I hardly dare to post this... but it said in the paper today that breastfed babies...

[emkana]

are more likely to grow into happy adults.

It made me feel happy because I have a very poorly ds who has lots of health problems and I thought to myself "At least he is breastfeeding and I so hope it will help him in some way as he grows up."

And that's the spirit that this is intended in, so please don't jump on me!

yes hub those little words always get lost.

Nine out ten surveys/studies will include quite a few may and could s

Shiny: it's cos mum breastfed me.

hub

PMSL at the thought of the police interrogating suspects as to whether they were breast or bottlefed

i'd have thought it would make sense, really, and in a way i don't think it affects people who post on mn, iykwim?

we are all of us very interested in being the very best parents we can be, hence the fact that we post here looking for advice and tips rather than just not bothering and letting things take their course.

we see people on here asking how they can relate better to their children, how they can avoid losing their temper, how they can best nourish their children and which are the healthiest and tastiest recipes. we are all trying our backsides off.

But...i have a suspicion that of a general sample the people who managed to persevere with BFing will be those who are most committed to the welfare of their children. i hope i have expressed that very carefully indeed.

Because as a formula feeder i know that i am committed to the welfare of my child, and no amount of surveys or research will sway me in that belief.

(But, as a formula feeder i would have to say that there are some of my ffing sisterhood who maybe don't bother quite so much, or haven't been brought up to bother so much, or have been educated to bother so much, or have been fortunate enough to be in a position to bother so much. I am really, really, really trying to express myself carefully here... have been hurt plenty by bf/ff threads in the past and would hate to inflict similar on anyone here)

i see that the researchers say that even if we adjust the weighting for class, wealth, education etc there is still some benefit and do you know what? i can live with that, really i can. BFing is better for our babies, if we can do it, and those of us who struggled to do it and didn't manage, or those of us who opted not to do it just have to wear that fact.

whether the research was thorough enough, or the headline on the story accurately reflected the results, or whether the sample group was large enough or the study conducted over a long enough scale of time is pretty immaterial, really.

mental illness is a complicated thing, affected by countless variables. So this may be one of those variables... so what? there are other things we ffers can do in the meantime, such as being good parents and trying our arses off to take care of the variables that we can have some effect over. and as it happens, i truly believe that everyone on MN falls into that category of parents, ff and bfers alike.

There's always a delay of a week or two before research gets onto Pubmed, hub2dee, but that doesn't devalue the research. It has to have been peer-reveiwed and accepted for publication, or someone of Oddy's stature would not be doing press releases.

From the Surgeon General's report:

"Prevalence
Major Depression

Population studies show that at any one time between 10 and 15 percent of the child and adolescent population has some symptoms of depression (Smucker et al., 1986). The prevalence of the full-fledged diagnosis of major depression among all children ages 9 to 17 has been estimated at 5 percent (Shaffer et al., 1996c). Estimates of 1-year prevalence in children range from 0.4 and 2.5 percent and in adolescents, considerably higher (in some studies, as high as 8.3 percent) (Anderson & McGee, 1994; Lewinsohn et al., 1994a; Garrison et al., 1997; Kessler & Walters, 1998). For purposes of comparison, 1-year prevalence in adults is about 5.3 percent (Murphy et al., 1988; Rorsman et al., 1990; Regier et al., 1993)."

I would have said it would be pretty likely that there would have been a fair few cases amongst 2500 then.

Aitch that's a very well expressed post.

The problem that I have with research like this is that you can't trust how it was done. In order to have a true result you would need to make sure that all of the children had the same life experiences (ie keep them in a vacuum) Family life, education, etc would all play a role in mental stability. The only way to get a true result would be to have half with formula, half with breastmilk, ensure they all have the same life experiences which is nearly impossible.

I'm glad that research likes this makes people feel good, but I don't think that moms need articles to validate or invalidate their choices.

Ok, i have checked on ds and made a cup of tea while i thought how to put this (dont want to get jumped on)

There are always going to be health benefits to bfing and to a bf baby, it is the food that is meant for a baby. why cant we talk about these without someone saying that we are trying to give ffs a hard time.

Yes i bf, becouse it is best for my baby, a close friend is ff as she is unable to bf (medical problems), so that is best for her baby.

Interesting study - firm believer in bf and the positive effect on society.

Bf involves more than just feeding - cuddling, attachment, being with parent in contact for along time with non feeding sucking, co-sleeping plus bf is a comfort and always available.

Really think that if all mums bf then the world would be better because of all the extras that bf a child gives.

Of course many formula feeding mums give loads of care and attention but giving formula, imho, enables some mums to be detached from their baby. Wonder how many of the mums who have out of control, anti-social behaviour kids bf them?

Without seeing the research first-hand and exploring the methodology or the variables they attempt to isolate though I wouldn't give it particular credibility whatever it was arguing. Further, it appears to identify the correlation between bf and mental health and attributes this principally to the bf (hence the headline)... whilst such a correlation may well be relevant there are probably a pile of other variables more strongly associated with development of mental illness - both genetically determined and socially influenced IMHO and the study makes no attempt to elaborate on how they controlled for this variety of experience.

Re: the numbers... they claim to have observed impact as young as 2 on accepted evaluations of mental health. It would be interesting to get examples of expected percentages of children with mental health problems at this age. I imagine they're very small indeed. If we presume their study had different proportions of the population bf for 6 months, ff only, mixed feeding in each of the prior groups etc. etc. it is completely possible to end up with v. small numbers from which are derived supposedly significant claims.

It would be far more interesting to do a reverse study and take large samples of mentally ill and mentally healthy at 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 year olds and go back to the source of milk IYSWIM.

I think emkana deserves to feel good about this. She had a worrying pregnancy, her ds has ongoing health problems and regardless of whether this study is accurate or not, there is enough evidence to show that breast milk is better for babies and there is no doubt she's doing the best thing she could for her ds. This was so not an attack on anyone for ff.

hub2dee - I agree that it would be better to do a reverse study as then 'other' factors which could also influence mental health would be less likely to interfere with the results and there could be no bias towards choosing bf over ff.

"Bf involves more than just feeding - cuddling, attachment, being with parent in contact for along time with non feeding sucking, co-sleeping plus bf is a comfort and always available"

I did all that too, as a f/feeding mum. Just because you don't bf, it doesn't mean that you don't do all what you have stated above. That makes it sound like we shove abottle in their mouths and leave them to it, utter nonsense.

"Of course many formula feeding mums give loads of care and attention but giving formula, imho, enables some mums to be detached from their baby. Wonder how many of the mums who have out of control, anti-social behaviour kids bf them"

I can think of a few!

I ff, I am happy with my choice. It didn't allow me to be 'detached' from my baby AT ALL. My dd will not be "out of control" or show "anti-social behaviour" because I disipline her and am not bringing her up this way. The way a child turns out as an adult has far far more to do with whether they were breastfed or not.

In summery to the research and comments here, my caring, articulate, nerturing (sp?), intelligent, free sprited, beautiful, ff fed 3 yr old will be a anti social, out of control depressed and anxious 16 year old??? Laughable.

"In summery to the research and comments here, my caring, articulate, nerturing (sp?), intelligent, free sprited, beautiful, ff fed 3 yr old will be a anti social, out of control depressed and anxious 16 year old??? Laughable."

Nobody said that on here and the research doesn't say that either.

The research talks about likelihood, that's all. So your adorable 3 yr old has still every chance to be just as adorable at 16, 26 or even 46!

Sandcastles - you obviously do everything lovely for your kids -

Some mums don't - would be interested to know how many of these mums bf?

I often think that these research results are so flawed in so many ways. It struck me immediately that it most likely has NOTHING to do with what the baby drinks but the kind of parent that is feeding the baby.

Most mothers who chose to breastfeed, or want to be able to but can't ,do so with a certain attitude to parenting.

There are alot of mothers who find the idea of breastfeeding disgusting and chose not to do it beacuase of that reason not because they wanted to bf but couldn't.

It seems quite obvious to me that if a survey looks at bottle feeding mothers from those groups who hate the idea of suckling an infant it is more likely that they will be more detached in other areas of parenting as well.

So those mothers who want to feed but can't or do bf have a different attitude to parenting, dare I say more loving one and therefore would have happier childen.
Sorry if that makes no sense. I hope you get the gist.
But i don't think it has anything to do with breast milk or formula milk per se.

gonfleur...the argument you put forward can be flipped around...

what about mothers who b.f.,and it becomes difficult, they might resent the baby being attached to them all the time...thye might get angry with the baby for needing them all the time...and blame the baby for crakced nipples, pain, mastitis...etc........

might they not grow up anti socially?

there is so much more to parenting and raising healthy, well adjusted children who are a credit to themselves and their parents....

gonfleur...the argument you put forward can be flipped around...

what about mothers who b.f.,and it becomes difficult, they might resent the baby being attached to them all the time...thye might get angry with the baby for needing them all the time...and blame the baby for crakced nipples, pain, mastitis...etc........

might they not grow up anti socially?

there is so much more to parenting and raising healthy, well adjusted children who are a credit to themselves and their parents....than how they are fed ...

emkana, I don't know much about your ds, or his situation, but I think we all have a right to feel good about how we feed our children. If this helps you then great, I wish you all the luck in the world. I understand why you posted, we all need to find the good in what we do, and to have some body re-inforce that is fantastic, but why do people then have to go the other way and attack the opposite?

I object to gonfleur's post, at 10.08. I read it as saying that as I ff my dd, she will be out of control, anti social, detatched from me with no cuddles, or neurturing.

If it didn't say that, then I read a different post.

Hey Em I'm glad you saw this study and I'm glad it made you feel positive.

Hub etc. I'm sure you are aware of the limitations of reterospective studies... may be helpful as another piece of information but wouldn't be definitive.

retrospective, even.

(embaka glad what your read made you feel good )

While I can see why that post might upset you on second reading I still don't think it stated categorically "formula fed babies will be antisocial etc." - again it was about likelihood.

But I don't want to say anymore because as I said further down I didn't want to enter into a discussion.

I hope you still feel good, emkana!