Nurse said something strange about breastfed babies

[Chocolateegg123]

My 8 week old had her jabs today. The nurse at my GP surgery was taking an awfully long time getting down to business and kept faffing around such as explaining how to use a syringe for the calpol for about ten minutes. Then, she asked me if I was breastfeeding and when I answered yes, she asked how it was going.

I was honest and explained I’d found it hard and we had to combi feed etc but that my mental health had been really awful whilst breastfeeding and so I have considered moving over to formula.

She then completely matter of factly stated… “breastfed babies are more intelligent so if you can continue feeding her your milk you should.”

I was kind of taken a back as I didn’t think this was true but also is this kind of advice ok for a health professional to give? Whenever I have gone to a local breastfeeding clinic or spoken to a professional about my struggles they have never ever said anything like this?

I guess I want to know if I would be unreasonable to complain about this nurse? She has been unprofessional in the past when I went to have a vaccine during pregnancy and now this. However - is it true that breastfed babies are more intelligent? This has added to my guilt and anxiety over my breastfeeding journey now. Help!

Definitely complain. I couldn't bf after a traumatic birth and had terrible post partum anxiety while trying to accept that I couldn't feed. A remark like this would have pushed me over the edge. In fact, I dealt with a lot of medical professionals at that time and none of them mentioned anything about my bottle feeding.

But breast feeding is environment! That’s the point. There are lots of studies that suggest a link. Same with studies that show a link between feeding choice and obesity and other health outcomes in later life, and so on. Formula feeding is also a risk factor for SIDS under 6 months, for example — this is clear in the data. Should this not be mentioned by health professionals just because people on mumsnet don’t like it?

The nurse doesn't sound very emotionally intelligent.

You can't tell by looking whose mother's smoked during pregnancy. It used to be very common. With drinking you can sometimes tell if the mother had it during pregnancy if the characteristics of FAS are visible.

In fact the data shows that breast milk is on average better no matter what your diet is like; and it is also protective against developing allergies. That doesn’t mean that some breastfed babies won’t develop allergies and many formula fed babies won’t. The data tells you about risk levels and tendencies on a broad level; not on a predictive level for indiduals. That’s how statistics work.

There’s a massive resistance on MN to all the evidence on breastfeeding because people don’t want to be made to feel bad about their individual choices. That’s understandable. But it doesn’t mean the data is wrong. OP might feel quite justifiably that the nurse was not being very sensitive about it, however, but that might not be the same as being unprofessional.

Example re statistics with a more limited data set: I took a risk looking at the SIDS data when deciding to cosleep with DD — a risk which was comparable to the increased risk of SIDS from formula feeding (I’m talking about “safe” planned cosleeping, not accidental cosleeping, which has a much higher risk factor). This was a small increased risk that I judged worth taking because it worked for us. Nothing happened to DD. Nothing happens to most babies who cosleep. But NHS midwives and healthcare professionals will advise against it precisely because it’s an increased risk. And if I told them I was doing it, they warned me about the risk. I can’t complain about that.

Obviously bf vs ff is a much more complex statistical set of risks vs outcomes. But on average, the data shows bf is better for health and social outcomes on a range of different measures. The advantages in developed countries for middle class mothers and babies may be small, and may well be offset by lots of other factors. But that does not mean the data does not show that there’s no difference, or that it’s all explained by other things. But it’s perfectly valid to decide to formula feed anyway for all sorts of reasons.

In which case she'll almost certainly breastfeed any children she has, and wonder why her own mother didn't.

I only have a 2.1 but it's enough of an education for me to realise that health researchers universally recommend breast feeding.

Do you think it's because they're on the payroll of breast pump manufactuters?

You should have said ‘clearly you were bottle fed. Ah well’.

Complain. It's an inappropriate thing to say.
I remember a nurse at my doctors' surgery telling me that if I didn't quickly start having sex after birth, then my husband would have an affair. I wish I had complained about that.

I remember the immense pressure from many midwives and health visitors about breast feeding. I also remember being worried and guilty about struggling to, and the actual Doctors I spoke to about it being all, 'Don't worry if you use formula, just do what works best for you and baby,' and doctors will have actually read and understood actual studies on the subject!
I remember one midwife at the bf clinic glowingly telling me about a country where pretty much all babies are breastfed and to some extent till they start to lose milk teeth 😬 I looked it up, it was an agrarian society where people tended to live in close proximity to extended family. Quite different from how most people in the UK live!
Breastfeeding seemed to be out of fashion in the 70s as per a poster above. My mum said she breastfed me and was quite proud of it, but on closer questioning, it turns out I was combination fed and only for a few months.

Breastfeeding and intelligence: a systematic review and meta-analysis - PubMed
it's true by a few points

They’ve been pedalling this bollocks for years! I was asked not to come back to antenatal classes in the late 90s for daring to question the midwife who told us this ‘fact’! I didn’t go back and as it turned out I wasn’t able to breastfeed anyway. Both DDs are intelligent, have masters degrees and successful careers.

There are a lot of robust studies from Brazil, Mexico, UK, and Denmark amongst others showing a slight positive increased IQ correlation, even when maternal IQ/level of education is controlled for. Eg:

https://www.ndph.ox.ac.uk/news/new-study-finds-that-breastfeeding-directly-supports-children2019s-cognitive-development

UK:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2939272/

Brazil:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2214-109X(15)00063-7/fulltext

Mexico:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mcn.13534

Recent Danish study controlling for maternal IQ:
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/9/5/e023134

Lots of other studies out there. The effect might be small at a population level, but a small effect remains in most large-scale studies even after controlling for income, socioeconomic factors and maternal IQ. One theory is that the long-chain fatty acids exclusively in breastmilk support white matter development in the brain (see the UK study link above which looks at MRI-scanned prevalence of white vs non-white matter in the brain).

Whilst it might have been insensitive and unhelpful, I’m not sure that it’s fair to say that the nurse is wrong, to be honest. It’s a good thing for the NHS to promote breastfeeding. Actual practical breastfeeding and post-birth support in the NHS is, however, extremely poor, I totally agree. It’s that which really needs urgent attention. I found even HCPs who were meant to be trained in supporting bf were often woefully bad. The national scandal is actually how badly mothers and babies are supported in this country, from maternity units to post-birth support in general.

Gotta love how maternity services manage to pressure women into breastfeeding while also offering zero support for it. Dumbass nurse.

She was clearly bottle fed….

(joking. Don’t believe in this breast/bottle nonsense. But clearly she’s the only one with an intellect issue).

complain but leave out the rest of the crap and just this comment only - ridiculous. And v damaging for someone struggling.

PS ignore the witch and do whatever suits you x

Research shows breastfed babies are more intelligent as the fats they receive benefit mental development.

Oh give over with your scare mongering and massaging of facts. This is what the Lullaby Trust actually say:-

“Thankfully, SIDS is now very rare. If you bottle feed your baby and follow all the other safer sleep advice then the risk of SIDS is extremely low.”

SIDs is incredibly rare and co sleeping which breast feeding mothers are more likely to do is a
far bigger risk as is over heating, smoking, not using a dummy etc

Re intelligence genes play a far far bigger part and breast feeding is a minuscule part of the environment.:- maternal education, home environment, long term diet, maternal mental health etc are far , far more influential.

This should have been explained to the op instead of subjecting the op ( who is struggling with her mental heath)to ridiculous inaccurate scaremongering. Op report.

Re the benefits of breast feeding on intelligence, it’s actually negligible which ironically is pretty obvious to anybody with a modiicum of intelligence:-

“ But even this may not be fully sufficient. It would be useful to compare children with the same mother, with and without breastfeeding. This study was able to do that, by looking at a sample of siblings where one sibling was breastfed and one was not. This analysis – sometimes called a “sibling fixed effects” analysis – is able to fully control for all characteristics of the mother and is a more convincing way to isolate the impacts of breastfeeding. When the authors did this, they found that the effect of breastfeeding on IQ was 0.02 points – basically, zero.”

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/jun/20/is-breast-really-best-i-looked-at-all-the-data-to-find-out

I breast fed because I'm stingy and it's free. But my dhs family were all horrified because it just 'wasn't done' in their day. Dh is a lawyer and his family and parents are all extremely intelligent and successful so clearly being bottle fed by a nanny made no difference to their intelligence!

Total bollocks. My DH went to Oxbridge and is a very well paid lawyer and was formula fed only from day 1, as was the case with most of his high flying friends.

Intelligence is down to genetic inheritance.

Complain about the nurse. So sorry youre going through this OP. I went through similar at 9 weeks and it was soul destroying.

^ This

💯

No, you breast fed because it worked for you and your baby. If like me you'd had infective mastitis, a breast abscess and been in so much pain you could barely move between feeds (I believe this was thrush of the inner breast tissues now I know more) you would likely have opened your purse.

In my case it was further complicated by having tons of milk so the baby was gaining weight very well and there was no need of top ups from that perspective.

There is something very toxic about the guilt that is put on women when bf goes wrong and it's imbued into midwives and hvs and is so very wrong.

@Chocolateegg123 you have my every sympathy. I hope you are OK and that some if the comments on this thread have not been too wounding. You are doing a great job and fir want of a better phrase the practice nurse was a complete tit. Personally I think her insensitivity warrants a formal complaint. Healthcare and nursing should be holistic and centred on individual needs and differences.

Exactly 👏🏼 I EBF and love it but would defend anyone's right to feed their baby how they want to and are able to! I just think middle class families are more likely to breastfeed.

My best friend was breastfed until 4mo then formula fed - she is a fiercely intelligent barrister. My brothers and I were all breastfed - one is an absolute moron 😂

Well, you can make it about you if you want. I did struggle a lot actually. I'm sorry that you had such a miserable time, genuinely. I wouldn't wish mastitis on anyone.

It’s utter nonsense. My husband (a scientist by background) looked at all the major studies when I was struggling to breastfeed - had to mix feed from the start - and feeling guilty about it because of what was being said to me by nurses/ health workers.

The problem with all the breastfeeding claims is that the research it is based on would not pass muster in most fields. The breastfeeding is self reported and the research doesn’t hold for other variables e.g. education, income etc. There have only been 2 studies that tried to do so and they only found that breastfed babies have slightly lower incidences of digestion/stomach issues and slightly higher levels of eczema.

It’s also worth noting that it’s based on WHO recommendations. Single message advice worldwide is tricky because of the different circumstances people live in. Since many parts of the world still don’t have access to safe, clean, water, it makes sense for WHO to advocate for breastfeeding in their messaging.

So, OP, yes complain about her stupid comments and no, don’t worry about formula feeding.