Turning the benefits of Breastfeeding into the risks of formula LIST

[rubberduckduck]

What do people think of this?

here

Just how much of this can be proved with current studies? eg.less likely to be alive on their third birthday.

Talk about scare mongering?

why shouldnt people be defensive when you are being so judgemental?? see my post re your children, i am sure that you would be 'defensive' if people judged you and them.

Hmm still not sure you've got that right, but this probably isn't the place to go into it. You say last week. Is this a new article then, not the one that led to the appalling media headlines? If so, can you link please (genuine question)?

AND leonie many of us on here who you say are being defensive either are of have been BREAST feeders as well!! its not simply a case of formula feeders finding you smug and rude its other posters in general not liking the way you put your opinion across!

Sorry, that was to Kitkat.

Judgy-smuggers were on the front page, Leonie.

I also posted this, some time ago (and it has broken links in it, dammit, which I will fix), where I compared the benefits/risks thing and in it I say this:

"Because if we look a bit more closely at the women who are supporting breastfeeding, for every one smug idiot type, there must be 100 who get on with it, quietly, intelligently and empathetically. And the smug idiot types do exist ? and I loathe them, as much as you do, if not more ? because they make my job considerably harder. Not only am I trying to compete with the £multimillion spend of the formula manufacturers, I have to also counter the idiotic statements made by boorish fools who think they?re supporting breastfeeding, but they?re in fact just trying to bolster their own self-esteem and mask their own failings by being smug about the one thing they?ve got right in their tiny lives."

And I said this, too, so I am at least consistent, because it chimes with what I've already said on this thread and I had quite forgotten I'd written it! :

"I appreciate that this is an uncomfortable way to talk about this and I am truly sorry if I've upset anybody. But I do think it's necessary - or we run the risk of reaching a plateau with breastfeeding rates in this country - initiation will be OK, but numbers will still dwindle and women will still be being let down in the first six weeks. If breastfeeding isn't viewed as important by those whose jobs it is to change things, if it's deemed inappropriate to talk about the issues surrounding the risks of formula feeding for fear of upsetting those who have already been let down or made decisions based on half-truths and saccharine facts, nothing will change.

What do you think? Is it kinder not to talk about risks for fear of upsetting women who've already formula fed? Or is it doing a disservice to those women yet to have babies if we don't talk about infant feeding in these terms? Is it, in fact, one of the biggest lies of early motherhood that it doesn't matter how we feed our babies and women should concentrate on not feeling guilty or making other women feel guilty? "

and i am not upset either, nor defensive but many people do get upset because these are emotive issues and i thought with your experiences that perhaps you would UNDERSTAND that and maybe try to be more sympathetic or have some empathy, but obviously not.

fwiw i wouldnt judge you or your children, if i see a child 'misbehaving' or acting out i make a point of being sympathetic towards a parent and posted as such on fb the other day that people need to be AWARE that some children have social/emotional/behavioural issues and that perhaps people should stand back and think for a minute and NOT make such a judgement, but yet you still do.

Sorry - I only read as far as when you, Leonie, said this:

"can you guys clarify exactly which part of my post attacks FF mums?"

To answer that, I would say the part where you said you liked the list from that blog. Within the first three points on that list, I have been told that I will not have bonded properly with my children, and that they won't have got enough snuggling!!!!!!!!!! That is such total and utter shite. My dses always did, and still do, get all the cuddles they could ever need or want, and we are bonded just fine, thank you. Oh, and apparently they are going to be thickos too. Do you honestly think it is reasonable to say that to another mother, or to endorse those views, as you have done on here??

If I hadn't formula fed, I wouldn't be very well bonded with ds2 because he would be dead!! At 6 weeks old and fully breastfed, he was admitted to hospital as 'failing to thrive', having lost 10oz from his birthweight and regained only 3oz. He was pale and skinny - photos of him from that time make me cry, because he looks so unwell, and it is utterly obvious that he was not getting enough nutrition from my breastmilk to keep him going.

If I had stuck to my guns, and carried on breastfeeding, I don't think he would have survived - or I would have been accused of neglect and he would have been taken away, because my breastmilk wasn't magically going to turn into gold top.

Ds1 ended up formula fed after getting severe neonatal jaundice - I was told by the doctors that even feeding him three-hourly he still needed more calories and fluids than he was getting from me, so I was to supplement with formula - and that was the beginning of the end of breastfeeding for me. I did try to re-establish it once we were at home, but couldn't, despite using a breast pump as well as feeding him - the amount of milk I pumped did not increase at all over a week of pumping.

Oh - and feeling like I have failed my children because I didn't breastfeed has contributed to my ongoing depression, and that did make bonding with my children harder - not the fact I didn't breastfeed them.

Kitkat1000, I thought that might be the case, because the muddying of water that that piece stirred up was considerable. This is a rather excellent reply that I would urge you to read, written by Mary J Renfrew (a v respected and brilliant woman where bf is concerned), who isn't funded by the infant food industry, as Fewtrell and her fellows are/were.

Yes Leonie, that is exactly how you made ME feel

thats just it leonie, the manner in which you post and your style of posting and the way in which you express 'your opinion' is so negative that it DOES/CAN have the effect of making others feel bad about themselves, hence why so many people are 'bitching at you' as you put it!!

i am happy and confident in my choices as a parent, but i will not sit by and let you think it is ok to be so judgemental and rude.

Me too, Leonie.

You made me feel attacked and denigrated.

By agreeing with the list you are saying that you believe my dses will be less well bonded and not cuddled enough compared to a breastfed baby. How can you not see how offensive that is?

like i said, SOME of us learn that our judgments may NOT be right, they may be ill informed, you may not have the whole picture and that yes it is RUDE to express them like you have been doing.

so stand by your opinions all you like, i stand by my opinion that you are rude and judgemental and i am rather glad that i dont know you in rl.

i dont feel inferior, and i dont think anyone here feels inferior, but we do feel judged and wrongly so, do you see the difference, that you are being offensive and judgemental.

so no you dont make me feelin inferior, you make me horrified that an adult can be so dam rude and offensive, there is a big difference leonie.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

No but some smug bugger will always try!

I do hope Fewtrell et al are feeling proud of the hornet's nest they've stirred up.

HBW - I am guessing that you think I'm splitting hairs then, wanting to talk about risks of not breastfeeding rather than risks of formula? I know it is semantics, but psychologically NOT doing something is different from actively DOING something. And while I agree that we need to be educating women I don't think we should underestimate the possible impact on a vulnerable new mother if you were to overtly tell her that her only alternative to breastfeeding is to feed her baby a harmful substance. Because that is how the message would be heard by many a woman.

I am remembering all too clearly my own state of mind when I was struggling with bf my son (you may remember my story, he had tongue tie...). I had read that formula can raise the risk of SIDS. Feed that into an exhausted new mother's brain and what spews out? I am going to kill my baby. Not a nice place to be. I can't say for certain that I would have taken any differently a message about the risks of not breastfeeding, but I think I would because after all I WAS breastfeeding to some extent.

This is why I personally think the way to go is the "every drop counts" type message that I mentioned before.

Is this the wrong time to say breastfeeding sucks,

xx

dons hardhat and runs

So now my depression and feelings of failure are my fault too, Leonie! I'd better just go slit my wrists before I do my children any more harm!

Think about this - I have actually felt suicidal a number of times, including after the births of the dses. If I had had the message about all the risks of formula feeding and the damage I was doing to my babies pushed into my face, how much worse would my mental state have been?? Believe me, Eleanor Roosevelt was wrong - other people's words get inside your head and go round and round until you believe them. And if you are already depressed, you are far more likely to believe negative things.

Gaelic, I rather like the risks of not breastfeeding, rather than the risks of formula and I agree with you - semantics is all about hair-splitting and I'm rather fond of it (supportive language is my thing)!

So, with the SIDS information, you'd say that not breastfeeding increases the risk of SIDS?

(As for Fewtrell... )