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?

When rapid growth slows down I suppose. I don't know, will have to look it up when I have more time. Sadly I may still be feeding my SN son McDonald's fries, crisps and noodles in an attempt to get some fats into his fruit / dry carbs diet for years to come, but it doesn't hurt knowing when to stop

Interestingly I have twins 1 of which would love to live entirely on food groaning with fat,the other eats way too little fat but double the amount of food (doesn't even like milk),I'm sure in a past life he was a fruit bat

Are lactation consultants, breastfeeding counsellors, childbirth teachers, doctors, midwives etc. really obsessed extremists then?

It takes three years to get a breastfeeding diploma in the UK. Are people who do this deluded idiots? What about all the breastfeeding committees for WHO, UNICEF etc. The whole Baby Friendly Initiative?

People discuss all sorts of inane shit (and specialist professional info) on Mumsnet. Why are people who are interested in breastfeeding, personally or professionally made out to be loony radicals who have no perspective?

Titty has a perfectly valid perspective.

MilaMae - do you want to answer the question:

how can you give people assurances that how their baby is fed doesn't matter?

Where does your confidence come from?

Every Sunday night A&E round our way will have a really good handful of babies come in suffering from respitory and other infections and d&v. According the NHS sponsored patient information leaflet these common illnesses are much higher in non-breastfed and mixed fed babies than they are in exclusively breastfed babies.

How can you read this and still come away saying 'it won't make any difference to your baby how its fed'? Seriously?

You don't know. You're giving false assurances.

Carmen - it's par for the course.

If you can't respond coherently, with logic and with evidence, then just take the piss like mad, stereotype and make the whole issue as personal as possible.

Indulge in a bit of character assassination.

People do that when they've got no sensible answers and no evidence to back up their argument.

Not sure I said "it won't make any difference how your baby is fed". I simply said a long term healthy diet for a child will have far more impact than 6 months of bf compared to ff,how can it not? You teach a child healthy eating they have it for life-healthy eating makes healthy adults,breast feeding does not insure you grow into a healthy adult-healthy eating and exercise does.

A reduction in the things you mention would be great(not that any of my dc were prone to any of them),nobody is arguing with that.

However you have absolutely no scientific proof that those children in your A& E are in because of formula. You're there on the door are you? Respiritory problems can often be hereditory and guess what bf babies can get them too,they can also get d&v and other infections. Also as the vast maj of babies have f at some point the incidence of these things are actually relatively low,especially if you prepare formula correctly.

A reduction in the small risk of these things would be great but you can't have it all.My babies were weaned onto a 100% organic healthy diet and were able to spend their first years with me. I'm not going to spend time worrying needlessly when I've more than made up for the little breast milk they've had in the same way I bet others don't obsess about leaving their babies in childcare or letting their kids eat crap occassionally. I'm sure they make up for it in other ways and compensate for it.

Incidently2 of my babies were seriously ill thanks to bfeeding,1 ended up in SCBU seriously ill with a consultant furious at the way common sense often goes out the window on the issue of breast feeding. Part of the reason my dd got so seriously ill was due to my determination to bf her having read an awful lot of scaremongering crap on the internet that drew on very little perspective.

YANBU. My DS was BF for 6 weeks then milk just dried up - which 2 weeks later I found out was medical after a blood test. Some people want to BF and can't therefore don't judge by what you see.

I would have loved to BF for longer but it wasn't to be and I wouldtry again should I have more.

titty - another way people disparage is to make a sneering comment when someone (like you, or, sometimes, me) posts a lengthy, detailed post as a contribution to the debate. One is accused of trying to break a record, or of being obsessed.

Milamae - you cannot make an assertion that healthy eating as a child makes more difference than bf/ff, at least not without some serious referencing. You may be right. You may be wrong. However,it's likely that a physiologically normal diet as an infant may offer some protection against the ill effects of a poor diet later on - there is quite a lot of research that would strongly suggest this.

Admission to hospital in the first year is more likely in ff babies - this does not mean that we can be sure any one single admission is 'caused' by ff. But the public health data is clear - and 'dose' related.

There's no reason for anyone to feel belittled or criticised by the facts about the health impact (of which hospital admission is only one aspect) - anyone sensible knows that infant feeding is socially and culturally mediated, and linked with support and access to support, too. People don't often make a totally 'free choice' to bf or ff - even when they think they do.

I am not aware of skewing of stats or scaremongering as anything other than an occasional excursion into daftness, such as you get on any talkboard.

Incidentally, I doubt your babies were seriously ill thanks to breastfeeding. Your undeniably horrible experience was almost certainly down to ineffective breastfeeding, which was not spotted by the people whose job it was to spot it and help you fix it (or switch to formula if there was no way of fixing it)...before things got to crisis point.

Your experience does explain your current outlook, though, I think.

I do hope this post is not too long for you

It's not a current outlook it's my parenting outlook-parenting covers many issue all of which you try your best at. Being a mother is a long term process,my dc's health is a long term process. The 1st 6 months weren't ideal but I've more than made up for it as do many others.

It is your current parenting outlook, Milamae...talk about splitting hairs.

You may think your outlook on this is fixed in stone for ever more. I think people change, quite often.

Why would anyone disagree with you that health is a long-term process? No one says bf/ff is the only thing that matters.

My DD has 4 DC. All Bf as she was.

ages range from 11 months to just turned 7.

All 4 have spent time in hospital with respiratory problems.

DS was only a matter of weeks old when he was first hospitalised.

DD was advised to stop BF him as he wasn't thriving. She sat by his hospital bed for 2 weeks while they performed every test imaginable on him. Never really came to any conclusion. He was tube feed for a lot of this time in between DD BF him.

He's now 5 and can only drink soy milk.

I BF my DD for 11 months and she has suffered from asthma all her life.

At 6 weeks she had to have a chest x-ray to find out why she was "rattling".

DD's DH was also exclusively BF for about 1 year.

They had to cancel a weekend away last week because 2 year old had a bad asthma cough.

I believe it is important to BF if you can or if you want to but there are so many other variables associated with children, I really believe that what they are fed as babies only plays a small part in the whole equation.

coralanne - your post is a another good example of personal experience being presented as evidence of some sort of trump card over research. It's not. Your personal experience is irrelevant, unless you are in dialogue with some loon who believes that breastfeeding is a guarentee of perfect good health, lack of asthma, lack of allergies, in any individual.

And you're not in this sort of dialogue.

This is why research is done - on many, many individuals with their individual circumstances also taken into account.

You are of course right that there are many variables associated with short and long term health - who would disagree with you? But your personal stories are not evidence of this.

I haven't read this whole thread but I am with you 100%. It does no good to tell a woman who can't breastfeed (like yourself and myself) how badly we are damaging our children.

My son is 10 months. I never had any breast milk at all, no matter what I did. And he is thriving on Cow and Gate.

He is 24 pounds and nearly 30 inches tall. He is hardly suffering because he's had formula.

Try to ignore the arrogant, loud, obnoxious breast feeding 'experts'. They have no idea what it is like to not be able to breast feed and can have no sympathy for those of us who do.

"I haven't read this whole thread but I am with you 100%. It does no good to tell a woman who can't breastfeed (like yourself and myself) how badly we are damaging our children."

Well, if you had read the thread there isn't anyone actually advocating that ff mothers should be herded into halls and told that they're damaging their babies. I think what you'll find is that there is a lively discussion going on here about the evidence on the risks and benefits of both ff and bf, and whether it is important that the full facts on formula are made available to ALL parents, bf, ff, or pregnant and undecided.

It always helps keep the discussion sensible if everyone takes into account the CONTEXT in which the dialogue is taking place, rather than extrapolating it to a completely different arena.

"Try to ignore the arrogant, loud, obnoxious breast feeding 'experts'. They have no idea what it is like to not be able to breast feed and can have no sympathy for those of us who do"

How do you know they have no sympathy? Many of the most ardent bf advocates are also those who are in daily contact supporting women who are struggling to feed their babies. Many bf advocates are committed to supporting breastfeeding because of their own difficult experiences.

TikTok - someone studying how cultural mores and personal experience influence our perception of about beliefs about health risks connected to lifestyle practices would find these threads very 'meaty' indeed.

I personally find it all a bit disconcerting seeing the same distorted, illogical arguments being rehashed again and again. You expect it on Bounty, but on Mumsnet? Can't we do better than this?

The number of posts I've seen here saying 'I wasn't breastfed but I've got a PHD!' as though this was a valuable contribution to the evidence on how infant feeding impacts on cognitive development'. You read it and think 'Oh the irony....'

how big a child is isnt an indication of health.
formula is associated with obesity later in life.
FF babies are generally heavier/fatter than BF babies.
sorry that you are in the very small percentage that could not breastfeed, there is however, a larger percentage that would not breastfeed, even though its a fact that breast is best.

"someone studying how cultural mores and personal experience influence our perception of health risks connected to lifestyle practices would find these threads very 'meaty' indeed".

"FF babies are generally heavier/fatter than BF babies"

Well.... to nit pick...... BF babies tend to be heavier at birth, because they are more likely to be born to the most well-nourished women (and also to older mothers who also often have larger babies). If bf is established quickly and well they tend to put on weight at a faster rate than ff babies, with the rate gain often starting to slow between 4 and 6 months. In the second half of the first year ff babies put on weight faster than breastfed babies, leaving more clinically overweight by the end of the first 12 months.

thanks titty!

titty - there is no evidence that bf babies are heavier at birth. This may be the case in societies where there is a bias towards bf among better nourished, older women. But that's a social and culturally-specific factor, and nothing to do with physiology.

The rest of your post is true, and it is markedly the case that ff babies are more likely to be significantly overweight at 12 months. That is likely to be largely physiology.

Agree with your suggestion that people don't post unless they have read the thread. How does it help a discussion when people don't do this??

Correction - when I say overweight at 12 mths is largely physiology, I mean it has physical ie dietary, causes.

"This may be the case in societies where there is a bias towards bf among better nourished, older women. But that's a social and culturally-specific factor, and nothing to do with physiology"

I stand corrected

Titty" it always helps to keep the discussion sensible"-baby dancing and bonding is all I have to say on that one.

Motherlovebones there is no need for ff to be associated with obesity in later life or to have a bigger baby. You can simply adjust formula intake. You then ensures he/she is weaned onto a healthy diet. Not exactly rocket science or difficult.

I assume you're talking to the 'breastfeeding dance' - the phrase that was coined (not by me I'd add - it's a term that's been used in breastfeeding literature for years) to describe the instinctive, rhythms of the interaction between a breastfeeding mother and her baby.

Not sure quite what your reference to bonding is all about.

So not silly at all.

(quoting from Dianne Weissinger)

"Like any other loving relationship, nursing works best when it has the fewest rules attached to it. Most mothers find that they really begin to enjoy nursing when they stop thinking about it - when they no longer know or care how often the baby nurses, or when the last nursing was, or how long it lasted. Nursing is like dancing. Once you both learn the basic steps, you become partners in your own special style, and the rules lose their importance. If your baby likes to nurse on one side each time or if she wants both sides, if she prefers several quick snacks each hour, if you want to keep her quiet while you?re on the phone, if one arm gets tired and you want to switch, if she wants to nurse again right away, if you need for her to nurse, or if... well, you get the picture. If it's working for you and your baby, it's right".

"Motherlovebones there is no need for ff to be associated with obesity in later life or to have a bigger baby. You can simply adjust formula intake. You then ensures he/she is weaned onto a healthy diet."

If it was that easy we wouldn't be seeing rocketing rates of childhood obesity. What about babies who are not satisfied with being given smaller feeds? Feeding boards are full of worried posts by mums whose babies want more or less than it says they 'ought' to be having on formula tins. What do you do with a baby who's drained its bottle and is crying for more? Switch to hungry baby formula? And what about those babies who don't get on with hungry baby formula, which is far less digestible than normal formula and makes some babies hideously constipated?

And what about the fact that ff babies tend to take far larger volumes of liquid, especially in the early days, compared to breastfed babies? What does that do to their physiology? A newborn breastfed baby will take between a teaspoon and a tablespoon of colostrum during each feed on the first few days. I've seen newborn ff babies take two or three ounces of formula at a feed - massively larger volumes of fluid.

In any case, I'm not sure that researchers are fully aware of the mechanisms responsible for ff babies tending more towards obesity - whether it's to do with the fact that they have less control over their food intake than breastfed babies (so feeding is much more likely to be mother led than baby led), or whether it's to do with the way babies metabolise formula itself, and the way this impacts on how the baby lays down fat in the first year.

MilaMae - you really are speaking from a position of ignorance being less than well-informed.

It is just not known why ff is associated with later obesity. It's clearly not inevitable or direct cause and effect - most kids who were ff are not obese. Yet the association persists in many studies.

Parents over-feeding the baby seems the obvious reason - just as you suggest. But it's not as simple as that.

In fact, it is difficult and it is rocket science.

Is it because the contents of formula affect the baby's metabolism? Or is it because the way the milk is delivered (in a bottle) prevents the baby from deciding when to stop feeding? Is it something to do with babies who are ff being more difficult to wean onto a range of healthy foods (because bf is thought to prepare babies for different flavours and ff can't)? Or some other factor?

'Simply adjust formula intake' - even if this was the answer (and I hope I have explained why it may not be) this is actually quite difficult for parents to do, without somehow putting a young baby on a diet....

Life and its outcomes are a whole lot more complex, you see