Read this shocking article about the damaging effects of formula and the immoral practices of the companies who peddle this junk.

[moondog]

From The Ecologist magazine.

Here.....

Grim reading.

well said Harpsi.

I can't help thinking that you are reading an entirely different site to me if you think that anyone here desribes themselves as the "perfect parent."
we are all sharing our experiences and our feelings. there are many people on here who feel very strongly about many things, and can provide lots of support and advice and information to others and spend lots of time and energy doing so.
for their trouble, they get castigated for being militant, thinking they are perfect, making other people feel guilty and being smug.
but I cannot for the life of me think of one person who doesn't admit to failings in their parenting. Not a single one.
we are all human, thank god.
I think it is pretty unpleasant when people's motives are questioned in this way and unpleasant, judgmental labels get thrown about.
(I leave moondog out of that description, by tthe way. she certainly a militant, and a bloody conspicuously absent one as it goes....)

great post soapbox

VERY interesting to see Moondog has not been back to this thread.

harpsi's even

A couple of points:

"the baby clinic is not able to refer a mother to an outreach brestfeeding counsellor". This is partly because there are no funded breastfeeding consellors, but mostly because the HVs don't seem to think special breastfeeding counsellors are necessary. They think they know enough about breastfeeding, from what I know. Certainly our local BF drop-ins keep trying to get along with the local health visitors, and failing to get them to send people along.

And a thread saying "women who have CSes are just lazy" would just make me laugh. But there are loads of threads talking about the negative effects of CSes on babies, and loads more happily sharing their lovely natural births. And both these kinds of threads should exist, I just won't read them (or go on them to get annoyed at them).

(I do think this thread title is inflammatory and potentially upsetting.)

am stunned to see that this thread has continued, and am more stunned and frustrated to see that the lovely Frannyandzooey still can't understand why the thread title would upset people who, like me, were faced with a choice between starving our children or 'damaging' her with 'junk'.

Truly, F&Z, i don't think we have an argument about avoiding threads to which we have a particular sensitivity... i avoid things all the time.

but the language of the thread title did not allow for people to avoid it, did it? TOO LATE! I already know that i am damaging my beautiful daughter. DID NOT want to know that. At least not right now, perhaps later, when i feel stronger.

that does not mean that i do not wish other people to read what sounds like a fascinating and contentious article, so under no circumstances am i (or indeed anyone else that i have seen) arguing that Moondog should not have drawn people's attention to it.

i don't know what your issues are, but i would be horrified if i ever posted anything that hurt you or made a knot of fear in your stomach when a more sensitive thread title might have allowed you to avoid it. Do you see what i mean?

i am SO not looking for any sort of argument, Franny, we've spoken before about stuff and you seem really nice. i just really can't understand why you don't see that asking to be treated with some kindness/respect/consideration is NOT the same as calling for a ban on all FF/BF information and discussion.

this might make you smile, but i am looking down at my beautiful daughter right now... chewing on a bulldog clip with the contents of her treasure basket strewn around her.

So as i see her smiley wee face, the thought that my inability to BF has harmed her in any way - far less made her more likely to die of cancer, athsma, cot death etc as someone else kindly excerpted from the article - makes me want to throw up.

i am supposed to do my best for my child, that's what parents are for. and at least i know i did BF for a while, albeit mix feeding. (i loved BFing, by the way, cried loads and loads when my supply dwindled away thanks to the mix-fed baby becoming less and less tolerant of the work involved in sucking).

But if my best isn't good enough for moondog and the ecologist then that is an interesting point for general discussion, but it is a discussion that i would have avoided reading about had i been allowed the choice.

Do you see now, Franny? honestly, i really want you to understand where i am coming from...

aitch71, am in a hurry but just wanted to say your post could have been written by myself three yrs ago. I too was heartbroken and eaten up with guilt for failing to bf. I'm not any more for loads of reasons. If you'd like to chat please feel free to CAT me.

Walking along a road drastically increases your chance of being hit by a car, but presumably those who criticise ffeeders don't do that either.

"the thought that my inability to BF has harmed her in any way - far less made her more likely to die of cancer, athsma, cot death etc..."

aitch71 are you saying that you have the right to be protected from this thought? (Not that I think you have harmed her btw.)

Because I don't think we do have the right to be protected from unpleasant thoughts. I ff my dd mostly and I now know that far from being "near as dammit" to bm, formula was extremely inferior. So far it doesn't seem to have made any difference, but I don't think I've got the right to be protected from information which may show me that one of my parenting choices was a duff one. (As I'm sure many others may be as well.) Any more than our parent's generation has the right to be protected from the information that constant hard smacking may have harmed their children or their parent's generation has the right to be protected from the info that feeding your child laxitives every Saturday was not only unnecessary, but probably harmful (as happened to my mother and siblings, for example).

I agree that the thread title is not sensitive, but I don't really think any of us has the right to have people actively avoiding giving us info. (Having said that I wouldn't have used the thread title wording.)

BTW, nobody here is criticising formula feeders, nearlythree. I haven't seen one mad denunciation of formula feeding mothers, unusually for one of these threads.

btw aitch, just wanted to say please don't beat yourself up about not breastfeeding, or concentrate on the statistics. Just because something is statistically true, doesn't mean it's true on an individual level and feeding is only one tiny part of parenting. I know it's easy to say when you're removed from it (my dd is 4 and a half now and it all seems so long ago but at the time it was agony) but please don't let yourself be upset by insensitive language on a website. I realise that my last post may sound a bit cold and detached, but I do appreciate that it's awful to feel like shit about this.

hi caligula,
Honestly, as i think i have said from the outset, the only problem i have with this whole business is the title of the thread. That's it.

I fully endorse moondog's right to post about unpalatable facts or even ugly rumours about various issues, but i would ask that in future she phrase her title posts in such a way that it allows people for whom formula, however ugly and unpalatable , is the only food stuff available for their children, so that they can avoid reading it if they know they aren't strong enough to do so. it's just courtesy, it seems to me.

judging by what you say about the title of the thread i really don't think we have a disagreement at all. perhaps in a few years my understanding will have evolved to the point when i can read that i am 'damaging' my child with 'junk' without wincing. but not yet. and i don't appear to be alone, which isn't surprising given that this is a website where more experienced mothers share their wisdom with first-timers like myself.

caligula, cross posted, thanks for the 2nd one. didn't think the first was cold. and the funny thing is, i wasn't feeling guilty about not bfing any more, just gutted and sad. because i really loved doing it and would've wanted to for as long as possible. (well, i did do it for as long as possible iykwim?)

but the thought that i am wilfully damaging her with heavy metals and poor ingredients every time i see her look trustingly up at me over the top of her bottle? yeah, that makes me feel like shit.
i do my best, i give her loads of lovely organic food, she eats really well and is really happy... but i am nevertheless damaging her. sorry to come across as a one-trick pony, but that really does hurt...

so, once again, i return to the fact that i could have avoided this upset had Moondog phrased her title differently. i would never have read any research which would have undermined the safety of FF, because that would be pointless given that i am locked into FF now. for this and any other children i might have, because mine is a physiological issue to do with poor lactation.

maybe in ten years' time i will feel as passionate as Moondog does about poor quality FF, but i hope that i won't forget how shit it is to be in the middle of it all and will show some consideration for those who might still be.

not that it would have made any difference in the grand scheme, if the facts are facts then they can't be argued. but i for one could have lived without knowing that every time i feed my daughter for the next, what, year?, i will be damaging her.

aitch, from your posts, I would say that you're already there. You're just as passionate as anybody on MN or in RL about the need for FF to be as excellent quality as possible. And somehow, I don't think you'll ever be anything other than considerate about it...

aitch- we think ds1 was damaged by heavy metals and I sometimes wonder how much got into him via my breast milk. Don't beat yourself up. The heavy metal problem is far more widespread than formula milk (in fact I think ds1 got a big dose from the ever so healthy food home cooking I was feeding him after weaning). A samll minority of children are at high risk from small amounts of heavy metals, the majority are not, so even if it is in formula your child would have to be particularly susceptible. There are lots of nasties unfortunately stored in breat milk as well in the toxic chemical scheme of things- a result of the environmental damage in this world.

Like everything in life, its not all black and white. Which is why any sense of guilt is pointless.

The thing is that none of us can be perfect mothers. Every choice that we make has the potential to be a 'mistake'. Every book that we read to our kids means that some other book is left unread. Every food choice has the potential to be good, or it could triger an allergy.

The school we pick could be excellent , or could be full of poor teaching and bullies.

The medicies that we give out children can be life savers or can give awful side effects, while leaving a child untreated has its own risks.

Whic is the 'right' toy? Which are the 'right' friends? The 'right' clothes? Single child or more than one, which is 'best'? Best or bottle, Disposable or reuasble?

Our choices are endless, and every one is potentialy fraught with mistakes.

Ultimatly we can only do the best job we can. Second guessing ourselves and beating ourselves up isn't going to help us or our children

Fantastic post soapbox - I was thinking similar thoughts with respect to being a 'good enough' mum after reading the fruit shoots and 'my children bore me' threads.

I can't stand the lambasting of other parents' choices (yes, choices) that's going on here - after all there are many far worse things that you could do as a parent than hand over a fruit shoot/ bottle of formula.

It strikes me that if you have enough time to consciously fret over other peoples' parenting choices, you simply don't have enough to worry about. Yes this is a discussion forum, but I come here to share experiences, not to be told that my parenting choices are cr*p. MN will be a poorer place if Blu goes, she's one of the rare few who can get her point across in an intelligent way without resorting to points scoring.

Oh and Fio - I couldn't agree more

And sometimes we even make a choice that we know isn't the ideal one, because other bits of our lives also put pressure on us.

Aitch, I'm here, but I'm tired and I don't think I can give your post the consideration it deserves right now. I wanted you to know I have read it and will post later. I did also agree the title was inflammatory, way back when in the olden days when this thread started; I have been trying to respond to, and worrying about posts, that seem to say we shouldn't be negative about bottlefeeding, which means we can't have a discussion, or share information, about the drawbacks of bottle feeding.

I do feel regret if anything I have said has added to anyone's guilt or sadness about how they fed their baby, but I will still go on posting about the benefits of breastfeeding and the drawbacks of bottlefeeding, when I feel I have something to add to a discussion.

I make those sorts of choices all the time MI

did you Franny? i must've missed it. oh well, in that case don't worry about it. i thought that you were saying the title was fine... which as you can see totally mystified me.

MI, I thought that was the MN position!

Exactly so MotherInferior! (will duck with you)