Stats that are surprising

[Ontobetterthings]

I came across a stat online earlier that said 80% of the world's population hasn't been on a plane. Aibu to find this so surprising?

What other stats have you come across which suprised you?

This has been in the news widely recently, you only need to google it or ask chatGPT.

My interesting stat for the day is
There has been 50% less newborn ICU admissions since the introduction of the rsv vaccine in pregnancy.
And I dont think the take up is at 90% so shows a great impact on tiny babies

The stat that Pakistani rape gangs targeting vulnerable girls were found to be operating in 149 areas of the U.K. is absolutely mind blowing. If you engage with the details of even one of these cases they are so beyond awful that it is incredible these were ignored for so long.,

I’ve heard this a lot. But I found it very painful to start with every time and so did everyone else I knew.

Strangely - or perhaps not -
my scandi family and friends didn’t experience pain etc to the same extent. But then they all gave birth in a decent functional health system so weren’t exhausted or traumatised by birth to begin with - and lots of help afterwards from feeding experts and family.

Every minute, a woman in the U.S. requires a blood transfusion because of heavy menstrual bleeding

Interested to know UK stats for this

Or I could ask the person who mentioned it and might be thinking of a particular study.

The pass rate is only 10% so I don’t find that stat at all surprising.

But that's why the stats are low. This narrative that everyone should exclusively breastfeed and isn't it awful that only 1% do (again questionable stats) fails to acknowledge that there are multiple obstacles to bfing - and not simply because women are weak willed and reach for the formula.

It really shouldn't be hard - women have been doing it for thousands of years. But our world has changed and not necessarily in line with bfding. Our diet is different, our lifestyle is different, societal standards are different, global expectations are different - these play just as important a role as the very real issues of low supply and pain.

Unsurprisingly that pp has run far away!

I think they must have been having a bad day....

I don’t either! Women are not physically strong enough to pass the full SAS training. The loads are too heavy for them to carry.

I never understood people who think of chatGPT as a substitute to conversation. People who copy and paste chatGPT responses into conversations are one thing, but people who don't understand why someone would be discussing statistics on a chat forum on a thread about discussing statistics are... Odd. Like there isn't any real point to Mumsnet except that?

The stat about only 3 percent of all the water on earth being freshwater is interesting to me. Especially when you then think about how much of that is clean, how much is in accessible places etc.

I just looked and it's super interesting. Thank you!

So true! For most of human history, carrying infants close to the body was a universal and essential practice for survival. Babies fed on demand and they slept next to their mothers. This would’ve made breastfeeding easier.

I don't find that surprising at all because the benefits used for that statistic include , health care, education , childcare, child benefit and ,the state pension, it also includes children who are not old enough to work, disabled people who can't work and older people who have retired.
Similarly it's not surprising that most tax comes from the richest people.

I agree people breastfed more when out lifestyles made it easier to breastfeed. I bet even in those times though, the majority of children weren't exclusively breastfed by 6 months. I bet their parents were sneaking them the odd bit of chewed reindeer meat or what ever the local equivalent of porridge was.
The problem with the 1% stat is it conflates 2 things - breast milk being replaced or partly substituted with formula, and also kids starting to wean before the age of six months.

I’m really surprised that you find that statistic surprising, that feels like a very western first world response.

In 1880 it was common for babies not to start solids until 11 months old. By 1950 it had plummeted to just 6 weeks! This stark shift coincided with the introduction and marketing of commercial baby food.

Maybe outing but I often wonder (out loud) how the human race survived relying on breastfeeding for the very young. I am middle class, educated, with a very supportive husband/family, high income, easy access to high quality maternity and post natal care, no births complications, had healthy babies, no tongue tie, no pain on feeding etc and yet, it didn’t happen for me. In hindsight, they wasn’t much milk despite feeding, pumping, feeding. No sleep for me, no sleep for baby, who was perpetually hungry. By 4 months, they were largely formula fed.
They are almost adults now and of a very robust constitution and doing well at school etc so the all the other stuff outweighed the limited breast feeding.
Of course, it is not cheap and you need to prep and sterilise and take it with etc so bf wins on all measures but only IF you can.
I say all this to help expunge the guilt that many feel around formulae feeding.
Of course, some people / in some areas / in some countries, being able to bf is life saving and//or makes huge difference to maternal and child health.
Anyway, I digress.
I am enjoying the facts mixed in with some dubious statistics and presentation/interpretation of statistics whilst I try not to move in the heats

Babies were always carried by their mothers and were demand fed. This made it easier to breastfeed. All mammals feed their young. Modern life for humans is often not conducive to breastfeeding.

@Coffeewinecake In traditional and hunter-gatherer tribal societies, babies are breastfed an average of 4-5 times a hour in the daytime.

Mine was very conducive to bf-ing, even with the first child (no other children to care for), maternity leave for a year, no pressure to keep home or house tidy, to get or make food. it just didn’t happen.
Many women worldwide constantly carry their babies but are still working (hard manual labour) and have many children to look after.
Even If I had a all the fortune in the world, it wouldn’t have made a difference.
Only regret I have is that I wished I had realised sooner and started formula feeding.earlier. Each time I did persevere but I shouldn’t have.

I’m sorry that breastfeeding didn’t work for you. As we don’t have wet nurses anymore, it’s good that there is an alternative.

When I was pregnant, back in the dark ages,my doctor was Indian. At a check up he asked if I was going to breastfeed. I said I hoped to if I could. He said he couldn't understand why English women always said that, in India women just assumed they could and they would and generally they did. So I decided I would and I did. I wonder if confidence helps? I also had a wonderful health visitor who for a couple of days called in on her way into work, at lunch time and at the end of the day to check all was going well. By day three there was no going back. So maybe that's what did it. I also had a home birth so maybe that relaxed environment helped as well.

With my others I was experienced and didn't need support.

I also thought formula sounded like hard work so maybe my idleness helped.

Yeah this comes up a lot. They don’t because when you country is the size of Europe and you don’t need one to travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean without one many people don’t have to have one.

The one that always surprised me is that the Great Lakes hold about 20% of the worlds freshwater.