Do the benefits of breastfeeding decrease once it is not exclusive?

[sammysam]

Literally just out of interest and curiosity I was wondering-if you gave some formula would the benefits decrease.....

I suppose i'm thinking about it as my Dsis has done just that with her dd (2months) and i'v never given my dd's any formula (for many reasons but one being that I thought it might decrease the benefits).....I was just pondering....

Some of them. Some of them not.

I am not comparing breast / formula to fruit and junk food. However in the same analogy if you ate lots of fruit but then ate junk food, the benefits of the fruit would not be wiped out. So you still get the good bacteria, antibodies, all the other stuff that breastmilk provides.

By giving a bottle you introduce certain risks - namely gastroinfections because of the risks involved in non sterile bottles, formula preparation etc etc. There are studies that show introducing formula and mixed feeding does increase risks of certain illnesses - in a linear way really, the more formula, the more risk.

There is also the idea of 'virin gut' and not introducing complementary foods before 6 months (formula technically counts as a complementary food).

However formula certainly does not wipe out the benefits of breastfeeding and there is less risk mixed feeding than formula feeding. This is why I think a slogan of 'every breastfeed counts' is better

virgin even!

hhmm....I would imagine that you will not loose any of the benefits (ideal nutrition, immunity, benefits to mother) BUT you would get some of the risks (contamination of formula, introduction of foreign proteins possibly causing alegies etc) plus, your supply will decrease if you give formula

er depends when i think. at 7 months when other food is being introduced it may not make a diffence but at two weeks when the baby's insides may find it difficult to cope with something other than breastmilk, it may do

there is the virgin gut school of thought too...

IIRC some of the benefits of bm are 'dose-specific', so the more bm, the more benefit. Introducing formula would reduce the amount of bm, so would reduce those benefits.

I think it's more that ff introduces risks rather than stops bf being beneficial though (eg destroys virgin gut, introduces a source of iron which can be used by pathogens).

Apparently ff changes the pH balance of the gut too.

I'm interested in this. My DD just couldn't latch when born so paed insisted on formula day she was born, in addition to EBM and I was terribly upset as exclusive BFing was just simply not going to be a possibility. When I asked a midwife if the formula would negate all the benefits of BM, she said no. We had to mix feed for 8 weeks until she had a tongue tie snipped, but (again, long story) at this point I cut back the BFing and expressing to just a mini BF twice a day and continuing with formula the rest of the time. DD is now 6 months old and still gets a (little) bit of BM twice a day. I didn't want to give up BFing entirely as we had tried so hard the first 8 weeks, and I was going with the 'every drop counts' idea. Am I right in thinking that? Do my mini BFs still give some her some goodness in terms of immunology benefits etc, even though she gets mostly (and it really is mostly) formula?

Mind you, I'm not going to really stop if the answer is 'not at all' because we both like it :)

Yes, your mini BFs still benefit her. She still gets antibodies. She still gets loving care & nurturing at your breast. IIRC "every bf counts" is the line that Kellymom uses. :)

Oh that's good to know, we'll keep going as long as we both want to then :)

"Every bf counts" is a really good, positive slogan I think.

I was initially going to stop bf at 6 months, but now I'm thinking of continuing 2 feeds a day beyond that.

I have massive respect for people who do manage to EBF (esp for those who don't even express) but it's important to underline that some bf is still good, even if, like me, you don't quite manage to be an EBF'er.