Benefits of breastfeeding 'wear off' by 5

[greygal]

Had 6 week check for DS today with my GP. He asked all the 'normal' questions, including how I was finding breastfeeding.

I've been really lucky and had no pain, soreness etc and DS is gaining wait incredibly well so I explained that despite my longest sleep in 6 weeks being 4 hours in one go, I felt that it was going really well and felt positive about continuing.

He then launched into a rant about there being far too much pressure on mothers to breastfeed and that by the age of 5, any benefits to a baby of being breast-fed had worn off!

AIBU to wonder why the bloody hell we're all bothering (especially people who have cracked, bloody nipples/ blocked milk ducts/ mastitis etc)?

Is it true that there is no difference between a breast fed and formula fed child by 5 years of age?

I'd report that to the practice quite frankly.

Possibly he's a bit negative as maybe his partner did not manage it with their children as a "rant" seems a bit extreme.

Formula absolutely has its place in society but obviously breast milk is better. It sets up the immune system which last for life and then there is the bond. It is thought that digestive issues and allergies as adults is heavily linked.

The list goes on. This is not to shame formula feeding mothers but it is evidence based.

It's not that ff makes you less middle class, its just that there is a higher correlation between bf and middle class-ness.

I thought the same of the news the other day that processed foods increased the rosk of cancer. Given that some families are more likely to cook from fresh and make more time for exercise etc, i wondered about the wider factors which could have affected the data.

@mouseistrapped do ff babies and mums not bond then?

Did I say that Rebel ?

Lookingforthecorkscrew I think I read a summary of the lullaby trusts evidence (a meta analysis basically) and lots of the studies the advice is based on did account for those other factors and still found breastfeeding to lower risk. I believe the theory behind it is something to do with deep sleep/wake cycles differing in b/f babies. But yes thankfully the risk is very small for both and there are other far more important risks to minimise such as smoking and safe sleep positions.

As for allergies, I think the main risk factor is inherited genes for it. Allergies run through several generations of my family and have unfortunately come out in each (my dd included) despite most of us being breastfed.

The SIDS issue is very complex. Most causes are never defined and you must remember its an end point rather than a condition, so many things can cause it.

The data is sometimes a bit confusing- as an example babies who have died sleeping with parents. There’s some some evidence to suggest that safe cosleeping practices reduce SIDS but the data lumps babies who died sleeping with parents all together, so you get parents who have taken drugs, been heavily drunk along with people who have tragically fallen asleep on the sofa feeding (and god knows that’s easy to do when you’re shattered) and people who bed share all together.

SIDS will have diverse causes - silent heart defects, infections, respiratory depression, being laid on the front and some of those may or may not interact with parental factors (co -sleeping, alcohol, etc etc.)

I know when I co slept I slept very lightly and was always very aware of the baby. There have been video studies done of mums responding to small changes in temperature by moving closer/apart and responding to breathing. So for example a baby who has had a temporary one off breathing stop - maybe a bf/consleepong Mum would notice. Maybe she wouldn’t. But multiply by a million mums and the difference is small but statistically significant.

The causes are complex and the numbers are small. It’s very difficult to do good research but the factors that have been identified drive health policy: ie back to sleep, fresh mattress, no smoking.

Is there anything in breastmilk itself and alone that could reduce the chances of SIDS?

Well one could argue that a bf baby is 4% less likely (number plucked from thin air as a small but not insignificant influence) to get a respiratory infection. Now if that baby is laid on its front and it’s mum is unaware for some reason maybe it has a higher chance of breathing difficulties.
Or maybe the SIDS cause is a hidden heart defect and nothing anyone did could have helped.

The point I’m trying to make is that its complex the numbers are small, the contribution of BF or not to the individual baby is small (visible on a population level as I’ve said a trillion times.)

People are still berating mums for individual choices when these effects are so small it takes hundreds of thousands of Mum/baby pairs to see. Is bf better? Probably, on a population level. Is it better enough to feel guilty about? No.

Again, big red letters, TINY EFFECTS THAT ARE VISIBLE ONLY IN LAGE EXPERIMENTAL OR OBSERVATIONAL POPULATIONS.

In answer to your first question, OP, because mothers who choose to combination feed tend to be middle class too.

Of course breastfeeding doesn't 'make you middle class' - it would be foolish to suggest such a thing, but statistically you are more likely to breastfeed if you are middle class. The reasons for this are myriad, but to name a few: better educated, better access to support services, better mobility...

I'm not saying your feeding choices define your class, I'm saying your class has some impact upon your feeding choices. They are two different things.

FWIW I was raised in a working class home and my DM FF me. I went to uni, studied for two degrees and married an Oxbridge graduate (who went to private school and was BF, btw), so to some extent I have seen the gulf that exists in society. I straddle that gulf now.

So of course when I my DS couldn't I didn't see it in terms of my class, more a personal failure on my part. But we have a very deep and undeniable bond - which is down to physical contact early in his life.

Of course breastfeeding doesn't 'make you middle class'

Yes, I understand you're not saying that but how do you explain that a mainly breastfed baby who also has formula is at higher risk of SIDS? (But still lower than just formula fed.)

I have seen no credible evidence to prove that they are.

You don't think the Lullaby Trust is credible?

I don't think it's magic milk, no. I think it's down to socio economic factors.

I think it’s very hard to remove the socioeconomic factors from the equation. I’m fact I think it’s almost impossible
I’ve not seen a single paper on the issue that I’ve been satisfied has no confounding errors. Not one.

If I had to bet I’d bet that yes, breastmilk is better, but seeing how hard it is to pin that down in quality research makes me think the effect is small. It’s also (as this and countless other threads show) a minefield because of the implied judgement that feeding choice is linked to socioeconomic status which is in turn linked (especially in Britain) with value judgements.

My DC are both at Uni now but I bf both of them, my first to 6 months, my 2nd to 3 months. Neither had any major health issues or illnesses other than the usual Chickenpox and minor viruses.

I was really keen to bf, I read all the literature and cried buckets in the beginning when it took a while to establish.

With the benefit of hindsight - I wish I hadn't bothered at all. My memories of those early months all involve feeling so stressed about feeding my babies and being so tired that I could barely function. I have very hazy memories of the babies themselves. I developed anxiety issues and depression which took treatment to lift.

I wish I had started ff from the beginning, things might have been different. My Dh tried to help back then with expressed feeds but my babies wouldn't take the bottles so all I did was lie in bed and listen to them scream for me. I felt like their whole lives were dependant on my breasts and me trying to reclaim anything for myself was hopeless.

I felt like a failure when I started them on formula, but life definitely improved for all of us after that.

I won't (too old) be having any more babies, but if could, I wouldn't bf again as for me, the benefits didn't outweigh my awful start to parenting. I was so strident about the benefits of bf back then that I was shouting it from the rooftops and convinced that I had to do it.

There's nothing wrong with making life with newborns easier on yourself.

@dotdotdotmustdash just out of interest, how did you convince them to take a bottle in the end? I'm planning on expressing when I go back to work next year and at the moment, he's a total refuser of anything that isn't boob.

*Lookingforthecorkscrew
*
It's not magic milk, but it has evolved over thousands of years as the biological norm and has unique characteristics that a "formula" can not copy.

An example:
If a womanA is with her 4 week old baby and womanB walks in with a potential cold and sneezes. Our bodies are equipped to fight these germs and start getting our immune system and antibodies started with immeadiate effect to fight this incoming surge of germs. We may or
May not get this cold depending if we were successful. Often we do and don't even know about it.
The baby doesn't have much of an immune system so fails to do this, however, a breastfeeding mother transfers these antibodies in the immediate next feed and the baby then has its own army to fight off those very germs they also inhaled when the person sneezed.

Formula can not replicate live antibodies. It is undeniable inferior. Sadly people
Take this so personally but facts are facts.

We don’t need studies and research to tell us that human breast milk is the ideal milk for human babies and cows milk is ideal for baby cows. That’s not to say that cows milk (formula) is not a reasonable substitute but let’s not pretend that it is as ideal as breastmilk. And if people really are averse to their own baby attaching to their nipple as suggested upthread and afraid of breastfeeding causing claustrophobia they can always express and give bm in a bottle.

Individual level.
Child A and child B. Both ,same age,similar living conditions,similar income,similar style of parenting, but one set if parents smoke one doesn't, one set of parents drinks regularly ,one doesn't .Both in the top set at school but Child A is slightly more advanced.

Child A- asthma,some allergies,reoccurring chest infections and ear infections, several illness and sickness bugs, chicken pox,slightly overweight.

Child B- no asthma,no allergies, two chest infections,one ear infection,one sickness bug(fine in a day), the normal colds and sniffles and chicken pox(within days of child A).

Who was breastfed and who wasn't?

@Havingahorridtime no need for the face,certain neurological conditions can cause sensory issues and make people feel that way. Certain traumas can make people feel that way.
Certain mental health conditions can make people feel that way.
Certain cultural and personal experiences/norms can be so deeply internalised that can make people feel that way.
As for expressing,yes they can but they don't have to if they don't want to.

Formula can not replicate live antibodies

Antibodies are not alive. They’re a biological product, and probably one of the components that does give bm a small edge, along with some interesting oligosaccharides

it is undeniable inferior. ah. Thing is... there’s very little research that’s of good enough quality to prove this. Because the effects are really small and only visible when you look over hundreds of thousands of people. And that research always, always has confounding factors. So we may Think it’s inferior but actually science is having a hard time defining by how much

Sadly peopleTake this so personally they do yes, on both sides. The vitriol is astounding

but facts are facts see above - the effects are only visible when you look at huge populations. On an individual scale they are tiny and only a minor contributor to the health of the baby. Individual genetics, environment (such as being around smokers or air pollution or a damp house) has a much bigger effect. If we are going to be pedantic and look for facts, we run into issues. Because there are a LOT of studies on this, and most of them are poor quality, riddled with confounding errors and poor methodology. ALL the studies are observational as well (of course, ethics would allow otherwise.)

And on an individual level, as dot says above, what’s overall beneficial to the Mum and baby may not be what is recommended for the population.

greygal mine never took a bottle. Just flat out refused which meant some stress over nursery. I suggest go straight to a sippy cup with the usual parental cheerleading over ‘wow how grown up!’ Once at nursery pack mentality takes over and they do what the rest do.
The fact ds1 was a bottle refused is another reason for me to mix feed.

We don’t need studies and research to tell us that human breast milk is the ideal milk for human babies and cows milk is ideal for baby cows.

Actually we do. Public health is based ONLY on solid, repeatable evidence. Not opinions or things people ‘know’ to be self evidential.

Think of all he things people ‘knew’ were right - from stuff that we can now clearyvsee was barking like the earth being flat to more subtle medical stuff like blanket steroid dosage for certain conditions.

There are no cop outs with evidence based Medicine. You puts your null hypothesis out there or you goes home

@dotdotdotmustdash just out of interest, how did you convince them to take a bottle in the end? I'm planning on expressing when I go back to work next year and at the moment, he's a total refuser of anything that isn't boob.

Hi. Ds wasn't so difficult, he was weaned just before 4 months so when I went back to work he was already taking water from a sippy cup and I was bf when I got home. Because I worked shifts and he slept all night I wasn't feeding him for 24hrs at a time so I just dropped the bf and gave him formula in a cup instead.

With Dd the bf didn't go so well, or at least it didn't seem to. She feed every hour night and day and didn't seem to put much weight on. I had to persevere with a bottle because I was worried that she wasn't getting enough milk from me. She didn't like the bottle, but it turns out that she really didn't have much capacity for milk and never took more than 3 ounces at a time until she eventually agreed to try solid food at 8 months old.

You might have to experiment with different teats and bottles, or just find a sippy cup that works. I used the type that had a flip-top lid with 3 holes in it and my DC seemed to like them.

greygal you may need to try a few sippy cup types. Ds refused the ones with the harder spouts but ended up OK with this one (looking a wee bit tatty now I have to say!)
Do make sure you can clean them well too - some have really daft silicone valves in that are a bigger to clean - you can see the water is kept in this one by the spout itself ?

FFS, discussions like this drive me mad. As the mother of a child who was bottle fed (due to adoption) and is never ill and the wife of a man was bottle fed who is a successful business man (who is never ill) I think we need to all just stop fucking fretting over it. Do what you want and you enjoy and then shut up!!!!!