the study particularly but look at the questions they were asking....digit recollection? And BF/FF would make a difference in that? In kids from the same family? As if.... Behaviour compliance age 4-14? Ditto. Asthma shows no difference but this has always been one of the least sure 'benefits' anyway. Obesity? Highly unlikely BF/FF would override sibling-ness as a predictive factor.

Anyway, this study is one that might have caught the eyes of headline writers and bloggers, but it is not a serious contributor to the debate. Sorry.

The bottom line is that women should have a proper free choice about how they feed their babies. And for most women having a free choice means being shown that if they want to they can. What they do then is up to them, but no woman should ever have to give up breastfeeding when she doesn't want to because she thinks she can't, when with the right information and support she could. That's what a free choice is.

I'm not sure why that sibling study is so awful - they didn't just look at digit recollection etc.

In fact the reason they included those tests was to specifically look at cognitive benefits, and whether they actually exist. They did it presumably to provide a more objective measure than simply "got a degree" which will be highly correlated with familial background.

I think there should be an RCT into BF actually...you could recruit mothers who are ambivalent about BF vs. FF, randomise into two groups, and give both lots of support. You'd have great stats for BF failure too. You'd have to double blind the people doing the assessments though.

My children are at secondary school now but if ever breastfeeding comes up in convo with pregnant/new mum friends and I talk about when I bottle fed.. the ones who choose to breastfeed or who breastfed are like they just don't understand why I bottle fed. (It was because I just didn't like breastfeeding and just couldn't get on with it) Why should there be such pressure and judging on personal choices. We should all just get on with what we want to do and stop stressing about it. A happy mum = happy baby and a happy baby=happy mummy. Also my children suffered no ill effects/allergies/illnesses/weight problems etc whatsoever from being bottle fed

Alyosha, yes, the questions were asked to try to put a practical slant on 'are BF and FF babies different in their intelligence/cognition?'....a valiant effort. But some of the questions are unlikely to reveal anything that is more powerful than a sibling effect. Subjects? Families who (unusually) BF one baby and FF the other may have reasons/a context for doing so that skew your results, too.

For a good discussion on this study and what it does and doesn't achieve, read this and the comments:

bfmed.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/reports-on-breastfeeding-sibling-study-are-vastly-overstated/

Tiktok...it seems to me sibling studies are the best possible way to prevent confounding factors clouding the results.

For most, almost everything about a child's upbringing is the same, bar the infant feeding.

I'm assuming it is unusual to BF one child but not another, but not that unusual - I know quite a few younger siblings who were FF rather than BF (god knows why we talked about that!). In fact my fiance, the oldest of 3, was bottle fed, and his two younger siblings were BF. This was because his mum had to return to work around 4 weeks after birth for him but 6 months with the others.

Reading the article - interesting points. They do not point out any huge methodological flaws with the study, any more than you could point out with any other type of BF study (vis a vis prematurity, sibling order, health of the baby being BF vs. FF, age, income, social capital of BF mums). Sibling order, health of the baby etc. could all affect it but then they could affect any other type of study.

Tiktok, if we are looking at the question "will BF benefit my baby in the long term", and the evidence shows no long term benefit to BF siblings over FF siblings, surely the answer to that is "no".

The question "will BF benefit my baby in the short term" will probably be yes (lower risk of infections), or "will BF benefit me" (maybe yes, depending on how easy you find BF, slightly lower risk of breast cancer).

Again I am struggling with understanding aloysha's logic here...

So, class is the determinate that makes the most difference and research looking at large numbers of outcomes and people is irrelevant but sibling studies where class is going to be the same between siblings and which have miniscule numbers of participants are the most reliable?

And Bert who made an excellent point given that 80% of women who started BF wanted to feed longer, is ignored.

Honestly, this seems more and more about personal agendas and less and less about concern for a whopping 80% of people who felt they stopped before they wanted to.

If you are in the 20% of women who were happy to stop, you are in the minority.

Why do the 20% get to tell the 80% who wanted support to continue that they should just be happy with FF?

Well said, Offred.

The study on the siblings was published in a number of scientific journals, and Alyosha your arguments are valid.
As far as I'm concerned, BF is very good but should not be forced upon anyone and women should not feel guilty if they can't manage it. BF women should be helped and encouraged but that does not mean other women are lesser mothers.

Offred - the scientific evidence is strongest for lower risk of infections. I accept this and have stated this many times.

Even the WHO's own research shows only very small other benefits; and even they say the small benefits could be down to confounding variables.

If the effect of BF is so weak it doesn't show up in families, and actually even in populations (we have one of the lowest BF rates in the world, but much better health outcomes than the US, for example), you have to wonder why so much time, money and effort is being focused on this from a public health angle in this country.

It's totally valid to spend a lot of money promoting bf in those countries where it would make the most difference. IE countries with poor water supplies. Or for preemies in the UK.

The question of support is completely different. NHS postnatal care is shit - I have no problem with advocating for support for those who want it. I and others object to the fact that the benefits of BF are pverhyped, and the risks of BF are never mentioned at all. At least with FF people are given all the facts.

Secondly....are you really sure that 80% of UK mums really want to EBF from the beginning?

Alyshoa people like you are so damaging!

and the evidence shows no long term benefit to BF siblings over FF siblings, surely the answer to that is "no".
this is a good response to the coverage of the sibling study.

Notably - the study ignored all health differences before the age of 4. and was done on a population made up overwhelmingly of children mixed fed as babies.

Interestingly, the one finding which the study does support "is a persistent positive correlation between breastfeeding and cognitive ability." No doubt that finding can be discounted (because it suggests breastfeeding is significantly beneficial) but the other findings (that there are no long term health or developmental benefits of breastfeeding) should be shouted from the rooftops?

The impact on brain development is interesting - as flagged up by this study done at Brown University in the US, using MRI scans of babies' brains showing identifiable differences between the brains of breastfed and formula fed babies:

here

Surely if you can identify structural differences in the brains of breastfed and formula fed babies using MRI you can't argue that how a baby is fed has no bearing on their development?

Just one point that I haven't seen mentioned here, but don't bf babies get guaranteed hugs while they are being fed whereas it is possible to ff a baby without much physical contact?

Breastfeeding your child is proven to be better for them than not doing.

If someone cannot meet this ideal, I don't think people should judge them or make them feel bad for it, it's just one of those things and baby will be fine.

I don't think we need to invent a fantasy where breastfeeding isn't better for your child because it will make some people feel better. Placing adult's feelings over the welfare of children is obviously destructive, and there is far too much of that sort of thing going on in the world already.

The REALITY of life is that we don't love in an ideal world, and we aren't all able to do everything and that's OK.