Breastfed babies are better behaved says study

[crikeybadger]

Link here if you are interested.

I think it once again just demonstrates how shockingly bad the media are at presenting scientific reports.

Did anyone listen to radio Kent phone in on the subject??

The findings suggest that, at least in term children, longer duration of breast feeding is associated with fewer parent-rated behavioural problems in children aged 5 years.

I thought this was interesting too - could be interpreted as the longer a mother breastfeeds, the more positive she feels about her child?

"It's like doing a whole marathon only to find at the end you'd been disqualified at the start!"

Every bit of love and effort you put into your children is of value to them. Not breastfeeding doesn't invalidate all the other wonderful things you do for your child.

"I think the survey is great but I don't think it particularly helps with the root causes behind reasons women breastfeed or don't breastfeed"

No. But then it doesn't set out to. That is another subject altogether.

hully

Nice to see you back tiktok

I would be far more interested in a study that compared children in the same family that had been ff or bf. In my experience (4 dc with different levels of bfeeding) it has made no difference.

It's interesting that there doesn't seem to be a difference between exclusive BF and mixed feeding. I do wonder whether a focus on exclusive feeding is a turn-off for parents and a message that any breast milk for as long as poss would be good instead.

Mine were BF and one is a "good girl" and one is a little bugger. Not sure how statistically relevant that is

coffeeaddict - I think that would have limitations as well....you are not the 'same parent' each time. Just as (like the ?Buddhist? ?Hindu? saying) that you can never step in the same river twice (because the water is different, even if the stones, river bank and your feet are the same), parenting changes us, and there are enough studies on birth order to show that position in the family has an effect.

Of course you find no difference in your own children, despite their different experiences of bf. That would be most families' experience.

This study shows that for the majority of children, bf/ff is not a factor in behavioural difficulties. It's only when you get a big study, like this one with 1000s of children tracked over time, that you see the difference.

Peering at one family, even closely, is not going to reveal anything at all.

crikeybadger - thanks :)

I took a break from mumsnet, and will deffo post less anyway in the future. I got irritated at some unfair accusations directed at me by someone who had persistently misread a post despite it being explained more than once, and thought 'I don't need this' !

But I do quite like research so back I come :)

I?d like to see those areas broken down by topic a little more, because to my mind there?s quite a jump from a child being clingy and restless one minute to ?lying? and ?stealing? the next.
Did all of the 16% of formula fed babies in the study actually lie and steal? Or were most merely clingy? Were some liars and thieves without being anxious and clingy as well? I?d like to know more.
Furthermore, were they lying about incredibly significant stuff? Like whose turn it was to be ?on? at dobby off ground?
And what exactly does a child of five or under steal? Money? Credit cards? Diamonds? Mum?s lipstick?

coffee addict i'm not sure that the survey you propose would be more helpfull. Surely having had more children effects parenting, as having or being a sibling night also affect outcomes. Apologies re grammer, affect/effect always gets me.

coffeeaddict - my longest breastfed child is my worst behaved, and the child bf for the least amount of time is my best behaved. I don't take that to mean breastfeeding makes no difference.

In fact I have looked at dc3 (who's really difficult) and wondered how much worse he might be had he not had extended breastfeeding!

puppy - this is the questionnaire used by the researchers:

www.sdqinfo.org/

It's a useful tool because it has been used in many, many studies on parenting and child behaviour worldwide, so comparisons can be made in different contexts across different studies.

You can assume, I think, that answers will be age appropriate, so stealing will be the sort of stealing a five year old might actually be capable of.

The sample was a 'non-clinical' population, so these were ordinary families who just happened to be already recruited to the Millennium Cohort study for tracking purposes.

I thought it might be something like that tiktok - if it's the thread I'm thinking about, it did get pretty nasty.

Everyone missed your wise, knowledgeable words though, so hopefully you'll still post where you can.

Since the assessment of the children's behaviour was carried out by the mothers, the conclusion could just as well be "Breastfeeding causes mothers to perceive their children as less troublesome".

("The mothers were asked to assess problems in their children by the age of five, including anxiousness and clinginess, restlessness, and lying or stealing")

umf - no, because the tool used to assess behaviour is not as blunt as that.

tiktok Isn't it? It doesn't seem to me to record much more than maternal perceptions. For an objective view you'd need eg preschool workers to be filling it in.

I'm a determined bfer myself. But I also like proper evidence.

This study looks like another along the lines of "Mothers who buy Cath Kidson handbags end up with better behaved children".

(Tho on the other hand, if bfing really makes mothers perceive their children as less troublesome, that's probably a very positive effect.)

I think maternal personality and therefore genes must play a big part in this too.

Personally I think chilled,laid back mums are far more likely to persevere,get less stressed,make their baby less stressed etc whilst going through the fist difficult weeks of bf. It's a vicious circle.

Surely this must get passed on via genes to many(not all kids).It must be impossible to make any accurate adjustments for this. So pointless study imvho.

"So pointless study imvho."

As then I suppose are all studies looking at how environmental factors impact on children's behaviour........

MilaMae - the mums I know who kept on with BFing are all the stressy, het up ones, who were determined to keep going, and just furiously kept on with it. The laid back ones all seemed to take the 'formula won't kill my child, and will make me relax' attitude, and thus kept their sanity :o I don't think it's as cut and dried as you say!

I'm generally a ball of fury, and am consumed with stress to the extent of near-suicide and chronic depression several times in my life, but kept bfing DS.

I also think "clingy" is very subjective.What one mum may think is clingy another may not.

Bfeeding mothers may also be far less likely to label their dc as clingy,naughty etc.

It might be because I'm a scientist so unused to it but I'm always shocked at the amount of seemingly intelligent, educated women on these threads citing anecdotal evidence for or against the argument. Anecdote means nothing! I'm sure we all know someone who smoked forty a day but lived to ninety- doesn't mean that, in general, smokers don't die earlier. This is a large scale study which means small differences in outcome can be recorded.

Maternal personality probably does have a role - but without decent studies we can't say in which direction.

It could be, for example, the very stressed, uptight mothers are the ones who manage by sheer force of will to get through the very stressed, uptight days of early breastfeeding, while the laid back, relaxed mothers think, 'Aw, sod this for a game of soldiers, he's going on the bottle!' (Sorry, just seen Kveta has made the same point!)

umf - I have a background in research and studies I have been indirectly involved in have used the SDQ tool and while parental perception and assessment is indeed crucial to it, this does not invalidate it. It has been validated and found to be a robust way of assessing behaviour and because of the way the questions are asked, and what the questions actually are, you get a meaningful picture. Parents are the only people who see their kids over time, and the pre-school workers you say would give a better assessment would still have to ask parents questions....and of course all parents were asked the same questions in this study so you would hope this would bring consistency.

Yes, there are drawbacks in parental perception questionnaires, but this one is a good one which overcomes at least some of them.

Kveta not so where I live.The ones battling on down here are the laid back earth mother types.

Maybe it's more a patience thing, I was way to stressed for bf.The pain,the time,the invasion of personal space etc. I don't have a lot of patience learning any new skill,get frustrated easily if I struggle,have high expectations etc

Maybe it's more a patience thing,with baby too. All of my 3 got very frustrated/cranky on the boob. All of us far happier bf.

None of mine are clingy though,none are naughty etc.Obviously how you both raise them as parents is going to have a far bigger impact on all that though.

As low grade negative behaviour can so easily be resolved/rectified in young children if the correct procedures/role models etc are put in place one again must question the validity of such a study. Ie I've taught rec classes in very rough areas,had monsters coming in who were beautifully behaved in school. Obviously if bf was going to have such a big impact on behaviour such behaviour would be irreversible?