to think it's not helpful when people are overly negative about FF?

[lunartictoc]

Hi
Have been reading boards for a while under a different name, but wanted to post slightly contentious issue under new name.
AIBU to think that when discussing the merits of BF V FF, it is really unhelpful when some BF advocates try to strengthen their case with really negative comments/facts/ideas about FF? ie discussing how F-fed children are more prone to illness (including serious, like cancer) that it can lead to health problems for mothers, that it can cause obesity etc? I absolutely catergorically cannot BF my DS as much as I would have loved to - it is medically impossible. So I did a bit of research on FF, and many search engine results point here to MN. It scared me half to death reading what some posters have said about FF - I have no option, and without FF my son would have no milk at all! Some statistics (and indeed vitriol from the more judgemental posters) have just made me feel so upset and that I am being a bad mother, and damaging my DS in some way. I understand that pro-BF parents are keen to educate, and I understand that many F-feeders do so due to lack of support/education etc, but I think that there are many better ways to get across this message. Perhaps I am being over-sensitive, but some comments have really upset me! AIBU?

I know the thread, I think. The posters - oops, sorry, poster, 'cos there was one - was high-handed and judgemental and not very well informed. She was also alone in expressing her mad views - and LittleMrsHappy let her have it with both barrels for which she had some justification!

The poster's views and the way she expressed them were not typical of mumsnet, and she doesn't come within a million miles of me.

Oh bloody hell, here we go again. The bf versus ff debate (although thats being polite, as clearly it has already deteriorated into a slanging match)

If we all just gt on with accepting that some mothers cannot bf, and those who can have the choice not to. Vive la difference.

What about the women who want to breastfeed, missmoopy, and are told

• it's rude
• you can't bf because you are taking XYZ medication
• your baby's too old for that
• I don't want to see you do it 'cos it's disgusting
• you'll never feed a baby that size
• you don't have enough milk - I didn't, your grandma didn't, and you won't either
• your baby can't possibly be hungry again
• babies who are fed too often are spoiled
• your baby's not gaining weight - he needs formula
• your baby is doing/not doing X - it's because you're bf
• you need to eat/not eat this/that food
• your milk is probably poor quality

....and other myths, pressures, and strictures that make bf more difficult for women who would otherwise be able to bf.

Where do they fit in your simple paradigm?

exactly tiktoc, Ive been quoted the last 4 by medical professionals!

Well in imo it's the new mothers that are the most difficult - god they've read loads on the subject and thus are experts.

I remember being at a new mums group in a park where they all popped out their miniscule youthful tits and started feeding - I'm post forty with saggy g cups and didn't really want to suffolcate my baby as it's tricky when you're huge and saggy and so they just started on at me for not feeding.

I got out a bottle and they were horrified. Well, all I'd say is that ds has been dry at nights since 12 months old, had his first set of antibiotics at 2.5 - he's fine robust and healthy.

Don't worry about other parenting - just concentrate on my own.

It would be brilliant if a list of the myths of b/fing could be compiled along with an explanation.

There are so many women I know who believe a lot of the myths (as illustrated by Tik Toc above). Women who were b/fing happily enough until there was unnecessary interference.

Obviously there are women who need physical help, and I don't know the percentage of women who do, but it would definitely help to flag up the myths at an early stage. Or early enough so a woman could get help, if that's what she wants.

tiktok I did not say bf was easy or wrong, nor did I say that women are well supported in bf (I know they aren't) - what I did say is that rather than make women feel bad about ff, or dictate that they must bf, it would be better to accept difference.

"what I did say is that rather than make women feel bad about ff, or dictate that they must bf, it would be better to accept difference"

Who is this comment directed at? Who is 'dictating' that mums must breastfeed?

And if mums feel bad when they read/hear about the risks of ff, does that mean it shouldn't be discussed or written about?

missmoopy - can you answer my question?

You divide people into three camps: those who can breastfeed, and those who cannot, and those who choose not to.

And you think this should be 'accepted'.

I asked where the women who want to breastfeed but don't/stop sooner than they wanted to, fit into your paradigm.

You reply with some notion that people are demanding that women should be somehow dictated to, and ordered to bf, with a side-order of making ff women feel bad.

There is no connection between my question and your answer

OP, really sorry to hear your experience and well done on being brave enough to post here.

It might be slightly off topic (and if so, I apologise) - and I certainly don't want to cause any upset or offense - but one thing that makes me sad here in the UK is that mums who genuinely can't bf really don't have a choice other than ff. In comparison, in countries where bf rates are very high, sharing and donating breastmilk is much more normal.

I'm not saying that formula musn't be used, only that it is sad that the choice isn't there for those who want it - and that that seems to be a cultural thing.

tiktok. How very nasty. Why do you presume I am saying " my personal experience is evidence of some sort of trump card over research"

What I am saying is that the OP is not imagining the tone of some posters re BF.

All we ever hear is that FF DOES cause this or WILL cause that.

Show a bit of empathy for mums who FF by choice or for medical reasons and stop making them feel like second class citizens.

I can't really understand why some mums have this obsession to compare the two.

Fine you exclusively BF your child so leave it at that. Why do you feel that you have to embark on this evangilical crusade to let mums who FF their babies that their babies are going to gorw up as second class citizens.

no, all you ever hear (from tiktok certainly) is that ff increases the risk. Risk is not certainty.
There is also no push to make ff mums feel bad for their choice (if in fact it was a choice, which is not the case in a lot of situations). But women are getting pregnant all the time - should the facts be supressed so other women don't have their feelings hurt? Do you not see how that leads to a culture of ff and a general understanding that they are much of a muchness?
chicc - good point

Coralanne, perhaps you could back up some of your assertions and show us where Tiktok has said that ff children, or their mothers, are second class citizens? And in fact if you could show us where she or anyone has said that ff will cause anything, that would be appreciated too.

Because otherwise this isn't a conversation between ffeeders and bfeeders, it's a conversation between ffeeders and their imaginary friends.

Coralanne, I wasn't nasty to you. I highlighted your post because your personal experience was offered as evidence that infant feeding has no impact on health. Earlier in the thread I had moaned a bit that in debates like this people offer anecdotes as evidence, as if it was somehow 'better' than research. You popped up with a string of personal stories that told us nothing except what we already know - that bf/ff is no guarentee of anything, which I explained in a fairly polite way.

"All we ever hear is formula DOES [your caps] and WILL [your caps again] cause that" - your words. What have you been reading??? No one sensible believes that ff is anything other than a risk factor.

And if you have come across anything which makes ff mothers feel like second class citizens, I'd say no one can 'make' anyone feel that way, though I accept that a few very misguided people might try. But you have lumped me in with those very few people - and that, if we are throwing criticism about, is nasty.

i don't really understand why it's so difficult for my fellow ffers to acknowledge that their feeding method has increased their child's risk of cancer etc. like so many of them have been saying, it's one factor in many, and we could all get run over tomorrow.

it doesn't alter the facts, though, and i would personally prefer that we and the nhs could confront them so as to improve bfing rates and reduce risk for our children's children.

I personally haven't found tiktoc to say any of the above concerning will and does!

I have to say tho, and I am more then happy to be proven wrong by saying this...

Can anybody show me any link that says by not formula feeding your child may be at a higher risk of breast cancer if they are FF????

As far as I have seen, the link between cancer and breastfeeding is only when their is already a link of breast cancer in the family with the BRCA1, BRCA2, TP53 & PTEN are already in the gene "pool" ???? and if you have these genes your reducing your risk by 4.3% for every 1 year of breastfeeding.

Also by not breastfeeding your NOT at a higher risk, your just not reducing your risk. 1-9 people go on to develop some sort of cancer in their lifetime!

Ive read countless of new research concerning this, and as far as I have read Ive come to the conclusion that is too far a grey area to say IT DOES REDUCE BREASTCANCER, only that it MAY if their is already the genes in the family??? (which is what I believe tiktok has been saying

Although childbearing is known to protect against breast cancer, whether or NOT breastfeeding contributes to this protective effect is unclear

It may not be solely breastfeeding that protects against BF, depending on what research you read, it the whole of the pregnancy, motherhood and of course BF that ALL has to be taken into consideration!

Im off too the Doctors now, so will be back x x x

Hopefully you can answer and put me in a different light to the studies I have read. with has made me think of the above.

LittleMrsHappy, I am having some difficulty puzzling out your post - but I think you are asking

• stats on the increased risk of a non-bf child having cancer
• an explanation why women are at higher risk of breast cancer if they do not breastfeed
• why some research seems to come to different conclusions

is that right?

I'll answer later today

PS - one reason why research appears to conclude different things is that the studies start off by asking different questions. So a study may look at whether being pregnant affects your risk of breast cancer, and they will take a bunch of women who have been pregnant and compare with a bunch of women who have not. They may well fish out the variables - the smoking history, the age, the history of cancer in the family - to ensure the only thing they are comparing is pregnancy/not pregnancy.

They have not even asked anything about infant feeding.

So this would mean in this study that infant feeding does not show up. Does not mean that infant feeding is irrelevant. Does mean you need to do a different study and ask different questions (could use the same bunch of women, of course).

mrsbean - my blood pressure is normal

I apologised for the issue you described at the time, which I am not going to go through again, because I was misinterpreted by you (in your distressed state - as you said), but that's not to minimise the real fear you had, and illustrates the limitations of internet discussion.

I am not nasty to people.

Read your own little post about tutorials and precious little noses, and try to find anything, anywhere, that I have written that comes anywhere close.

I'd be ashamed to talk to anyone, online or in real life, in that way.

so as i see it, if you're supporting people wrt bfing on here you have to be utterly sainted, but if not you're allowed to be a nasty grudge-bearing hysteric? mmmm-kay.

sorry mrsbean, but i've seen tiktok post on here for years and years, and she is nothing if not cautious when giving advice.

"Every time I see your name on this forum slating someone for using ff"

bullshit. i'm sorry that you had such a hard time post-natally but i propose that you are not in any sense over your previous confrontation with tiktok, because you are positively seeing things now.

Tiktok, yes but I dont what statistics, I want actual figures, its all very well saying give me the stats, but I want evidence from both and real figures!

Im not discounting the "stats", but in order to have stats, you need real evidence in order to come up with "risk assessment"

I want to see evidence from children's cancer rates who were FF Vs those who were BF!

I would personally like to see both sides, and not just one sided study.

Im on both sides also when it comes the feeding method, dc1 was BF/MIXED, DC2 was breastfeed at the beginning, but needed specialist formula due to medical needs.

Ok I really need to go now lol x

Ok Aitch
I should never have responded on this forum.
I probably am not over it. I know the previous encounter with tiktok was largely my fault but I reacted to the post in response to mine here:

"What a great contribution to the debate, mrsbean

'Evidence is never incontrovertible' - er, true enough, and.....?

'Studies here, studies there....' oooooh, a killer blow

So no matter what research you read, you say 'huh, evidence is never incontrovertible,' do you?

Well then, controvert it...go on!

No one has said bf is the magic elixir of life...it would be silly, and wrong, and be just about as daft as saying, oh I dunno....'studies here, studies there.' "

I shouldn't have responded. I will ask for it to be withdrawn. I am used to posting on boards you can self-edit and it annoys me that it's not possible to do so on this board.

I posted my original response to this thread late at night and it wasn't really meant as anything at all. Since doing my own MSc I am increasingly dubious about facts being extrapolated from research and find most research in the health sciences that doesn't account for social and cultural factors highly dubious to say the least. I think that some bf research is very flimsy. I believe totally that bfing protects against ear infections and gastric bugs but think beyond that the body of evidence is not (yet) conclusive, though pointing in some interesting directions.

It's a bit like the dummies-stop-cot-death thing. There is good research to show that the use of a soother is associated with a lower risk of cot death but it is unclear why and I wonder what other factors might be at play with this. I don't think the work is done, from a research point of view. I feel the same is true about bfing and care should be taken not to assume that research about obesity/cancer etc is conclusive (not saying tiktok does this, just qualifying my initial contribution).

I hadn't thought about the initial argument here on MN in a long time but I was upset by the tone of tiktok's response to me on this thread, perhaps more so than I should have been, because of the memory of that.

fair enough, but in the context of this thread and the way it was going at the time, surely you can see that it might have been somewhat exasperating for tiktok to deal with your outright dismissal of all bfing research? you can see, in retrospect, i think, that your post wasn't particularly measured or polite, (while not being openly rude of course...)

i just don't think it's fair that everyone is allowed to be so ill-mannered to tiktok and the other bf supportive types and they're expected to suck it up and deal with it nicey-nicely all the time.

i have issues with having ffed my kids, but i do see them for what they are, and of course i see them in the context of providing a loving, stable, nourishing home for them. my own issues don't incline me to start trashing other people's good work, though.