Did anyone else feel rage at Karen Millen's comments on breastfeeding?

[Hoooray]

According to Karen Millen (who is, notably, a clothing designer and not a child development expert), breastfeeding beyond six months has no benefit for the child, is selfish, and is a sign of addiction.

You're not allowed to get it right as a mother, are you? Bad if you don't breastfeed but also bad if you breastfeed for too long, apparently.

God knows why Karen Millen was being asked for her opinion on the subject in the first place 🙄

My point still stands. Teeth plus boobs is not a good, nor sensible combination. Nor should any woman have to put up with it due to outdated views on "breast is best"
Fed is best, and if that means solids and bottles then so be it.

Bottle feeding would be less healthy and beneficial for my baby than breastfeeding. Why would I choose it?

Purees are fine for people who want to use them, though I prefer finger foods, but introducing solids doesn't mean milk is no longer the primary food source.

@ClosetBasketCase erm have you ever breastfed? Do you even know anything about it? It has zero effect on breastfeeding. My baby got his teeth early, he had 7 teeth by 7 months! Never an issue!!!

Babies' mouths have a different shape to an adult mouth. It's literally shaped for breastfeeding

Why is there any "putting up with it" involved? There is no reason a baby should bite when feeding, you just need to teach them not to.

Breastmilk is superior to formula on every level, that's not outdated, it's a fact.

Whether breastfeeding is best depends on the circumstances of that individual family, but it has nothing to do with teeth.

This thread really shows that formula companies have done a phenomenal job of marketing their products.

I think up to a year is OK. And over 3 totally gross.

Glad to know I am totally gross then. Why do you feel it is ok for you to make this kind of comment, on a thread where people clearly have varied experiences?

I found it really interesting to discover that when mass marketing of formula developed, it was based on milk because there happened to be a surplus in food markets at the time. Lots of other products had been used to make baby milk previously eg pea flour. Not saying that’s nutritionally correct - but I think we have fixed in our minds that cow’s milk is some kind of super healthy product. If like me you were born in the 70s you’ll remember adverts about this.

I think the word 'rage' is over used. 'Annoyance', 'irritated', are totally valid emotions in this context. 'Rage', says you need help, which is not what i think you were trying to convey.

When it comes to infant feeding guidance, WHO (Evidence based and widely adopted by governments globally), says:

• Early initiation of breastfeeding within 1 hour of birth
• Exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months
• Continued breastfeeding alongside complementary foods up to 2 years or beyond.

I was not meaning to personally insult you. But I find it gross. It's just how I feel about it. There are women who find the whole idea of breastfeeding gross. Fine. It's up to them. I thought we were just expressing opinions.

@Viviennemaryit is very insulting and also ridiculous. If I’m honest, I definitely had the same opinion as you before I had children but when I have my daughter my opinion changed and I look back on those comments/thoughts with shame, but I suppose we are only a reflection of our culture. However for me biological instinct won over cultural influences and I’m glad it did. I would have fed her longer actually, she wasn’t ready for us to stop and neither was I but I was pregnant and unfortunately I suffer with HG and I couldn’t manage it.

I’m a perfectly normal woman and I would be careful what you say IRL because there are lots of us perfectly normal women feeding our babies in a perfectly normal way and you might find yourself insulting someone you know in real life.

She is wrong and has no idea what she is talking about.
Studies have proved the ongoing beneficial impact of breastfeeding. And the WHO recommended that breast feeding should continue until the child is 2.
Why did she even feel she had to comment anyway?

It's one of those things you think you have an opinion on until you're in the thick of it.

If you've never done natural term breastfeeding then opinions like that don't mean anything.

Do you have any evidence to back that claim up?
There is plenty of evidence to show breast milk is beneficial to children beyond 6 months
Just because you believe something doesn't make it true

Of course she is, I wish people agreed with that more. Even my partner and my mum have acted like if I’d fed her any longer it would have been weird and if feels like a betrayal.

I have a 5mo now and I don’t know if she’s going to be my last baby or not but if she is I won’t be stopping until one of us doesn’t want to anymore, certainly not stopping to appease my partner or mothers opinion that’s for sure!

Interesting article (not recent, but then I think lobby groups on all sides are very strong). It's not anti BF btw, it's just about the 'exclusive' BF (i.e. no solids) before 6 months argument

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/14/six-months-breastfeeding-babies-scientists

A lot of research, is guilty of a certain level of confirmation bias when hypothesising. It was the same with the long-running recommendations to cut fats / proteins re dieting which has since been shown to not be right. Studies found again and again that it was better to cut fats when now, better designed studies and longitudinal cohort studies indicate that is not so.

I fed two babies past a year and never got bitten - their teeth made zero difference!

I appreciate your response. Before I had my children I might have agreed with you (I come from a bottle feeding family so breastfeeding was new to me) and I didn’t expect to do it as long as I did). But as someone else has said upthread, everyone’s experiences are different and this is a personal area.

Your point is ridiculous. Simple as that.

You also ignore that many babies have their first tooth before 6 months.

Besides, not your breasts not your business so why do you care how another woman chooses to feed her child as you say fed is best?

I’ve nursed three, the current one was the one that sometimes bit. The first had formula a handful of times and he had issues every time. The first two also didn’t have teeth until they were over one.

This article is 14 years old and the research it cites was funded by the formula industry. Try again.

As I said it's old, but so is the WHO advice.

A lot of research - across the board not just in this area - is funded by industry.

The study was conducted at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health a leading European centre for child health research and education.

The article is not promoting formula feeding at all.

It is questioning the advice of exclusive BF to 6 months and argue some supplementary feeding should take place before.

I was shocked because I know what she said was the opposite of the truth.
I was also shocked because about 20 years I liked her shop which was fairly local to me. Because of this shop I assumed she was a stylish individual. Seeing her in the interview she came across as fuddy duddy and a bit dull.

Wondering if @ClosetBasketCase gnaws at her water bottles and coffee cups.

I got shade for feeding past one (and from a few people for feeding past 6 months 🙄). I did actually stop at 15 months when DS started biting loads but that felt right for me. With DD I'm hoping to go longer as it's so great when they are ill or need comfort.

The idea that there should be an arbitrary cut off at 6 months or one is completely weird (and doesn't really take into account the weaning process).

I think naturally you would breastfeed as birth control and until pregnant with another baby and in lots of traditional societies they have 3-4 year spacing (follow elena bridgers on istagram who is fascinating).

No

It doesn’t matter where the study was conducted, it was simply the premises at which it took place. This is from the very article you posted:

The paper acknowledges that three of the four authors "have performed consultancy work and/or received research funding from companies manufacturing infant formulas and baby foods within the past three years".

You’re either very misguided or wilfully obtuse to keep flogging this dead horse. Just because a study says something does not mean it was ethical, well-conducted, unbiased, and peer-reviewed.