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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

breast feeding and smoking!

80 replies

Evita · 12/04/2004 13:36

Dp's friend and his wife have just had a little boy who's now 4 weeks old. I don't know them very well and don't want to preach or anything like that. But the thing is, the wife smokes about 10 cigarettes a day and is breastfeeding. I've been trying to find out some information about what the risks are about it so that in some way I could perhaps hint to them that it's not a good idea but I can't find anything conclusive. There's loads on drinking alcohol but nothing on smoking. She says that the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh the risks of her smoking but I'm not so sure. Does anyone know anything about this subject?

OP posts:

Northerner · 14/04/2004 14:40

Well said SP. Here Here.

madgirl · 14/04/2004 14:45

thanks for that sp. think i need eloquence lessons from you. i was sitting here following the thread hovering madly, and now you have put into words what i wanted to say.

gemilou · 14/04/2004 14:47

I think everyone got the wrong end of my stick and wound a few people up

tamum · 14/04/2004 14:49

Very well-argued post, SenoraP, and a model of not-getting-wound-up-and-attacking-people

madgirl · 14/04/2004 14:49

yes i think you're right gemilou. a few threads have gone that route lately. such a fine line between a discussion form and people beginning to get really annoyed or upset with others' opinions, or it turning into a moral high ground.

gemilou · 14/04/2004 14:52

I wasn't trying to take the moral high ground, it is just my opinion and experiances.
Im new to mumsnet and I don't want to upset everyone in my first week

Northerner · 14/04/2004 14:54

gemilou - don't worry about it, and welcome to MN!

tiktok · 14/04/2004 14:54

Oh dear. I didn't call formula terrible. I answered a question that raised the issue of whether bottle feeding was 'inflicting more harm on a baby' than smoking. I looked at the literature, which of course uses statistics and isolates factors (that's how research works) to make judgements.

The academic paper I linked to of course only looked at some aspects (which I acknowledged). You won't find many papers that manage to look at every aspect of health impacted by formula, breast, smoking, environment, social class, education, sleeping place etc etc etc etc.

I don't have any views on whether mothers 'should' or 'should not' smoke or breastfeed or formula feed. I do think they should have access to information and then make up their own minds.

I never called formula poisonous either. I never said you 'can smoke around a baby'. The evidence is that this is not beneficial to the baby's health. The evidence is also that formula feeding is not beneficial to health (compared with breast - clearly the baby has to eat/drink something, and formula is gonna be better than coca cola!!).

I agree with senora - parenthood is finding a balance tajing into account acceptable risks and what is doable in the real world.

We will all have different views on this. I know many people who do not put their babies and children into a safe car seat - I saw a mother the other day travelling in the front of her car with the baby on her lap, which is actually illegal and has been for some time. I have no reason to think parents who do this are any less loving and caring than I am. Other people would never do this, but maybe 'take risks' with other aspects of their kids' health - I dunno....maybe they don't get them to brush their teeth often enough!

Knowing the facts - as far as we can - about health risks of smoking and feeding helps us all make a judgement that suits us.

gemilou · 14/04/2004 14:56

Ill try not to and thankyou fellow northerner

gemilou · 14/04/2004 14:58

Hi tictok,
do you think we have been misunderstood

madgirl · 14/04/2004 15:05

no no no! i wasn't saying you were gemilou - quite the opposite. oh gawd, yet again i realise why i hover around these threads and don't post, it just comes out all wrong.

gemilou · 14/04/2004 15:08

I wasnt upset with you madgirl, I was just trying to explain myself. There is no need for you to be sorry. Not very well it seems

SenoraPostrophe · 14/04/2004 15:09

Thanks everyone! Feeling v bigheaded now.

gemilou - I didn't realise you were new: don't worry, it's so easy to be taken the wrong way when arguing via text only. I know, I've had this argument on here before (and Tiktok contributed too! ) and was jumped on by people who thought I breastfed and smoked at the same time.

gemilou · 14/04/2004 15:11

it is really easy to be taken the wrong way when you cant see faces or hear voices ( I shall have learn the language quickly>> he he )

kiwisbird · 14/04/2004 15:11

I never took it to mean that smoking round a baby and b/f was ok... I only supported the notion (I mean I heard information that led me to support) that b/f was better for baby is mum smoked, not if she smoked around her baby, I think if I recall that I specified this in my posts.
I had asthma and my mum smoked all through preg with me and all her life, still does now.
I used to smoke but gave up when found I was preg with DS now aged 10.
Everyone knows smoking is bad, people find it hard to quit, much better to help people to quit than to make them feel really bad about it.
Although the couple that I described really were not that clued up abut smoking, depsite having other kids with glue ear, directly linked by their surgeon to their smoking.
Emotive, if you smoke you are passionate about your right to do so.... If not a smoker you are passioante about your clean air
We all shoud be passionate about our kids health too...

gemilou · 14/04/2004 15:14

Well said Kiwisbird

Original poster

Evita · 14/04/2004 15:35

Blimey, this blew up a bit while I was out of the way!

Can I just say once and for all, even though I've already said it earlier in the thread, that I would NEVER criticise a mother for her choices. I am a mom too and now how criticism gets to me. I like a glass of red wine or two and have been got at for that as well as countless other things. I started this thread really simply to find out if anyone knew if it was directly harmful to smoke while breastfeeding, i.e. if the nicotine / tar get into the blood stream and the blood stream fuels the milk glands etc. etc. And then, only as a secondary thing, I wondered if it did turn out to be dangerous, should I say something to the mother. I probably wouldn't have anyway as I don't know her well enough.

I used to smoke, but gave up a while before I got pregnant when I had a bad chest infection which made it easier. Before that I found it incredibly hard to quit. So I would never preach. I breastfed for a long time, then mixed fed, which is what lots of b/feeding women do so we can't all think that formula is poison!

OP posts:

tiktok · 14/04/2004 15:53

I was mainly responding to oliveoil who said 'oh please, so you can smoke round a baby but put away that poisonous formula?' and two or three mentions of people being made to feel 'terrible' mothers.

Original poster

Evita · 14/04/2004 21:06

I realise that tiktok, I was just surprised how this thread took on a life of its own!

OP posts:

Levanna · 14/04/2004 23:30

Hi Evita, though I gave up smoking while pregnant with my DD, I started again within weeks of her birth, and I breastfed. I read up on what literature I could find (very little!) and it seemed that to limit transfer of toxins, it was better not to smoke immediately (within the hour)before a feed. I didn't come across the iodine research at the time, so that's made interesting reading for this time round. It seemed that breastfeeding by a smoking mother was still preferable to bottle feeding. No harm at all to bring this up, there's not a great deal of info available. If I had been doing something that was considered 'dangerous' (IYSWIM), to my baby, I would have been grateful to have been made aware. (ie. For some reason I may not have had access to the information I did find, or not known where to have looked.)

tatcity · 14/04/2004 23:48

So formula milk is not beneficial to health? That's a new one. Is nourishment not beneficial to their health then?

Sorry DD1 and DD2 both fed on formula from 4 weeks ish, both very healthy (so far so good), very happy, good sleepers, respond well to routines, generally thriving apart from the usual hiccups.

Christ, I must really be a terrible mum, bottle feeding from 1 month and now I'm back on the fags.

How can any report say that formula feeding is not beneficial to health. Obviously compared to breast feeding it is not AS beneficial to health, but is still beneficial.

Can't believe some of the comments put on here.

Interesting discussion though.

And brilliant post SP!!

carla · 15/04/2004 00:23

Just found this one. I do smoke,and remember with dd1 having a 'cloak' made of about 6 gowns, (all piled on top of one anothr) , taking it off and feeding her each time I took her for a feed. Useless, I know, but it made me feel better at the time

tiktok · 15/04/2004 08:51

Tatcity - read my post. I said formula was not beneficial to health compared with breastmilk, which is what you said.

Obviously, the baby has to be fed and has to grow and formula meets these nutritional needs.

But there are no positive benefits to the baby's health of giving formula rather than breastmilk and in fact not getting breastmilk brings a range of health risks to mother and baby.

That doesn't make you or anyone else a terrible mother. In fact, this isn't really an individual, personal issue - I think mothers should have the facts and then make up their own minds what to do. The obligation to increase the breastfeeding rates in the UK is a public health one, to make it possible for more mothers to feed comfortably and effectively.

tatcity · 15/04/2004 10:56

Tiktok - I wasn't questioning your comments - didn't mean it to sound that way - it was the quote from the "paper" I was referring to.

I'm still not sure I agree totally with this view. Obviously even a week's worth of breast milk is better than none. In some cases, mothers really struggle with breastfeeding, and they have to take a decision to move onto formula. Continuing to breastfeed under pressure, and becoming as stressed out by it as I know some people do is not good for mother or baby, as they say relaxed mummy equals relaxed baby.

gemilou · 15/04/2004 11:02

god is this thread still going, Im not getting involved today

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