To think formula is an amazing invention?

[IsoBordem]

As I was sitting and feeding my beautiful healthy, happy, and thriving baby I was suddenly so thankful for the existence of baby formula. It gets such a bad rap by some people but I would hate to think where she would be now if formula did not exist.

Seeing her in the hospital because she lost too much weight in her first week was heartbreaking. I will always be grateful that we live in an age where baby formula is available!

Tbh I find breast milk pretty amazing.
Formula does the job but it is inferior, this is a fact.
It’s strange to live in a world where we impregnate cows, take the milk that’s supposed to be for their babies (who get ripped away) and feed it to our own children.
Breastfeeding is especially important in this Covid world because it produces antibodies.

@Dinosaurpooped

Tbh I find breast milk pretty amazing. Formula does the job but it is inferior, this is a fact. It’s strange to live in a world where we impregnate cows, take the milk that’s supposed to be for their babies (who get ripped away) and feed it to our own children. Breastfeeding is especially important in this Covid world because it produces antibodies.

But 'tbh' we're not talking about breastfeeding here, are we? No one has said formula is superior to breastfeeding but they’re certainly allowed to be satisfied with the alternative to it.

So why come on a thread where women are happy about their choices in formula feeding just to be a twat.

@shesgonebatshitagain, no, but bearing in mind that this thread was started by an OP who wanted to consider the benefits of formula milk, it certainly is not obtuse to contemplate how many lives it has saved. It is kind if relevant to the thread....?

@Dinosaurpooped

Tbh I find breast milk pretty amazing. Formula does the job but it is inferior, this is a fact. It’s strange to live in a world where we impregnate cows, take the milk that’s supposed to be for their babies (who get ripped away) and feed it to our own children. Breastfeeding is especially important in this Covid world because it produces antibodies.

I don’t believe this is true in all cases. My breastmilk was not superior to formula. My baby would have most likely died if I had continued to breastfeed. Those antibodies wouldn’t have been much use then!

Absolutely a brilliant and well needed invention. Before its invention many babies were fed using "pap" and its was not uncommon for these babies to die. Not many people could afford a wet nurse.

I just wish the companies who make it had better morals, formula has saved lives but the companies who make it have caused death, hardship and suffering to many in developing countries, despicable.

In my experience, mothers who formula-feed accept that some mums choose to breastfeed, and don't go around saying that everyone should formula-feed.

Sadly, in my experience, a small minority of breastfeeding mothers seem absolutely unable to accept the idea that some women might formula-feed not due to lack of support but by choice.

I exclusively breastfed my eldest initially. I absolutely hated it and it made me tearful and anxious. I ended up switching to formula due to failure to thrive, but I hugely prefer formula-feeding and my second child was EFF by a few weeks of age, by choice. I find it incredible that I'm often told, on threads like this, that I could have kept breastfeeding with better support. I had plenty of high-quality support. My supply still wasn't adequate, and more importantly, I hated it.

@SistineScreamer
You are ironically doing far more to turn this thread into a bunfight then the people you are accusing of derailing it via talk of breastfeeding.

[quote Somethingsnappy]@shesgonebatshitagain, no, but bearing in mind that this thread was started by an OP who wanted to consider the benefits of formula milk, it certainly is not obtuse to contemplate how many lives it has saved. It is kind if relevant to the thread....? [/quote]
My point to you was and is that we will never know those numbers precisely because formula is here and isn’t going anywhere that was all.

[quote shesgonebatshitagain]@SistineScreamer
You are ironically doing far more to turn this thread into a bunfight then the people you are accusing of derailing it via talk of breastfeeding.[/quote]
I find that funny considering others here have come in this thread purposely to be twats about what? Mothers formula feeding. 🙄 Maybe if others didn't think it was acceptable to do this it wouldn't happen so often. Regardless, I'm not going to sit and watch snide remarks be thrown at other women for making a different choice. 💁🏼‍♀️

I thought that particularly when it was 'introduced' in Call the Midwife and was counterposed with the desperate lengths that some mums were going to to feed babies before formula was readily available.

Haven't RTFT so don't know if I've plopped in right in the middle of a huge bun fight or not!!

In my experience, mothers who formula-feed accept that some mums choose to breastfeed, and don't go around saying that everyone should formula-feed.

In my experience it is the other way around!

@StoneColdBitch

In my experience, mothers who formula-feed accept that some mums choose to breastfeed, and don't go around saying that everyone should formula-feed.

Sadly, in my experience, a small minority of breastfeeding mothers seem absolutely unable to accept the idea that some women might formula-feed not due to lack of support but by choice.

I exclusively breastfed my eldest initially. I absolutely hated it and it made me tearful and anxious. I ended up switching to formula due to failure to thrive, but I hugely prefer formula-feeding and my second child was EFF by a few weeks of age, by choice. I find it incredible that I'm often told, on threads like this, that I could have kept breastfeeding with better support. I had plenty of high-quality support. My supply still wasn't adequate, and more importantly, I hated it.

I agree there should be a lot of support for breastfeeding but I do see what you mean. Sometimes that help can be too pushy. There are different degrees of wanting to breastfeed, sometimes the supporters presume you want to at any cost to yourself (or to the baby, for example telling you not to top up when the baby is failing to thrive), and what you actually want is to give it a try but don't mind switching to formula or supplementing if you need to. I was the latter and found getting support difficult as they always wanted me to try and ebf and I didn't want to and wasn't get enough milk anyway (the babies lost too much weight in the early days). I was perfectly happy to supplement with formula. It was the best of both worlds for me.

I mixed fed two children, one to toddler and one past six months, so I am not anti-breastfeeding. I wish it was not such a polarising issue.

@StoneColdBitch

In my experience, mothers who formula-feed accept that some mums choose to breastfeed, and don't go around saying that everyone should formula-feed.

Sadly, in my experience, a small minority of breastfeeding mothers seem absolutely unable to accept the idea that some women might formula-feed not due to lack of support but by choice.

I exclusively breastfed my eldest initially. I absolutely hated it and it made me tearful and anxious. I ended up switching to formula due to failure to thrive, but I hugely prefer formula-feeding and my second child was EFF by a few weeks of age, by choice. I find it incredible that I'm often told, on threads like this, that I could have kept breastfeeding with better support. I had plenty of high-quality support. My supply still wasn't adequate, and more importantly, I hated it.

I am and have breastfeed my three children for what will be coming up to seven years of my life. I know many mothers, and quite a few of them breast feed. I am and have been members of breastfeeding support groups and am members of online forums specifically for breastfeeding mothers.

Not once - and this is the truth - in all that time have I ever encountered, heard, read or been in the presence of a breastfeeding woman who is unable to accept the validity of an individual woman’s choice to formula feed. Breastfeeding is perhaps one of the most personal choices a woman can make so that implies they are cognisant of the value and purpose of it. ( choice that is) If you have experienced this though it is not right.

I have however, experienced directly for myself and seen it with others that we are see as unnatural and forced to defend ourselves for extended breastfeeding, letting our children self wean, being described as selfish and weird. There was even a thread on here the other day where people where blaming extended breast feeders for bullying and other such stuff.

I accept that my truth may be the same for you in what you have experienced. Both are very sad. Both scenarios show that as women we are continually denigrated for exercising our own free will, and somehow motherhood provides one of the worst backdrops for this to manifest itself

@shesgonebatshitagain, that is very true. It was only the use of the word 'obtuse' that I objected to. Contemplating deaths worldwide does raise other questions, regardless of whether they are only hypothetical or not. However, your opinions are actually mine too, so no point in a continued argument. I just like to think of things from many angles, regardless of my own opinions on a subject.

@IsoBordem "I don’t believe this is true in all cases. My breastmilk was not superior to formula. My baby would have most likely died if I had continued to breastfeed. Those antibodies wouldn’t have been much use then!"

It's not that your breastmilk was "inferior" to formula, it's presumably it's because you weren't producing enough. So rightly you chose to formula feed so you had the option to feed baby the quantity they needed.

I've both formula fed and breastfed. Neither are superior to the other, however no matter who you are, you cannot argue that formula is nutritionally superior to breastmilk. That's just utter bollocks.

@Winnietp

*In my experience, mothers who formula-feed accept that some mums choose to breastfeed, and don't go around saying that everyone should formula-feed.*

In my experience it is the other way around!

Same here, always wanting to not offend while still defending my choices was exhausting.

@IsoBordem I agree with you. Formula milk is a wonderful invention and has saved many babies from starvation.

When I had my oldest DC I felt so ashamed that my milk didn’t come in that I hid all the bottles and formula when the health visitor or midwives came round. I asked a local pharmacist about how to sterilise bottles and make up feeds because the NCT classes didn’t cover it (it was long before the days of the Internet). I avoided all baby groups for months because I knew that I would be judged badly in the area I lived in at that time. It’s sad that new mothers are still having to justify why they use formula.

I agree with your last comment, @shesgonebatshitagain. It feels like women can't win. If you don't EBF for 6 months, you get denigrated. But if you BF beyond 6-12 months (depending on area and peer group) you're a hippy and get denigrated too. Sorry you experienced prejudice.

@SistineScreamer

“I find that funny considering others here have come in this thread purposely to be twats about what? Mothers formula feeding. 🙄 Maybe if others didn't think it was acceptable to do this it wouldn't happen so often. Regardless, I'm not going to sit and watch snide remarks be thrown at other women for making a different choice. 💁🏼‍♀️“

Clearly not. Sit and watch snide remarks that it. I don’t think the remarks in question are especially snide. It is a fact that formula is not the same as breastmilk. A women can be proud for breastfeeding her baby for fourteen months, just as you can find it unacceptable how professionals have bullied your daughter on the subject. I think you have interpreted them as thus for whatever personal reasons they have provoked you. Which is your right. It is also my right to remark upon this so I did.

Why are you so irked by breastfeeding women joining this debate? If you apply the logic that you have to be formula feeding to either agree or dispute the OP’s opening comment then by extension of that analogy nobody should ever be allowed to comment or have a view on anything unless it’s gained through direct personal experience. That will never happen.

IME most women don't care how anyone else is choosing to feed their baby, there's a few idiots who either ff or bf and choose the judge the opposite, which is pathetic really. I do find it odd that anyone could find bf strange and came up against this once or twice when I bf my dc. I find people who want to judge those that ff just want to feel superior about something, quite sad to be that way.

I agree that formula is a fantastic invention and it's great that there is such a good alternative to bf. So many stories on this thread alone that show how good it is that it exists.

I completely agree though that the methods and practices of the formula companies in LMICs is appalling and it's terrible that a product which has done so much good in privileged countries has also done so much harm to other parts of the worlds.

I also believe that there should be better universal breastfeeding support and this should not amount to bullying women who don't want to bf, just support for those that do, especially if it enables them to continue when they may have had to stop.

I've breastfed both my DC but also think formula is an amazing invention.
I would rather it wasn't advertised though (eg. 'follow on' milk), and that donor milk was more readily available.

(One of my nonnas still remembers wet nurses! My other nonna ended up feeding my eldest uncle fresh cows milk from 6 weeks - the farmer would deliver it every morning and she'd boil it up on the hob. My uncle was v lucky and grew up to be international sportsman.)

I was pouring litres of breastmilk down the sink when DS1 was in PICU. I was told that it was too expensive and difficult to make donor milk safe for babies, so there was nobody to donate it too. It seemed such a shame. Luckily DS1 was able to be exclusively breastfed once his feeding tube was removed.

@leastfavouritecrisps

Couldn’t you freeze it?

@leastfavouritecrisps

I was pouring litres of breastmilk down the sink when DS1 was in PICU. I was told that it was too expensive and difficult to make donor milk safe for babies, so there was nobody to donate it too. It seemed such a shame. Luckily DS1 was able to be exclusively breastfed once his feeding tube was removed.

Oh noooooo you should have frozen it!

Absolutely OP. I’m very pro bfing, but we should all be grateful that formula exists. Many babies would have died without it.

The appalling behaviour of formula brands in the developing world is a separate point. The existence of the product itself is a thing to be celebrated.