Breastfeeding is not best - Dr Karleen Gribble

[fabsmum]

Love this video

I hate the fact that when anybody expresses an opinion that goes against the grain she gets jumped on and told to 'check her facts' - the assumption being the person doesn't know what they are talking about.
First off let me say that of course breast feeding is the best thing for your infant - I think anybody with any intelligence acknowledges and accepts that.
However anybody with an agenda can link one thing to another if they try hard enough.
The FACT is - yes the FACT - that there is no conclusive proof that breast feeding prevents type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Just as there's no actual proof that breastfed babies are more intelligent or less likely to suffer obesity. They might. But it's not conclusive.
Read any study and you'll read words like 'possibly linked to' and 'tended towards' these reports get taken, twisted and then trotted out as fact when that isn't the case.
It may not be politically correct but middle class, affluent women are far more likely to breast feed. They are also more likely to feed their children well with plenty of fruit and veg, they will play with their children and give them stimulation and the child will probably thrive and go to university and be fit and healthy.
Working class parents or chav estate mums(yes, i said I wasn't being PC) will almost certainly bottle feed their kids. They will also feed them sugary junk, stick them in front of the telly, shout at them and not play with them.
The kids probably won't be encouraged as school, might smoke and drink will possibley be overweight and they'll drop out with no qualifications.
Now is this down to breastfeeding? Of course not, it's down to class and social economics.

Well, I hate the way some posters see something that's new to them and they simply say it is 'bollocks' without listening properly or reading the literature. If you are complaining about knee jerk reactions, Nancy, check out your own.

No one is saying that not breastfeeding is 'the' cause of diabetes; however, there are very plausible causal links. The epidemoliogical and physiological evidence is pretty clear - the risks are heightened in many studies. You will not find 'proof' of the sort you are looking for in any study because it would not be ethical to do a randomised study of it - allocating thousands of babies to not breastfeed, and thousands of babies to breastfeed irrespective of parental choice, and then following them for 50 years. But the studies that do exist are many and as I say, it is not controversial! It's been accepted for a long time the development of diabetes is linked to infant feeding.

In some studies the findings are weaker than others - this is in the nature of research.

Nancy - read the literature, please. Any decent study controls for the social and economic status of the subjects.

snallwhitecat, but your child is less likely to develop diabetes if you breastfeed him. What is wrong with saying this? It is not saying 'your child will definitely not develop diabetes if you breastfeed him'. It is fully justified by current research dating back some 20 years or so. More recently, large studies have been published which involve many thousands of subjects in different settings.

I find it frustrating to be saying this as if I am being controversial or speculative, and I am not!

Anyone who wants to see the mountain of evidence can do a PubMed search - I just have, using the search terms diabetes early infant feeding and there are some useful reviews of the literature and some big studies.

In addition, some research is showing that mothers' own risk of developing diabetes in later life is increased if she does not breastfeed.

Just to add, smallwhitecat, I don't think someone posting 'bollocks' on a talkboard is someone poking holes in the research, nor do I think a long post like Nancy's, blah-ing on about people on 'chav estates' feeding sugary junk is much of a counter-argument. First rule of research is to give topics a proper study, without the blanket and snobbish stereotyping.

For goodness sake - pointing out that working class people are more unhealthy and more inclined to health problems is nothing to do with snobbery and everything to do with common sense.

i'm middle class and bottle fed both my DCs

it is not to do with class and social economics, that is a sweeping generalisation, it is to do with education

plenty of middle class women do not breastfeed for a variety of reasons
middle class people also have health problems and are unhealthy - they can afford to drink more, smoke more, drive everywhere, have convenience / ready meals and have big plasma screen TVs to stick their DCs in front of whilst the nanny heats up chicken nuggets

generalisations, you see.. easy thing to make

smallwhitecat, the thing about medical research is not all studies are the same. Some are better designed than others. Or bigger (although whether they are useful depends on design, again).

You can easily have a situation where the weight of evidence backs a proposition but some studies will show different. Took an awful long time for researchers to prove that stomach ulcers were caused by a bug (h. pylori) and not, as 'common sense' would suggest, by diet. The bug proposition was correct, but you could still dig up studies from the time when this was disputed that would apparently show an association between diet and ulcers.

Nancy- how dare you?
I am working class and breastfed both my children until they were 18 months old.
Working class and chav are not the same thing fyi and plenty of us do have fantastic parenting skills, healthy, intelligent and active children and some of us are quite well educated too.
And actually many groups of people don't breastfeed- including, for example, mothers of Bangladeshi orgin but I guess that's too PC for you to attack.
Actually, I am bringing my children up to be good, honest, non- judgemental people so that they can have the sense to stay away from prats like you

I watched that link but I'm confused about her message. She says breastfeeding isn't best and then trots out the horrors of formula feeding.

She's unimpressive.

People really need to read posts properly and calmly and try and get a sense of the other person's argument.
I did not say that working class and chav are the same thing. I also accept that middle class people can bottle feed and can also be unhealthy.
And yes, of course, working class people can breast feed and be healthy.
I haven't attacked anybody - and you're the only one that has resorted to name calling.
I didn't know that Bangladeshi women don't breastfeed - however I did know that poor African American women tend not to - something Dr Gribble seemed unaware of.
However - whether it sits comfortably with you or not - ask any doctor who is more likely to smoke, who is more likely to be obese, who is more likely to be an alcoholic and they will tell you that it's people from poorer backgrounds.

I don't really think you should be stating your opinions on socio-economics when you are obviously don't know what you are talking about.
Do you not know anyone of working class stock?
Beacuse 'chavs' are people that hard working decent wc folk have very little in common with.

In fact, most people I know would class chavs as an underclass in this country bred of Thatchers underfunding of schools and destruction of communites in the 1980's.

I am so sick of people thinking it is okay to mock the white working class in this country. It is despicable.

Swedes - I think the point she was trying to make is that breastfeeding is best but we don't necessarily expect the best and will happily settle for 'the next best thing.'

I agree - her point is rather lost and she is an unconvincing speaker.

i think the video made an important point. 'Best' implies something above and beyond the everyday. 'Breastfeeding is Normal' would encourage more mothers to give it a go. I think. I mixed fed my daughter because of exhaustion and being on the brink of insanity after the birth. Not ideal, not what i would have chosen had my circumstances been different, but as a way of coping it worked well at the time. I hope to god i haven't increased my daughter's risk of any of the above diseases, but if i have i suppose that is something i will have to come to terms with and hopefully learn from when i have more children.

You did say that Nancy- don't back track now. This from your 09:40 post;
Working class parents or chav estate mums(yes, i said I wasn't being PC) will almost certainly bottle feed their kids. They will also feed them sugary junk, stick them in front of the telly, shout at them and not play with them.
The kids probably won't be encouraged as school, might smoke and drink will possibley be overweight and they'll drop out with no qualifications.
Now is this down to breastfeeding? Of course not, it's down to class and social economics.

Swedes - by saying breastfeeding is best, it implies that formula feeding is ok, just not as good as breastfeeding. Her message is to get across that breastfeeding is normal, thereby implying that formula feeding is not.

And for you information, there are many many mc parents who are not ideal role models and who smoke,drink or are overweight and are not very good parents to boot.
I could go into details about how and why the statistics exist on poorer people being unhealthy, but the tone of your posts suggest you are uninterested in little more than looking down on people.

I'm a working class mum and I bottle fed my son. He does watch TV, and I shout at him now and again. However, he will be encouraged at school (probably too much as I used to be a teacher). He might smoke when he's older (I hope not), he'll probably drink when he's older (most adults do) and maybe he'll be overweight.
None of it has anything to do with being bottle fed. Mind you, maybe the month of breast feeding that he had when he was first born will have saved his soul and he'll be fit, a non-smoker, teetotal and a genius.

yep - ok I accept that can be misread. What I meant to say was 'or rather' chav estate mums.
I know the difference between honest to goodness working class and chav, don't worry.
Given my job, my home and my income I would consider myself middle class now.
However I come from a very poor irish immigrant family. Six of us to a two bedroom flat - so I would never mock poor people and I still don't believe I did.

There was a recent thread on this wheresthehamster, stating that the breast is best message has been a mistake- and I do agree to a certain extent.
I believe it should be treated as the norm.

MISFIT- Jesus and I have ben trying to contact you re: the nutty neighbour thread- how are things?

When my son was born, it was the fact that breast feeding was free that made me really want to do it (we were, and are skint!), but when there were problems (combined with a lack of support from HV) and Ih ad to switch to bottle feeding, it was messages like the 'breast is best' that made me feel really bad, like I was causing harm to my child.

Swedes - you have missed her point... she was very impressive indeed in her analysis of the marketing message from the formula manufacturers