Mixed feeding detrimental to breast-feeding?

[SarryB]

Just reading my Bounty magazine on the loo (as you do...) and there's a small piece that says...

"Mixed Feeding - if you started off breastfeeding and are now thinking of formula feeding remember that it may be difficult to reverse the decision not to breastfeed. Introducing partial formula feeding with breastfeeding will reduce your milk supply. We also know that mixed feeding can undo some of the protective factors that exclusive breastfeeding can give."

I'm a little confused, and also having a hard time finding more information/research on this. I'm unsure about how formula would prevent the benefits (in terms of antibodies etc) of breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding doesn't have 'benefits' really. Its just normal.

Formula feeding has risks. They can be reduced by good hygiene standards when preparing formula, by measuring it exactly ever time, by using hot water to mix it, and by making it fresh each time it is needed (and by having clean water in the first place but that's a whole other thread) but they still exist.

So mixed feeding doesn't 'prevent the benefits' at all, but it will introduce risk factors that are not an issue with exclusive breastfeeding. And mixed feeding will also reduce the amount of antibodies and immune factors that a baby takes in because it will reduce the amount of breastmilk they are having - but it doesn't cancel them out, or make the breastmilk a baby is getting less amazing for them

Any breast milk is an advantage, but as Queen has explained wonderfully above, adding in formula adds in the risks involved with artificial feeding.

As for how it prevents the benefits, formula cancels out the "virgin gut", so does reduce the protection that exclusive breastfeeding has.

But breast milk is an amazing substance, so any absorption of it is a good thing!

Aha, thank you! That clears it up a little for me. They really should explain that more in the magazine though.

Queen is v right.
However what bounty may be getting at is that supplementing can affect mil supply as the baby feeding is what tells your body to make the milk. Lots of people mix feed with no problems but lots struggle to keep bf when mixed feeding.

You'll never find any "proper" research into this because the government is very much behind the breast is best approach (which I don't disagree with). However, I didn't want to exclusively BF so I always intended to combine and it worked very well for me and DD, but I think it depends on the baby, not all of them will happily switch between then two. So you do run the risk of one or the other being rejected and your milk supply probably won't be as plentiful as if you do exclusively BF - only a problem really if you do want to drop the formula. But I've been told with some persistence you could increase your supply by gradually reducing formula if that makes sense.
If combining is something you wanted try I found introducing a bottle early worked well (recommended in hospital as DD was clearly starving and I was only producing a few drops) and from there we fell into a routine of BF throughout the day and formula on a night. Great for me as DH could be involved too.
But this won't suit everyone or all babies. My DD does seem to have gained some of the benefits I would have hoped for from BF, she's now 3 and never had antibiotics, no infections other than occasional cold, no allergies / asthma / eczema (of course that might have nothing at all to do with BF and just be the way she is).

as I understand it, the gut flora changes when anything other than breastmilk is introduced so mix feeding reduces the protective element that BM has on the baby's gut. It can alter the gut flora with just one artificial milk feed and can take weeks to return to its virgin state even if you then only continue to give BM.

I mix feed with no problem now (after 10 weeks of struggling!), LO gets a bottle of formula every couple of days, and the rest of the time I BF. It doesn't seem to have any effect on LO, other than after he's been given a full feed of formula he tends to be more windy.

There's bags of 'proper' research into the effects of partial breastfeeding - and the government does not decide what gets research and what doesn't, so no need for conspiracy theories, endof.

I've posted about this before - I came up with a ton of studies that contrast the health outcomes of full, partial and no breastfeeding, done in the UK and elsewhere.

The results are predictable, BTW.

I'm sure it does have a small effect, it's up to you whether or not you think it's worth it. I prefer mixed feeding because of the freedom it gives me to be away from the baby (and I hate expressing)

I do think it's worth it - no way I could do my driving lessons otherwise. I don't mind expressing, but I don't get much from expressing, so it would probably take more than a week to make enough for a full feed!

It just confused me because I know that bottle-feeding can affect your supply, but wasn't aware that formula may actually stop some of the health benefits of breastmilk.

I think it is fine but it mixed feeding covers a wide range, from 50/50 to just one or two formula feeds a week. I am in the one or two a week category and it doesn't harm my supply and allows me not to go insane through lack of sleep. I imagine if I did several FFs a day, my supply would be affected though and I guess you'd reach a point where you think you may as well FF all the time.