breast is best?

[magpienchips]

I personally think it is...but I am aware that many female mothers disagree and prefer to feed their babies bottle milk...I wouldn't do it...however if for some reason you physically are unable to produce enough breast milk for you baby then and only then would I consider or use bottle milk.
I just don't think people can better breast milk...whether you believe we were created or evolved the fact is breast milk has been proven to be best for babies because it has in it exactly all that a babe needs to help it grow strong and develop.
if we evolved as we are taught in schools, how could chance manage to make female produce exactly what babies need to help them grow?
it just does not make sense...common sense tells me that the one who created us put breasts on the female chest for the purpose of feeding your babies.
it just annoys me so much when I see an advert on TV trying to persuade mothers with babies to feed them formula milk...it would be better to promote breast feeding rather than trying to make mothers use bottle milk.
anyway what are your Thoughts?
do you think breast milk is best?

Thanks.

I see me running through that open door

thats such a compliment op thank you most sincerely...

It is actually illegal to advertise formula milk in this country. Unfotunately when this law was introducted the formula milk companies introduced follow on milk which they could advertise instead.

Advertising costs money, which formula companies have. Breast feeding isn't a commercial business, so who would pay to advertise breastfeeding?
Breast is best but with nonsense in the media such as the women who was asked not to breast feed in the civic centre recently, a lot of mothers are recieving confussing messages. It is considered inappropriate to inform mothers of all the negatives of formula feeding, less we ofend them.

NAR4,
Thank you I really appreciate your answer...BTW I didn't know that advertising formula milk in this country is Illegal?
personally I think this whole commercial business is part of the problem...its like if something can't be used as a means of making profit no one wants to touch it...If I had the money to pay for the promotion of breast feeding I would...but I guess for those that can't breast feed then bottle milk Is better than none at all.
Thanks again for your insightful answer.

Advertising first stage formula is illegal as it undermines breastfeeding. Companies have circumvented this by creating follow on milk, which can be advertised.

OP I'm sorry if I was snitty earlier. Your post was judgemental and I found the god references bizarre. Whilst I am passionate about Breastfeeding I am also fundamentally and strongly committed to women's right to bodily autonomy. No woman should be forced or pressured to breastfeed if this is not what she wants to do.

I would love to see breastfeeding rates in this country rise but I don't think your approach will help! However I can see from your subsequent posts that your heart is in the right place.

When/if you have kids, if your partner WANTS to breastfeed, you can be an enormous help to her by providing practical and emotional support. Partner's attitudes to feeding are massively important in determining whether a female mother is able to breastfeed or not.

And if she doesn't want to breastfeed, respect that. :)

Oh, and I recommend The Politics of Breastfeeding by Gabrielle Palmer. Fascinating read.

Poor old magpie and chips! What an experience! You just asked a question! Didn't you realise that too many women in one place means bitchiness, sacrcasm and meanness? Not to mention some of them being hypocritical -judging your religious views in the same way they percieved you as judging a woman's choice to formula feed. And then ridiculing your beliefs! Shocking actually.

I've read a page and a half and I'm already bored! Magpie, what on Earth?! Of all the 'Is breast best?' threads I've read this has got to be the most ill-informed and unpersuasive.
This is my favourite line: "if we evolved as we are taught in schools"
Evolution, as it's usually referred to, has created the perfect milk for our babies. (I don't see why it's relevant whether we were created or evolved by the way.) Unfortunately, it hasn't been made all that easy to breastfeed which is often why people end up formula feeding.
I really don't know why I'm replying to this thread.

Excellent. A funny BFing thread. I didn't think such a thing was possible.

To answer an earlier question, my breasts weren't designed by god. I grew them using cardboard and a special solution like one of those magic tree kits you used to get.

Hmm. I think we have to examine why it's not easy to bf for so many.

Are there any other kinds of mothers apart from female ones?

I'm wondering OP how you see your belief in "breast is best" working out in practice? I'm pretty sure given all of the evidence that no one could seriously dispute the fact that breastmilk is the ideal food for babies but this begs the question "why do so many babies have formula?"

What do you think?

What a bloody odd thread!

I plan to BF but I hate when people try and push it on women. I also believe that is the reason so many women choose not to BF, because they feel they are being bullied into it.

Also, just skimmed past the bits about creationism... Has anyone seen Dave Gorman's Google Whack adventure? There's an interesting piece on that there.

I do actually know people who think ff is better for baby (at least they say that's what they think, iykwim).
Some think that all the R&D the formula companies do has created a better milk. And say that when a baby sleeps longer after a ff it's because the formula has satisfied the baby better than breast milk would have.

And others who think bf and ff are pretty much the same substance, so neither is really better than the other.

Personally I do believe that all things being equal, bm is best for baby. Ideally direct BFing but if not then expressed milk in a bottle (though having been there myself I know exclusive expressing is no walk in the park)

This video gives an insight into why breastfeeding is hard for many Western women, but not so much for traditional societies.

Of course, there are a million more reasons which us BFing supporters come across daily, and I'm not advocating removing medical support during childbirth (hopefully that's obvious). However, if it was more understood that birth interventions (those which are not necessary for the health of baby or mother yet are still done routinely, every day, to most labouring women) can significantly affect the instincts of a newborn, we would be in a much better position than we are.

99% of the time breastfeeding is 'best', however I don't like that term 'best' as it immediately makes non-breastfeeding mothers feel like their choice is considered inferior/second rate. Breastfeeding is just the normal way to feed infants but obviously in the west is no longer the most common feeding method.

Yes we all know that breastmilk is perfect for our babies adn I'm hugely passionate about supporting breastfeeding mothers but not having a go at formula feeding mothers.

Mothers choose not to/give up breastfeeding for a whole host of reasons and should not be judged.

I choose to breastfeed and am lucky in that I have found it relatively easy. I don't know if I'd be so passionate about it if I'd had a miserable time at the start. I now am a peer supporter and believe that educating and supporting women who want to breastfeed is the only way that it will become the norm again in the west.

Organiccarrotcake - that video was really really interesting

Glad you like it humpty. I was in tears .

Organiccarrot - are they including gas and air in the "medicated" group, do you think?

Yes I welled up too. It's just beautiful.

My ds struggled to latch on even though I had only g&a (hence the question) but then he had jaundice.

I don't understand why Mothers feel that the feeding choices of other mothers are any of their business. Each to their own.

I ff from about day 5 (as soon as away from midwives in hospital), it was always my intention. Quite simply because others can help with this. A whole night off every week from week one while DH did the night feed one night at the weekend. Wonderful. Kept me sane (I did not have this mythical army of people to do everything else whislt I just fed as family 250 miles away and husband doing a long working week). Nor would I have wanted to just feed feed feed for hours on end anyway.

There are always going to be medicated births though. When my son went to special care I didn't see him for several hours and was told he needed formula. No one gave me the option of breastfeeding and it was only because I asked that I got someone to help me hand express. I am still breastfeeding almost 7 months later even though my son spent several days being bottle fed my expressed milk. People in my position need more help than they get now if they want to breastfeed. The special care unit had breast pumps and a room to feed/express in but there seemed to be no one person available to give advice.

DuellingFanjo I totally agree that there's a need for more support for babies in special care etc.

When DD was in NNU there were pumps available but I also had to ask repeatedly for help with how to hand express collostrum in the early days. Also nobody really to help me get DD to latch on.

In the end I took her home on bottles of expressed milk and I think I was just really really lucky that she worked out how to latch on and decided she preferred breast to bottle.

exactly the same here KD, I was able to breastfeed in the unit but often felt like I was disrupting the routine they had him in, plus I could only do two feeds a day. I managed to get him exclusively onto breast within a couple of days with a lot of help from people on mumsnet and a lovely breastfeeding midwife who came to see me.

mind you, the help I got on the maternity ward RE pumping was also really good.

Glad things worked out ok for you too :)