Breastfeeding difficulties

[Eulalia]

Cam - I meant the bit, and I quote "your breast milk will have changed so that it is only a drink, not a food". I was saying that it is more than just a drink and is indeed a food and a lot more besides. Maybe you didn't mean it to come out like that.

Lil, Croppy, my feelings exactly. With more balanced information around on mixed breast/bottle feeding, and how to make it workable, doesn't the whole issue of extended breast feeding become less daunting?

Absolutely Tigermoth. I think we all know the risks to your supply etc etc by introducing mixed feeding but I think there needs to be some recognition that for many women, it is the only way they can manage breastfeeding. I remember consulting the La Leche website after my baby had his first bottle and being reduced to tears by their warnings about how the damage that would be done (in nutritional and inmmunisation terms) by even a small amount of formula. Basically, the message was that you were severly reducing the benefits of breastfeeding and formula should be avoided full stop.

Croppy i'm glad I hadn't heard about La Leche when i was Bfeeding! My GP suggested my baby have a bottle in the eveing at 6 weeks, which had no effect on my own supply. This was to ensure that
a)my hubby could get involved
b)i could get some much needed sleep
c)baby would sleep longer in the night with the heavier milk.

Everyone was happy, except for La Leche I guess!

Lil - Formula milk has certainly gone through rigourous testing over the years. In the past it has had various things missed out and too much of other things added causing illness but more recently it doesn't appear to cause any specific illness. Certainly the fact that it is heavier (casein protein which turns to curds) means that it is less digestible, and some mothers may overfeed their babies and they mix the feed too strong etc etc. Also bottles may cause more wind because of air being trapped in the bottle. Formula in itself is of course not poison and it is not going to harm your baby feeding it or doing a mixture of both.

However to say which is better ... well you cannot really compare the two because you are not comparing the same thing. Formula milk cannot exactly replicate breastmilk because the latter is specifically designed for humans and the latter for cow's. Therefore breastmilk will always be 'better' than formula. This is not to say that humans cannot thrive adequately on formula.

See the following:Infant Formula:
Second Best but Good Enough
www.fda.gov/fdac/features/596_baby.html

"While greater knowledge about human milk has helped scientists improve infant formula, it has become "increasingly apparent that infant formula can never duplicate human milk," write John D. Benson, Ph.D, and Mark L. Masor, Ph.D., in the March 1994 issue of Endocrine Regulations. "Human milk contains living cells, hormones, active enzymes, immunoglobulins and compounds with unique structures that cannot be replicated in infant formula."

The main differences are that cow's milk contains larger amounts of protein designed for the need of calves to grow rapidily. Human milk has higher levels of lactose and specific long-chain fatty acids which are important to the development of the brain specifically DHA and AA which are important in the process of myelination (b/fed babies do better on IQ tests).

Also human milk contains live cells which protect baby from disease and enzymes and hormones that support physiological development.

Recent studies have shown that human milk helps to reduce cholesterol and heart disease (this was posted on the Mumsnet board a few weeks ago). Breastfed babies are less likely to develop diabetes.

Breastmilk is lighter and more quickly absorbed (human milk has whey protein) hence why baby wakes more quickly but this does mean it is better digested and therefore less stomach problems. Milk sugar (lactose) promotes the growth of Lactobacillus bifidus in the infant gut which thwarts the growth of bacteria which can cause diarrhea. Human milk contains one and a half times more lactose than cow's milk. The increase in milk sugar in formulas is made up by sucrose.

Formula milk produces more waste so it does mean more bulky (and smelly!) nappies. Also if a child is ill and likely to be dehydrated on formula you have to give them a special mixture for rehydration. This is not usually necessary for breastmilk as the water content can vary as indeed any of the contents can over a feed or a day.

Human milk is specially designed for your baby alone whereas formula is all the same. If you and baby are ill your milk will produce antibodies which will mean you will recover quicker. Breastfed babies have much fewer ear infections...

You've probably seen all this stuff on posters anyway but as you asked.

So you can see it is not just a case of nutrition but of how the milk itself is digested and excreted and of the many features of the milk itself. Milk for a child has to feed the body and brain and other foods cannot replicate this. then there is the immunological properties which I have mentioned. No matter how healthy our society is we still have lots of minor illnesses to deal with. Some workplaces would argue that we all take too much time off sick! Breastfed children tend to be healthier with less sickness, diahorrea, and ear infections.

Yes indeed many of us have been bottle fed and are perfectly healthy. However it depends on how you look at it - there are plenty of people around with heart disease for example. As already stated there are links to formula feeding and this condition.

Breastfed babies are rarely overweight (see www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/319/7224/1576 - this states that the longer the child is breastfed the less likely they are to be obese in later life.

Breastfeeding lowers your risk of breast cancer.

And so on - See 101 Reasons to Breastfeed your child for more info: promom.org/101/index.html

Thanks Tigger. I think I've found some inspiration. We've just booked a 6 day break in the South of France next week; I'm so fed up it had to be done!! Apparently it's 19 degrees there today, very appealing when I look out the window at the snow!! Good luck with the diet, I'll concentrate on mine when I get back..........

Bugsy if you are just saying that b/feeding a 2 year old 'isn't for you' then fair enough but it really annoys me if I (or anyone else) is told that they are doing something wrong, weird or antisocial by b/feeding an older baby. As I've stated below b/feeding a 2 year old at one time wouldn't have been strange. On 'natural' parameters (women's menstrual cycle, development of child and so on) it is perfectly normal to b/feed a 2 year old. Therefore the fact that it isn't seen as right is purely a socially constructed view. I mean the converse isn't viewed like this - babies/children do like to comfort suck but we don't think that a 2 year old sucking a dummy is antisocial. A dummy is an artificial device - since when did something artificial become more socially acceptable than something natural? We use cars instead of our legs but no-one thinks walking is strange and in fact we are told we don't do enough of it.

Also the fact that we don't NEED to b/feed a 2 year old is a spurious argument. As I've said food is food and b/milk is just that - it would be impossible to find another food that contains so many nutrients + it gives health protection too. Adults drink very expensive health drinks without anyone batting an eyelid. And of course we don't always do what we NEED to do with our children - do they need as many toys for example? No and in fact often they have too many. Do we as adults need to have sex 2 times a week. No but we do it because we enjoy it. Babies/children enjoy breastfeeding too. Furthermore let's not forget in our obsessively money driven, consumerist 'entertainment' society it COSTS NOTHING.

We are supposed to be an open and liberal society. We used to think that skirts above the ankle were disgusting and then it was the knee and then in the 1960s moved up to 'pussy pelmets' But showing your breasts is a no-no. We ridiculed and persecuted homosexual men and now it is positively fashionable to be gay. But being a heterosexual mother feeding her child? Another no-no. Doesn't this seem crazy?

I am not suggesting we all go out and grab a child to our bosoms and keep them there till they go to school. However if mothers want to to it then it certainly isn't going to do any harm quite the reverse.

Maybe Jack Dee will start off a trend here ... after all comedians can discuss sex, periods, homosexuality etc etc ...

Here endeth my lecture for today.

Twice a week?? In that case Eulalia, your advice is urgently required on the "bed time routine" board... Seriously though, I support you all the way. The almost universal reaction to women breastfeeding beyond around 12 months is disgust - I think that's very sad.

I don't think b/feeding after 12 months is disgusting at all, far from it, but me personally I'm afraid it's just 'not for me'. However, I wish I had more info about combining breast and bottle as I would have done this from the word go for my 2nd as she was very difficult to get onto the bottle.

I say do it for as long as you and baby feel comfortable with it. I wish you could b/feed in public more. I did it a couple of times, not a very good idea in a garden centre with old fogies about, but was forever looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was either watching or feeling uncomfortable with it. It shouldn't be like that.

Eulalia, Thanks - You made some really good points about the breast-feeding-in-public taboo. I've come up against it time and time again.

In this imperfect world, here's a tip a friend gave me for times you when have breast feed but have nowhere private to go: Take off your jacket, put it on back to front, and put your breast-feeding baby underneath. I tried this - didn't look as wierd as I imagined - fairly discreet. Not an ideal solution, but until we can change society, at least another possible way of breast-feeding in public.

Why don't you just breastfeed in public? I always did with my little boy! In shopping centres, on the ferry, in a park, where ever we were when he decided it was feed time! Maybe this is more taboo in UK than in Australia!? I have never received (or noticed, anyway) any nasty looks or comments....in fact the only coment I have ever received was when I was feeding my 7 month old baby a bottle (expressed breast milk, mind you!) in a shopping centre and an elderly lady came up to me a said, "you really should be breast feeding, dear, it is so much better for the baby!"

I have always breastfed my babies in public, and no one has ever said anything, or asked me to go into the loos or anything like that. (quite disappointing really, as I have several crushing answers up my sleeve for anyone who dared!!) I agree with Chelle - mums should just go ahead and do it. The sad thing is that I've never seen anybody else breastfeeding in public.
Oh, and when they were tiny, I also had a crossover sling, and used to walk up the road with baby in sling, hidden under my coat/scarf slurping away quietly - I even had my hands free!

Eulalia, I have done a bit of digging around for research into the psychological effects of extended breastfeeding, but can't come up with any serious stuff, pro or anti. The only thing I found was some ridiculously obcessive stuff supporting it - a physician who claimed to be able to tell the children coming into his surgery who had been breastfed longer than 12 months "by the sparkle in their eyes". I quibble at your gorilla analogy because of the psychological difference between gorillas and humans - eg gorillas don't wear clothes to cover their genitals either, are they right about that too? Also major differences in diet, external influences etc - you can't relate everything back to some mythical past age when humans did everything "naturally" unless you carry that through to cover ALL aspects of our lives, not just the ones you pick and choose (for example, if it is right that extended b/f causes thickened arteries if you eat a typical modern UK diet. IF.) And if nature wants us to carry on breastfeeding until our children's immune systems are mature at around 6 years old, why do so many children stop of their own accord around 1 year? I don't know the figures on this, but anecdotal evidence among people I know suggests that many babies do stop of their own accord around this time.
I won't start posting a lot about this subject again until/unless I find some new evidence - will keep looking, this issue just won't go away!

It seems to me that there are two broad definitions of breast feeding in public:

You either do it discreetly, eg finding a quiet spot in a park/ turning your back on people in a crowded restaurant/ inside a parked car. This isn't going to do much to do away with the b/f in public taboo, though

Or you do it openly, as and when your baby demands eg on a crowded bus/ in the reception area of a bank/ in a busy shop. This, of course, is more likely to get you noticed for better or worst.

I've done the former many times without a second thought, but have to feel extra-brave or have a desperately hungry baby to do the latter

When we talk about breast-feeding in public, are we all meaning the same thing?

I breastfed a lot in public and was chucked out of a pub once and encountered quite a few disappproving looks. Sml, surely Eulalia is just arguing that women should have the right to breastfeed toddlers without being thought of as "weird". I don't think she's justifying this decision based on what gorillas do, rather that the argument that extended breastfeeding isn't natural is spurious. The facts are that in countries like China (where clean water and food are not serious problems for the majority of the population), children are breastfed on average until they are 3. I agree with Eulalia that it is our attutitudes to extended breastfeeding rather than any problems inherent to it that are the problem.

Croppy, what I was saying is that while it may be physically natural for an animal who shares 98% of our genes to breastfeed for that long, that doesn't take into account the psychological impact of it on human beings in our society today, eg all the stuff our children get bombarded with. I'm just repeating what I said (or implied) before, but, as a generalisation, I personally wouldn't be happy breastfeeding a child who was old enough to be masturbating. Which they DO, especially little boys, from an early age! The fact is that breastfeeding IS a sensual experience, and as we get older, sensual experiences turn towards sex. this happens gradually, and maybe at an earlier age than we realise. And I don't think that saying that our attitudes towards extended breastfeeding should change addresses this problem adequately. Sorry for breaking another taboo in mentioning this.

One other point here, and I don't want to put the cat amongst the pigeons, I've been quiet for a few days, I've not been well with a really rotten cold, got from the worse half!. But, people disaprove of children who have a bottle in their hand when they are walking about, does this not amount to the same as extended breast feeding. Please don't get annoyed anyone by the commment as I am all for breast feeding as I have said before, just trying to put another point forward. Please don't shout at me anyone, as I still don't feel to grand!!

Billions of people the world over breastfeed toddlers with no ill effect. In China, India and parts of Africa it is the norm. As "sensual" simply means pertaining to the senses or physical sensation, what's wrong with that?. Personally, I think its rot to suggest a 2 year old boy tugging on his willy is masturbating likewise it would be rot to suggest that breastfeeding a toddler is somehow sexual.

...well we disagree on that one!
Incidentally, I once read a memoir which purported to be an account of the author's life playing cricket in various amateur clubs. The early part of it was an expose of what prep school boys really get up to from the age of 7 when they go to boarding school. Forget Jennings & co, boy, was it scary!!

Obviously the age of 7 and upwards is very different from 2 - 4 and in any case the fact is that at prep schools, such behaviour tends to be initiated by the older, pubescent boys.

So I take it if you think a 2 year old is capable of masturbating that you wouldn't have a bath with your 2 year old son or let him see you naked?

Croppy, I'd have to consult Dr Spock about what age he thinks children start masturbating. But what do you think 2 year old boys are pulling at their willy for if it's not sexual gratification??

Anyway, I thought this whole extended breastfeeding idea is supposed to apply to children up to 6 years. In my web researches, I found a factual study in which the author said that the oldest breastfeeding child she found was 9 years old.

This discussion was kicked off with Jack Dee's comment that breastfeeding a 2 year old was "weird" and subsequently a couple of other people commented that they thought 2 year olds being breastfed was antisocial and so on. I imagine that my 19 month old tugs his willy cos he thinks its an amusing thing to do which I guess is why he laughs manically when he does it. Similar as to why he constantly pulls my ears, pokes fingers in my eye and so on I guess.

Sorry, I was looking at Eulalia's gorilla posting. Did Jack Dee say that on Celebrity Big Brother? What did the other housemates say?

You only have to watch small boys to realise that playing with their willies is different from other sorts of playing like poking their fingers in your eyes!

Yes - he said it on Big Brother and the rest basically agreed which I guess is only to be expected. I can honestly say that our boy's tugging of his willy looks no different to any other playful antics. Certainly no sign of any physical pleasure as such - he clearly thinks it is a rather funny appendage.

What a pity no one challenged it - we might have had an interesting discussion about breastfeeding, if it wasn't censored of course. Celebrities, pah!