AIBU to feel scammed by breastfeeding

[PickledElectricity]

Kind of joking, kind of not.

I breastfed my DS until he was 19 months old (he's now 2) and despite this he's had every bug going at nursery, is allergic to nuts and now seems to have hay fever! I'm gutted as he loves to be outside and is now sneezing, congested, has puffy red eyes and a runny nose.

Where are the miracle benefits I was promised?!

Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad I did it, it was lovely for bonding and saved my life and sanity in the middle of the night, and tbh I am a very lazy person and couldn't face washing and sterilising bottles every single day.

The way I look at it, is imagine if you hadn’t breast-fed and your child had allergies, asthma etc. At least you can say you did everything you possibly could to give them the best start.

But you just said that a claim that natural weaning is over the age of 2 is rubbish made up by a 'fanatic'?
You've told people on here that breastfeeding is more expensive, that formula milk is a more superior food for babies than breastmilk, that natural weaning ages are rubbish and that formula milk has saved more lives....
and you claim to be a midwife and health visitor...Yes and I'm the pope.

Just to say that this study doesn't actually find an association between c section and allergy / eczema.

The main finding is that The prevalence of allergic outcomes at 18, 36 and 60 months did not differ significantly between C-section and vaginal delivery groups. There were no significant associations of C-section with allergic outcomes in the first 5 years of life.

The authors go on to say that in another study, there was an increased risk of asthma medication usage until the age of 13 years in participants born with emergency C-section as compared to elective C-section, alluding to the fact that vaginal microflora might not be the protective factor but rather the indication of C-section plays a bigger role in the risk of allergic diseases

In other words, it's not the c section itself that increases allergy risk (because there was no increase in allergies in babies born by planned c section), but that babies who are likely to develop allergies may be more likely to need an emergency c section due to some other underlying cause - so there might an association between emergency caesarean and allergies but it's not that the c section causes the allergies.

I’ll fight you for the title! My boy had miniscule amounts of expressed breast milk. He’s never ill and never has been, no allergies and is the healthiest person I know. Oh, and he’s vegan.

Oh dear. How embarrassing to not only be so uneducated, but to be proud of being it too.

And she's a midwife apparently. Not sure I believe that...

Me neither.

For me it's more that the push to breastfeed was very anxiety inducing. It didn't make me feel well informed, just anxious that I was harming my baby if I couldn't breastfeed them. You can't blame people for having high expectations of something when it's presented like that.

I wish we could support breastfeeding form those who want to in a way that doesn't leave new mums with all this baggage.

I don't call people supporting extended breastfeeding fanatics; I fully support breastfeeding for as long as mums and babies/children want to carry on doing it. I call people fanatics who manufacture and propagate "evidence" for their outlandish claims.

The NMC would tell you different 😁

Want to is the operative word

So supporting women's and children's choices is uneducated? That's a really unusual viewpoint.

Exactly! Every dyad will have their own journey, and should have all the support they need. Not judgment; not sanctimonious claptrap; not fake "evidence".

Yep, this is what I was told at the antenatal class too.

Except there’s more to it than that. It turns out the risk drops from 12.5% to 12% for women who are under 35 AND BF for more than six months.

A 0.5% reduction is a meaningful amount to the NHS treating 1000s of women.

It’s less obvious whether this is a meaningful risk reduction for someone struggling to BF and having a miserable time.

It didn’t even apply to me as I was over 35, yet the whole class was told this. Worryingly, there were women who left the class who were convinced they wouldn’t get breast cancer if they BF. That could be lethal if they don’t get lumps checked out or turn down a mammogram in the future because they BF.

If you look back, you'll see that the majority of posters were merely sharing their own experiences of BF and FF and the outcome regarding bugs and allergies. It was actually @The JollyMoose who first introduced the "bashing" element with her assertion that women who choose not to breastfeed are shit parents. I freely admit that in my own case, the decision was largely motivated by selfishness and vanity, but there was also a big 'yuk' factor too. However, I accept that that's just me and I've never attempted to influence anyone else's feeding decisions. For example, my daughter EBF my two grandchildren for six months, and good for her!

But I do passionately believe that all women should be left to make their own choice and do whatever best suits them without being shamed for either decision and I'd also like to see a lot more help and support for those who do want to breastfeed and acceptance for those who don't, for whatever reason.
I don't think anything on this thread will deter those who want to breastfeed, but neither will the extremely irritating BF evangelism being spouted by some posters persuade those who don't!

The figures are different in this link, and say that 4.7% of cases of breast cancer in the UK could be prevented by breastfeeding.

The confusion generated is a real problem. There’s a lot of it on this thread. People surprised or disappointed that a child who was breastfed gets colds or hayfever for example. The message has gone awry somehow. A somewhat reduced risk is very far from no risk.

@Clementorangeade that’s a different thing, it’s the difference between absolute and relative risk.

The point is that parents are being lied to about breastfeeding, because the information isn’t objective, only gives the pros and is hyperbolic, which means they can’t make an informed choice.

There would probably be higher rates of BFing overall if promotion was more realistic, parents would know that mixed feeding didn’t mean the end of the world, and all the guilt-tripping and nastiness about not BFing was avoided.

The science is objective.

Any reputable reporting from a qualified source is realistic.
That doesn’t mean all reporting is reliable unfortunately.

Sometimes the problem is people misinterpreting or putting there own spin on things…and this gets passed on. Even health professionals aren’t immune to this unfortunately. Learning things from blogs, or from friends etc? You need to be very careful, think very critically.

There seems to be an awful lot of misunderstanding on this thread. People believing that their child won’t get allergies if they BF?
That was never going to be the case. The science never, ever said anything like that.

Breastfeeding has a negligible influence on lifetime cancer risk, and similar benefits can be obtained from other things that suppress ovulation (eg pregnancy; hormonal contraception). Modifiable risks such as smoking, obesity etc. are much more significant. There is very little point in women forcing themselves to breastfeed (if they don't really want to) just to reduce their cancer risk.

Totally agree. Breastfeeders seem largely happy and comfortable with their decision. The bashing is coming from bottle feeders. I wonder why they feel they have to knock it.

Being realistic about the pros and cons of breastfeeding is NOT bashing! Breastfeeding is great, breastmilk is great, combi feeding is great, formula feeding is great. Breastmilk is food. It's drink. It's comfort. Formula is all those things too. Breastmilk is not medicine; it's not magic. The babies who derive the greatest benefit from breastmilk are premature ones; breastmilk significantly lowers their risk of bowel necrosis. Most other babies will thrive equally on either.

Formula feeding parents love and nurture and bond with their babies just as much as breastfeeding ones; it's the feeding that matters, not the milk.

and tbh I am a very lazy person and couldn't face washing and sterilising bottles every single day.
This was my prime motivation with my first because it was a struggle. The second took to feeding so easily and so regularly that my period returned exactly 4 weeks after he was born😐

Mine are teens now, and I'm disappointed I wasn't able to breastfeed for any length of time.

I managed DC1 for 3 weeks, and DC2 for 17 days, so not much.

That said, they are both robust and healthy. Zero allergies, and never picked up any bugs or infections at all.

It's so long ago, I'm not beating myself up about it anymore - but I still think I would have enjoyed it if I could.

That's easy isn't it? Most mothers try to breastfeed but rates quickly drop and then those mothers are called selfish and told they should've tried harder before giving up.

Those who don't want to breastfeed have all of their parenting questioned and even asked why they bothered having children at all if they don't want to breastfeed.

Bashing is on both sides but only the bottle feeders are questioned about if they should be parents at all which is going to hit differently than someone calling you smug.

Breastmilk can promote long term health benefits that formula doesn’t though. Thought to lower your chance of developing type 1 diabetes, crohns etc later on. It does not prevent these conditions, they are complex and many factors are at play. But…for some people it will probably make a difference.

Absolutely there are pros and cons, but you shouldn’t leave that sort of information out either@Smallmercies.
Otherwise mothers can’t make an informed decision.