Why do people question medical stuff?

[QueenPaw]

Post on FB I know from midwives saying basically "these sleep positioned/nest things are dangerous and increase SIDS risk, don't use"

Replies
< tags friend > "these look good, should get one for Baby X"
NICU use them, they can't be that dangerous (because obviously a hospital with monitoring is the same as home)
Shouldn't sell them if they're that dangerous
I used one and my baby is fine, got to make your own choices
Nothing wrong with them, you do you hun
Then a load of laughing emojis at anyone who rightly points out all the evidence and links to it with "here come the mum police"

I'm just WTF at it. Like the midwife is actively saying these are DANGEROUS and they're all ah well, my baby, and they're fine

To add I couldn't think of a better title
I get querying thyroid/blood results/everything else but something like that 🤷🏽‍♀️

I guess people still make their own judgements.

For example, I used cot bumpers with mine. They were tied on very securely, and tucked tight underneath the cot, but when I have mentioned that on here it's basically been made out that I would be content for my babies to die.

I made my own judgement that I've done everything I can to make it safe, that SIDS is incredibly rare, and that my kids whacking their skull against hardwood dozens of times a night was probably my immediate problem.

It's survivor's bias, pure and simple.
They aren't safe.
People just choose to ignore the facts on this, and other issues, when it comes to safe sleep.
Having been told to f off on here the other day though in a discussion on a similar topic, I think I'll bow out now.

People will use there own judgement though won’t they, I co slept with all 4 of mine and would if I ever had anymore (no way 😅) that’s not recommended at all now. It was my decision though and I was comfortable with it.

Some thoughts:

Medical consensus sometimes changes, so it's not written in stone

Medical consensus/science sometimes leaves out specific groups due to genetics, etc, so those people are bound to question the guidance when they experience that it does not seem to be working for them in practice

People don’t like think they’ve put their child at risk so they make out like choosing to ignore medical guidance is as valid a choice as following it.

Because medical advice changes constantly. Radium is good for you. Radium is bad for you. You don't need to wash your hands. You need to wash your hands. Sleep them on their front. Sleep them on their side. Sleep them on their back. Wean at 4 month. Wean at 6 months. Formula is better than breast. Breast is best. Fed is best. And so on.
I wouldn't use a sleeping cushion, but people make their own decisions that they think is best for their child.

@Tinydinosaur

Because medical advice changes constantly. Radium is good for you. Radium is bad for you. You don't need to wash your hands. You need to wash your hands. Sleep them on their front. Sleep them on their side. Sleep them on their back. Wean at 4 month. Wean at 6 months. Formula is better than breast. Breast is best. Fed is best. And so on. I wouldn't use a sleeping cushion, but people make their own decisions that they think is best for their child.

Exactly!

Didn't doctors recommend smoking in the past?

Agree with pp, medical advice always changes plus, taking @AcornAutumn’s point about smoking, plenty of medics smoke/drink/take drugs etc even though those things are risky so even medics ignore medical advice!

Putting my hard hat on....

People only seem to care about evidence for some things. Most people will loudly decry bumpers and front sleeping and co sleeping because of evidence BUT they promote formula feeding when there is evidence if risks to formula feeding - but that is promoted as a choice.

What I'm saying is that I don't like people choosing which evidence they like to promote a choice that they are biased towards.

I suppose it is because it rarely comes with any context. How many babies have died using sleep nests? Vs how many babies have died because an exhausted parent fell asleep holding their baby.
Just a blanket it is bad don't do it isn't well received, why is it bad? What is the evidence?

I'm not saying there isn't any but this is often the case with baby guidelines especially around sleep. And also whose baby was content sleeping in an empty cot, flat on their back with minimal blanket because it certainly wasn't mine! Parental exhaustion kills babies too but we are expected to exhaust ourselves following guidelines.

For the record didn't use one, not spending £100+ on a pillow. Did co sleep though.

I followed every piece of advice 25 or so years ago. I was even criticised for being a bit too zealous in some of my sleeping/feeding/behaviour decisions.
If my decisions were allowed now, I'd be thrown to the wolves for being an horrendous mother .
My advice would be to follow the advice that fits in with your family life.

In my day, you HAD to have cot bumpers. You SHOULD wean at 4moths, only serve purées , leave them to cry ( which I didn't) , get the baby out of your bedroom by three months.. and so on.

Baby led weaning would have resulted in a Health Visitor visit. Testimony to that was my 7 month old daughter had to be carted off to hospital as she choked on grated cheese and stopped breathing. ( Worst day of my life.)

I had to leave a Facebook group for refluxy babies because I got so pissed off at the number of people advocating putting refluxy babies on their fronts to sleep. Some people are unfortunately just really stupid, and there’s not much you can do about it.

Also worth pointing out to those saying that the advice is different now to 25 years ago so do what works for you - the most recent SIDS statistics gave a figure of 0.30 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to 2.30 deaths per 1,000 live births in the 1980s. We know so much more / understand SIDS so much better now, so the advice is really worth following.

I am normally a stickler for following advice but ds has a nest. He really won’t settle in his crib without it.

It surprises me how many people don’t know that you should have an adult sleeping with them until they are six months though.

Because medical advice changes constantly. Radium is good for you. Radium is bad for you. You don't need to wash your hands. You need to wash your hands. Sleep them on their front. Sleep them on their side. Sleep them on their back. Wean at 4 month. Wean at 6 months. Formula is better than breast. Breast is best. Fed is best. And so on

That's actually bullshit though, isn't it? We learn more and we do better. We've been washing hands for 2 hundred years, that advice was never changed. Breast has always been best, as soon as we learned about radium we steered away from it.

Medical advice is not constantly changing at all. Its been babies on their back to sleep for 30 years, as soon as the evidence was clear. You don't know better than the professionals and you can't judge the risks you don't understand. Walkers are bad for babies and you shouldn't use baby nests. It's pretty simple really.

A lot of parents just do anything because they are so desperate to get the baby to sleep. They then justify their choices.

I put my baby to sleep on her front from about 6 weeks as she just wouldn't sleep any other way. It was that or no one get any sleep for months. Not ideal and it worried me a lot at the time.

She is staying rear facing in the car until she's 4 though. Was breastfed, had a dummy, we don't smoke. I think we all pick our own battles.

I co slept with all 4 of mine and would if I ever had anymore (no way 😅) that’s not recommended at all now

Actually it is recommended again, if you follow safe sleeping guidelines and breastfeed! Just shows that it's impossible to keep up with all the changes.

Actually it is recommended again, if you follow safe sleeping guidelines and breastfeed! Just shows that it's impossible to keep up with all the changes

It wasn’t when I had my youngest 3 years ago... so it changed in the last 3 years? The hv looked at me horrified when I said I was co sleeping and told me not to.

Which I ignored.

As for breast/formula women were told to formula feed instead, my mum told me when she had us the advice was formula is better, just because it wasn’t true doesn’t mean people weren’t advised it

Actually I think Purflo nests are okay. Not completely sure.

As I say I am normally a stickler for guidelines but there’s no way I could have slept on the next to me crib. It was rock hard!

I followed safe sleeping guidelines and have never owned a sleep nest type thing but honestly SIDS is super rare and exceptionally rare in non smoking families and healthy term infants. PND on the other hand is pretty common, aggravated by poor sleep and has a catastrophic effect on family wellbeing (and impacts infant development) I certainly don’t blame families for making the decision to take a tiny risk to get more sleep.

Legal disclaimers OP, that's simply all it boils down to. They don't want to get sued (the midwives I mean).

For a start off I wouldn't trust medical advice on Facebook.

Because what reduces risk isn't always the same as what keeps you sane.

Official advice is to let your baby sleep in a cot. Great, most of them won't. So you find another solution.

Because some people are too stupid to understand that medical advice changing constantly is not just a random fluctuation.