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?

Ah but Aitch, I committed the usual MN sin of not reading the whole thread.. or well, any of it beyond vague skimming past the first page. My bad. So it wasn't impolite at all in and of itself, just shouldn't have posted it without looking at the conversation around it.. and then of course, I got the comeback which did seem impolite (given that I'd posted what I felt was a fairly innocuous comment).

I usually post on a different forum where it's less of a discussion and more of a 'post your opinion' type of board and forget mumsnetettiquette a lot.

I have asked for my posts to tiktok to be withdrawn, anyway, as I recognise they are 'my issue' so to speak.

I'm leaving the discussion with you, mrsbean.

I have never online or in RL slated anyone for using formula.

You are either confusing me with someone else, or delusional, as Aitch suggests .

In an AIBU thread, people are allowed to be robust in debate, as I was in my (non-nasty)post to you.

I'd forgotten your name, otherwise I would not have engaged with you here. Sorry I pressed the wrong buttons in doing so....

i wouldn't bother, i think you're right that most people do read the whole threads, so they'll see that some resolution has been reached i think.

TIKTOK! did i say delusional?! (kinda, but me and mrsbean, we're getting past it ).

As above, tiktok, I have said I am withdrawing my posts.

I am afraid we will have to agree to disagree about the tone of your post. I appreciate now it might have annoyed you in context but I don't think your tone was quite as innocent as 'robust'

It is sad that you don't remember my name and yet I react to yours. Says a lot about internet fora, really. I am moving on..

LittleMrsHappy - while stats are figures, I know what you mean about relating to figures/numbers more easily.

It's of no practical use to say 'If I cross the road without looking, I have a 25 per cent increased risk of being run over by a bus compared with crossing and looking'.

We understand things better if we say, '100 people cross the road without looking. 10 of them will be run over by a bus. If 100 people cross the road and look before they do so, 8 of them will be run over by a bus.'

(Those are rubbish stats - no one would be run over quite as often as this in both scenarios, but you know what I mean. Numbers make things 'realler' than stats.)

Trouble is, not all research is presented in this easy-to-grasp way. Ben Goldacre has a chapter about this called 'Bad Stats' in his book 'Bad Science' where he makes a plea for 'real number' . If I get a chance to look out some studies later I will do so, but I don't have the maths to do much with complex stats, sorry.

Some information about cancer and breastfeeding - supplied not to 'scaremonger' but in response to a request from another poster (LMH) who wanted something concrete:

OK....this is from the Collaborative Group on Hormonal Factors in Breastfeeding. This is a review of many different studies, which have been assessed for quality of evidence and found to be satisfactory. Total women in this study was about 150,000 so a very big study indeed. The abstract is here:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12133652?dopt=Abstract

They calculated in real numbers which is helpful.

"It is estimated that the cumulative incidence of breast cancer in developed countries would be reduced by more than half, from 6.3 to 2.7 per 100 women by age 70, if women had the average number of births and lifetime duration of breastfeeding that had been prevalent in developing countries until recently. "

So the current rate of breast cancer in developed countries (eg here) is 6.3 women in every 100, before the age of 70. If we had a few more babies, and breastfed them all for a longer time, there would be 2.7 women in every 100 who developed breast cancer before age 70.

They found this was a dose response - so the less, cumulatively, breastfeeding you do, the greater your risk of cancer. You can also look at the figures another way - most women do not get breast cancer, whether they breastfeed or not. Some women do get it, whether they breastfeed or not.

LMH asked for studies which are not 'one sided'. All studies should correct for bias in whatever way they can, but their questions may not look at every aspect.

I will try to find something on children and cancer now.

Childhood cancers and bf: evidence is less copious, and this study www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16263987 says there is not enough good evidence to give actual figures - though some studies do show an association (less bf = more leukaemia), others show no association.

Childhood leukaemia is very, very rare (far rarer than breast cancer) whether you bf or not.

Thanks Tictok, I appreciate the way you just posted this. I really did,not trying to be sarcastic.This is exactly how I personally would like to see things quoted.

One thing re the breast cancer did they take into account the body shape and lifestyle thing ie the apple shape and smoking risks of getting breast cancer?Could the women in the study that bf have a tendency to smoke lees,less likely to be overweight? Generally interested.

MilaMae, how else are these issues quoted, then? I don't understand your implied complaint about how things are quoted elsewhere than my post, I honestly don't. The evidence is clear - there are risks in not breastfeeding. All I did there was to explain a bit more with links.

You can get answers to your questions by reading the whole study. My guess is 'yes', because they say they took into account 15 'personal characteristics' when crunching the numbers - smoking would be an obvious one. When they control for these factors, they end up with a comparison that only looks at (in this case) breastfeeding experience, and they found the association (which is very marked) persisted.

tiktok, sorry but I know the data analysis of this, and tbh, its not what I asked you, I asked for BF and FF rates of increased risk off breast cancer, this study is about child rearing and the amount of time breastfeed, and tbh does nothing for breastfeeding rates or asking people to continue to breastfeeding for this specific reason.

This data is about woman who have invasive breast cancer which were studied over 30 countries, and over 50302 woman (porous woman) had invasive cancer and 96973 control woman (multiple births)

what the study has shown is that woman with breast cancer had fewer births (porous woman) and that woman who had multiple births (controls woman)and "furthermore" the woman with the cancer had never breastfeed themselves (the 71% to the 78%)

It then goes on to say that woman with cancer who breastfeed for one birth and for 12 months decreased their chance of breast cancer rates by 4.3% while the multiple births decrease their rate by 7.0% for each birth!

Now I have huge issues with this findings simply due to the numbers involved, their is over 4000+ woman more than the breast cancer woman, that number in its self could and most probably would accumulate for the lower percentage in the findings of "reducement of of the pro cancer rates" !

My background is doing risk assessment everyday, and I follow the more complex routes of statistical analysis, which involve summarizing and analysis the data to include all variables and anomalies to then produce a risk assessment, I cannot disregard any of the risks and background involved or it could quite possibly be blood on my hands!

"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."

Im sorry AitchTwoZone, but can you show me any evidence to support this statement???

As far as Ive seen its NOT the "child's" risk to breastfeeding its the mothers themselves

sorry Im on a role now, but tiktok do you know of the other 9 personal characteristics, I just wondering if the woman who had the invasive BC, mothers BF them, was one of the other's for ATZ statement.

LMH, sorry, I don't understand what you asked for. What does 'BF and FF rates of increased risk off breast cancer' mean?

I can't follow the rest of your post, either, sorry. I have a research background, but I don't understand some of what you're saying. I do understand that you do not need equal numbers in all groups - especially not when you are dealing with 10s of 1000s as here. As long as the maths, and the controlling, accounts for the difference, there's no issue.

The Collaborative Group www.ceu.ox.ac.uk/research/29/collaborative-group-on-hormonal-factors-in-breast-cancer is one of the world's leading cancer epidemiology centres. The Lancet published this paper. Neither of these points is a guarantee of anything, but it weighs pretty heavily with me

Get the whole paper, if you can, LMH - that will clarify what the personal characteristics were.

Many thanks LMS very interesting for a non stats person like me.

TiktoK "the explaining a bit more with links" is kind of crucial instead of blanket alarmist statements. The fact you said re the childhood cancer"evidence is less copious" "there is not good enough evidence to show actual figures""others show no link"is a big improvement on the "your child is more likely to get cancer" statement we so often see elsewhere,not you in particular.

Clearly as LMH has illustrated interpretation is also crucial. Maybe those of us that aren't science and stats experts should shy away from quoting studies we really don't understand.To do makes us really no better than a tabloid newspaper.

LMH, there are a number of papers which show an association between not breastfeeding and a rise in the risk of childhood cancers, of various types. In my earlier post, I cited a review which said the evidence, in the case of leukaemia, for this link was not clear, because there were too few good quality studies.

It's quite a difficult area to research, as the incidence of childhood cancer is (happily) very low.

So you understood what LMH's reservations were, then, did you, MilaMae? 'Cos I don't have a clue!

I think it is fine to quote studies even if we are not scientists or statisticians. We should not be scared to do so - if we have a few brain cells we can learn to understand the different sorts of research, learn what the 'scientific method' is, learn why speaking to Mrs Miggins in the pie shop about her breastfed baby's earache is not evidence of anything that can be generalised out to other babies, and is certainly not comparable to a study of X hundred babies.

And so on

Tiktoc, sorry but your somewhat confusing me with your posts, this link [ www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16263987 tiktoc link] this study in itself is saying "Furthermore, the few studies that exist disagree regarding the association. It is estimated that the United States spends 1.4 billion dollars annually on the treatment of childhood leukemia"

Also it states, they do not have the " data that they need to make decisions regarding this important potential preventive measure".

On another note you said in the same post that "Childhood leukaemia is very, very rare (far rarer than breast cancer) Im a bit dubious of this, 1-9 woman are affected with breast cancer in their lifetime, 1, in 1000 children are affected with childhood leukemia.

LMH: I linked to two abstracts

i) on breast cancer

ii) on childhood cancers

Breast cancer is less rare than leukaemia - why are you dubious about this? It's not controversial!

TIKTOC, but you cannot misinterpret a research for your own conclusion, furthermore, I dont think its fine to quote studies you have no understanding of, as it simply does nothing to promote breastfeeding in a GOOD WAY! and just in scaremongering way, as which you have showed, as its not in any,way, shape or form doing anything to generate the greater good of breastfeeding!

I also dont understand your posts also tiktoc, as they dont make sense to myself (sorry)

The quotes you gave were misinterpreted by yourself also (in fact Im not going to say it, as Im really not wanting to be rude)

My reservations on the link you provided was not what I asked you for, I asked for breast cancer/formula feeding rates on breast cancer, this link, is about woman with invasive breast cancer and the number of births they had and the amount of breastfeeding they done, to see if it reduced there breast cancer in themselves.

Im open to be challenged about my findings on reading many researchers an conclusions, but yet Im still no futherforward with it.

Im just saying if your going to quote or provide links, make sure you have a knowledge to understand why the data has been researched and also understand the research findings and conclusions are,

I was asking, and I should have stated better, that I would like to know the rates on breastfeeding and bottle feeding alone, in this risk assessment, with that I would like to know the numbers, of how many children go on to get breast cancer who were BF AND FF individually! not just statistical data and risk assessments! for pro BF, I would like to know individual statics, but I know in my hearts of hearts that's never going to happen.

Ive seen and read countless evidence that tbh is not saying, children are at a greater risk if your not breastfeeding with cancer, far from it tbh.

gosh, so prickly about tabloids...

glad that you are on a roll lmh, but can't you see that my post was about acceptance, resolution and not bickering like show-offy sixth formers? we can't control everything, we can only try to do what we can do. that doesn't mean trashing everyone who wants to make things better, however.

the bottom line, of course, is that it is simply ludicrous to suggest that feeding a child denatured, powdered and then reconstituted cow's milk is as good for that child's health as feeding it the milk that was designed for it by nature and made by its own mother.

but i don't have research to back that up, though, just, you know... good sense, so feel free to trash away.

Clearly this is a limitation in me, LMH, but I don't understand how I have misinterpreted or misquoted, and your explanation of how I have done it is mysterious and mystifying!

I did not say we should feel free to quote things we have no understanding of. I meant - as you must have surely realised - that we don't all have to be scientists or statisticians to read, understand and quote research. I have to trust that a paper from a reputable organisation of world-standing, published in a peer review journal, has achieved certain standards of reliability. I don't need to go and get the relevant PhD and spend years in the lab myself.

When you say'I asked for breast cancer/formula feeding rates on breast cancer' - do you mean whether the infant daughters later got breast cancer then?

If that's the case, then sorry, you simply did not make it clear. I can find some papers on that as well.

Most people totally except cows milk isn't as good for a child as breast milk,not sure I've read any posts proclaiming formula to be as good as breast milk.

Most people except breast milk is better in the same way that a healthy balanced diet is better for a child rather than a diet full of fat and crap,an active lifestyle is better than a sedentary one etc,etc