Emily Oster on Breastfeeding - minimal benefits.

[IamOvercome]

I am pregnant with my first and am an economist so I was recommended books by fellow economist Emily Oster. The books don’t give advice. They review the statistical studies underlying pregnancy advice and whether they are any good or not.

It’s been such an eye opener. For example it is pushed pushed and pushed some more that breast is best. But when you review the evidence there is minimal evidence for benefits of breastfeeding for babies. The strongest evidence is actually for mothers that it can marginally reduce chance of breast cancer in later life.

Same with not introducing babies to bottle to confuse them when breastfeeding. Literally no concrete evidence for it.

Yet this is all pushed as clear cut facts by midwives and other health professionals.

Again @Bananabutter please provide evidence breast is best?

I'm training to be a health visitor and doing my final project on breast feeding support.

Anyway, I have the online library open and I'm looking for benefits of breastfeeding support. Peer reviewed articles too.

So far I'm finding the detriments of telling women "breast is best", the benefits of breast feeding for maternal health and the benefits to public health.
But not yet found the benefits to the baby.

However, I'm really struggling to believe that it's all a lie.
In going to keep searching

@lifeuphigh other factors were not controlled for in that study you posted.

Breastfeeding correlates strongly with higher social class, wealth, more educated and healthier mothers and so on. It also correlates to healthier full time babies.

You would absolutely expect breastfed babies to have better outcomes for those reasons. It’s not breastfeeding that’s causing the difference though. If you look at sibling studies for example (best way of comparing like with like) there is no difference at all between breastfed abs formula fed infants.

Do what works best for you. Both are fine.

Full term not full time babies!

@KnowingMeKnowingYouAhaaaa

Don't breastfeed then if your book says there is little benefit. For me it saved time, money, hassle and it comforts like nothing else. Anecdotal but none of my children have any allergies and between the 3 of them only 1 has been to the doctors once since birth. Great I've lowered my chances of breast cancer too.

Honestly it’s ridiculous that women on a supposed parenting site can’t rationally discuss something like breastfeeding. So many posters being GO AHEAD THEN AND FORMULA FEED AND USE BOOKS TO MAKE YOU FEEL LESS GUILTY RAAAR BREAST IS BEST HOW DARE YOU

completely ignoring how I said I plan to breastfeed but find it interesting that there is such a lack of concrete data on anything more than minimal benefits of breastfeeding on babies outside of reduced incidence of diarrhoea or ear infection in the first year given its heralded as total and utter fact by the health service.

Many of my friends have had second babies while also having a young toddler (I struggled with no.2, currently pregnant but a couple of years behind them). The reality doesn't seem to be a relaxing, bonding experience but a slightly chaotic situation in which the mobile, attention-seeking toddler comes first (at least when out of the house) which means the screaming, hungry baby has to be thrust aside a lot of the time. It's very stressful for the mother trying to balance their needs.

I have to say, it was the exact opposite for me (and in my friendship group). I never had to stop what I was doing with my toddler, or then after I had my third with my toddler and preschooler, in order to prepare bottles or anything like that. I could breastfeed with one arm and with the other, keep reading/painting/doing play doh/pushing on the swing/etc. It was so easy.

@Peasock

Having seen how miserable my babies were with D&V when I stopped BF to send them to nursery I don't think any other incentive is needed

Do you think breastfeeding would have stopped them getting D&V?

Breastfeeding doesn't stop babies getting D&V (or other illnesses) but they are less likely to compared to formula fed babies. Emily Oster notes there is evidence of reduced stomach bugs for breastfed babies in her book...

OP- I suggest you read some of the books/articles linked to this thread- there's loads of evidence that formula feeding increases health risks to mothers and babies. Breast is best is a stupid phrase that helps no one - but it's not true that there is no evidence to support breastfeeding - the research itself is also biased.

@MrsMingech

Again @Bananabutter please provide evidence breast is best?

I'm training to be a health visitor and doing my final project on breast feeding support.

Anyway, I have the online library open and I'm looking for benefits of breastfeeding support. Peer reviewed articles too.

So far I'm finding the detriments of telling women "breast is best", the benefits of breast feeding for maternal health and the benefits to public health.
But not yet found the benefits to the baby.

However, I'm really struggling to believe that it's all a lie.
In going to keep searching

I’ll keep saying it….

Breastfeeding is the biological norm. Nothing more, nothing less.

Human milk is designed for human babies.

@Bananabutter

There’s no point showing OP anything as she’s filled her head with a load of nonsense from an economist no less.

She won’t acknowledge breast is best because she doesn’t want to do it and wants to alleviate herself of the guilt of not doing the best and most natural thing in the world for her child.

There’s a difference between can’t and won’t. If you can’t, that’s okay. If you won’t, well, that’s on you, and there’s a reason you’re trying to convince yourself manmade formula is just as good.

If you were happy and confident in your decision to formula feed you wouldn’t be having to convince yourself and offers it’s okay.

😂😂😂😂😂 maybe you should read my posts before going off on one! What happened you that you are so defensive you can’t even have a conversation about breastfeeding.

@Villagewaspbyke Did you actually read the whole study, or just the abstract? Sorry I have to go on school run now but read the entire thing.

I didn't mean to add the word support on that bit

This doesn't surprise me

There is woefully little research into the benefits of breastfeeding

I say, do as much research as you can and then do what instinctively feels right for you

@gogohm it's only cheaper if you don't place a financial value on women's time. The research Emily Oster uses is from the US where there's no statutory paid maternity leave, so it's often effectively much more expensive to breastfeed because it requires taking more unpaid time off work to establish and maintain. Of course the fact they don't get a decent statutory maternity policy is AWFUL, an a whole other issue.

@bannanabutter You're being really judgemental here. Why does it matter to you how other people feed their babies?

In alll honesty, I think the op is a bored, intelligent woman on mat leave looking for a fight. No point talking about the pros and cons of feeding. I was trolling re bonding, although it does give you a shortcut that bottle feeding doesn't. That can be mitigated
Do what you want, op. Nobody cares,

The entire premise is flawed.

There are no “benefits” to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is the normal, default way to feed your child. It’s like asking what are the benefits of having fingernails otherwise you’re going to choose to have them removed.
The research analysis should be centred around what, if any, are the disadvantages to mothers and babies of formula feeding. That’s what’s she should be investigating.
If you start with the wrong premise of course you won’t get a reliable answer.

@IamOvercome I think some people get incredibly emotional about it because they feel like it was hard work for them, and they want that hard work recognised. I think sometimes there can also be an element of feeling like you're not achieving much during having a small baby - especially if you used to have a job you loved, so you look for validation from other sources. I guess it's just the flip side of feeling judged if you formula feed?

To be fair OP, you're really over reacting to some of the posts.

Oh and I couldn’t care less how people feed their babies at all. Good luck to everyone.

@Bananabutter

There’s no point showing OP anything as she’s filled her head with a load of nonsense from an economist no less.

She won’t acknowledge breast is best because she doesn’t want to do it and wants to alleviate herself of the guilt of not doing the best and most natural thing in the world for her child.

There’s a difference between can’t and won’t. If you can’t, that’s okay. If you won’t, well, that’s on you, and there’s a reason you’re trying to convince yourself manmade formula is just as good.

If you were happy and confident in your decision to formula feed you wouldn’t be having to convince yourself and offers it’s okay.

This is a really really nasty, goady post, directly accusing formula feeding mothers of not doing the best thing for their child.

No wonder infant feeding is such an emotive topic, and post-natal mental health is a problem for so many new mothers, given they have to read nasty bullshit like this about their feeding choices.

[quote Villagewaspbyke]@Teastheword - seeing how much of a bottle a baby has taken in tells me how much of the liquid in the bottle has been drunk by the baby. It’s difficult to impossible to tell how much an ebf baby has taken in.

Not to say breastfeeding is necessarily bad for a baby unless there is some sign (eg dehydration) that it’s not working. But the idea that breastfed babies are magically getting everything they need is nonsense abs could be dangerous nonsense in the wrong hands.[/quote]
Yes seeing how much of a bottle a baby has taken it does tell you how much the baby has drunk. But it does not tell you if the baby has drunk enough. The table on the formula packet is just guidance. Only your baby knows how much it needs.
Saying that bottle feeding is safer because you "know how much the baby has taken" is wrong.

@noname1999 if your time is so precious I'm not convinced motherhood is for you. Time spent with your children isn't compared to your hourly rate at work. Ridiculous way to look at feeding your baby.

Studies aiming to show the 'benefits of breastfeeding' are looking in the wrong place though. It's like trying to prove the benefits of a natural limb over an artificial one. Of course a prosthetic is excellent in some circumstances but it's not as good as a real leg/arm and why would you need a study to prove it? Breastfeeding is just the ordinary baseline and you measure everything else against it, its not some gold-standard 'best'. Formula being cow's milk based is never going to be as good, objectively, as the ordinary bog-standard biological process which every baby is born expecting to receive. Of course, of course there are many situations in which formula is absolutely the right choice but it is disingenuous to suggest that you can even begin to compare 'benefits'.

@Timeforanewoneofthese

The entire premise is flawed.

There are no “benefits” to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is the normal, default way to feed your child. It’s like asking what are the benefits of having fingernails otherwise you’re going to choose to have them removed.
The research analysis should be centred around what, if any, are the disadvantages to mothers and babies of formula feeding. That’s what’s she should be investigating.
If you start with the wrong premise of course you won’t get a reliable answer.

Thank you.

@IamOvercome

The reason why there's not much evidence in the U.K. (or other developed countries) is that we have clean water, sterilising equipment, don't water down the formula to stretch it and provide specific formulas to those babies with allergies - these mean there is not a huge difference in outcomes, marginal at most and some are hard to define as there's specific demographic factors involved including breastfeeding rates being higher among those who are more educated.

Ultimately fed is best and that is crucial to always remember but from a public health perspective providing better access to support in the first 2 weeks would save money due to having to provide subsidies for formula for both low income and those babies with milk allergies

@Timeforanewoneofthese

The entire premise is flawed.

There are no “benefits” to breastfeeding. Breastfeeding is the normal, default way to feed your child. It’s like asking what are the benefits of having fingernails otherwise you’re going to choose to have them removed.
The research analysis should be centred around what, if any, are the disadvantages to mothers and babies of formula feeding. That’s what’s she should be investigating.
If you start with the wrong premise of course you won’t get a reliable answer.

This is a valid point. It doesn’t take away though from how breastfeeding being best is given as fact to women having babies yet the data on either benefits of breastfeeding or risks of formula feeding either doesn’t exist or is massively flawed.

@Bananabutter lol at “from an economist no less”. Op has already said she is pregnant and doesn’t yet have any children.

One reason I am so annoyed at the faux claims and science about breastfeeding is that (like many of my friends and many women) I initially felt so awful that I couldn’t breastfeed. There is such guilt and pressure put on women.

No evidence it makes any difference. Either is fine.