Breastfeeding is not best - Dr Karleen Gribble

[fabsmum]

Love this video

Nancy, you don't know how to read or assess research, that much is clear.

You have moved from diabetes to the debate on intelligence and breastfeeding - the study you quoted from the Independent report is one of many, and the research on bf and intelligence is fraught with pitfalls because intelligence, unlike diabetes, is hard to measure. There are many studies - including ones more recent and more powered (in the statistical sense) than the one you quote - that show a strong link, in fact, but because of the slippery and culture-bound nature of intelligence, you'd expect variable results between studies. There are no studies that show intelligence is lowered by breastfeeding of course, and plenty that show the opposite effect. If we're weighing research, then it's pretty obvious which way the scales are tipped.

Nevertheless, it's a lot easier to demonstrate a consistent link between something that's medically diagnosable.

Obesity and type 2 diabetes have both been shown in many studies to be linked with how people are fed at 3 mths. But clearly you prefer not to accept this link, though I don't know why.

Nancy, you don't know how to read or assess research, that much is clear.

You have moved from diabetes to the debate on intelligence and breastfeeding - the study you quoted from the Independent report is one of many, and the research on bf and intelligence is fraught with pitfalls because intelligence, unlike diabetes, is hard to measure. There are many studies - including ones more recent and more powered (in the statistical sense) than the one you quote - that show a strong link, in fact, but because of the slippery and culture-bound nature of intelligence, you'd expect variable results between studies. There are no studies that show intelligence is lowered by breastfeeding of course, and plenty that show the opposite effect. If we're weighing research, then it's pretty obvious which way the scales are tipped.

Nevertheless, it's a lot easier to demonstrate a consistent link between something that's medically diagnosable.

Obesity and type 2 diabetes have both been shown in many studies to be linked with how people are fed at 3 mths. But clearly you prefer not to accept this link, though I don't know why.

watch your language. for those earlier on who found that this speaker was unimpressive or unclear of her message, this article will put her talk in clearer view.

Nancy, I don't understand how you arrived at the conclusion that this doctor did not know that most african-american woman don't breastfeed.

Swedes....

Her message is that Health Professionals euphemistically talk about Breast being best when actually the bottom line is that Breast feeding is normal and formula feeding is an inferior and potentially dangerous way of feeding a child.

The reason that Health Professionals don't say it so brutally as I have just done is that loads of women will be really upset by this level of honesty.

The story of babies in Orleans illustrated this point well. Babies were put at risk there because Doctors did not have the bollocks to tell it like it was.

Nancy66 - I think that most of the previous research into breastfeeding and intelligence that found a link between breastfeeding and IQ DID take mothers background into account.

What it didn't necessarily take into account was the mothers IQ - which of course doesn't always correlate with social class.

There was a large piece of research a year or so ago which got a lot of press coverage which seemed to throw doubt on the link between breastfeeding and IQ. What this study found was that when the mother's IQ was controlled for breastfeeding wasn't seen to be linked to increases in IQ in babies.

However - those of us who had a closer look at this research noticed that the vast majority of the of infants in the study received only a few months of breastfeeding and that the study actually DID find that babies bf for a year or more did show higher IQ - even when the mother's IQ was controlled for. The authors of the report decided not to flag up this finding as they felt it wasn't significant, namely because only such a tiny fraction of babies in developed countries are breastfed this long!

Risible to equate breastfeeding with going to Paris to buy all your clothes. That's about as far as I got with this fool.

Great article kiskidee. I wasn't impreseed by the video, but the written version is very powerful.

/how do I find out what class I belong to?

Spidermama - I think the most of the other people on this thread understood the point she was making with this analogy about the way breastfeeding is promoted, and thought it was valid.

Perhaps you should listen further.

Aye, I thought her point was interesting and put accross in an eloquant and informed way.

Appreciated watching that.

spidey, keep listening... she's making a very good point, that you and i don't expect the best as a matter of course so by proposing bfing as The BEST rather than the dismally banal biological norm it actually promotes ffing as the norm by default.

Tiktok, I have done a Pubmed search using your suggested words and I am afraid this just confirmed my doubts.
I am reading as a type 1, from aged 1, and dh type 2, aged 40, due to obesity.
But I just found the information, especially in relation to type 1, very .... unsubstantiated.
I can't rememeber which poster it was that said :
that we have to be very careful making such claims, becasue unless it is fact, it could undermine all the excellent work that pro-bf groups so.

Please tiktok, prove to me that I am reading the wrong articles and that the evidence is overwhelming.

For Oblomov and Nancy from the Unicef Website link

There are a lot more links if you search on that site for Diabetes and Infant Feeding.

Insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus
------------
Gerstein HC (1994). Cows' milk exposure and type 1 diabetes mellitus. Diabetes Care 17: 13-19.

This analysis pooled results from 19 studies of the relationship between infant feeding and insulin
dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) selected to minimise bias. It concluded that early onset IDDM
patients were more likely than healthy controls to have been breastfed for less than 3 months. In
separate analyses it also found the IDDM patients were more likely to have been exposed to cows'
milk protein before 4 months of age. It estimated that up to 30% of type 1 diabetes cases could be
prevented by removing cows' milk products from the diet of 90% of the population in the first 3 months.
------------
Karjalainen J et al. (1992). A bovine albumin peptide as a possible trigger of insulin-dependent
diabetes mellitus. New Engl J Med 327: 302-307.

This study found that newly diagnosed diabetic children had a much higher level of IgG anti-BSA
(bovine serum albumin) than controls. This antibody to a cows' milk protein, BSA, has some structural
homology with the pancreatic islet b-cell surface antigen p69. The authors speculated that anti-BSA
antibodies attack b-cells in genetically-predisposed children.
------------
Virtanen SM et al. (1991). Infant feeding in children

wetnursing and milk banking are sorely needed really aren't they?

The breastfeeding-intelligence link isn't in doubt by the way. There's now evidence of the genetic mechanism. When MN search facility is healed I'll post a link to thread where we discussed this in detail.

Showing a genetic link is a very strong argument because you can't change the genes of your baby by being wealthy or educated.

Sorry, a little off topic - just wanted to clear that up. Also to point out that it's naive in the extreme to imagine that researchers would get a breastfeeding study funded (let alone published) without explicitly showing how their analysis adjusts for social factors. They know it's the first thing everyone will ask.

sophable - I agree, but I think we are a very long way from finding wetnursing acceptable.

My sister had her third child, a daughter, six months before I had my first. My sister had extended breastfed both her previous two children (beyond 3) and is a great advocate of breastfeeding and has no hang-ups about it.

However, when I suggested one day, when my daughter was about 6 months, and we had both been staying at my parents' house for a while, eating the same food (so our milk would taste similar), that we see whether we could swap babies and whether her baby would drink from my breast and mine from hers, she was unable to contemplate me feeding her child.

My baby fed from her - for a few minutes - with no problem at all.

wow. what a huge amount of sense this makes. (spidermama, it would be a shame not to watch further than you say, it does get better - and the written document someoen else linked to says it v clearly too)

we absolutely need to change the language used. its going to upset a lot of people in the short term, but is incredibly neccessary imo. the analogy of blood banks was a compelling one (in the 'mind your language' link)

i actually thought that bf to 6m was about as good as it got - after that not really relevent/any different from artificial feeding. and only now it sinks in that i am wrong about that. and if i can feel a bit 'gulp'/kicked in the gut about that, how are people who didnt bf going to feel about being kept in the dark in this way?

now , if anything has the power to make the elusive swing back towards bf'ing as the norm, to shift the public perception of bf/ff, it seems obvious to see that this simple shift in languge is it. i hope it happens.

I was talking to DH last night about this. I ended up feeling rather gloomy at how unlikely it is that there's going to be a swing back to breastfeeding being the norm. Reason being, I think the damage has been done and without some major class action in the US, or the formula companies going under, I cannot see it happening.

i dunno... if we (HCP's, the govt, unicef, the lot) all started saying it like it REALLY is, speaking in these terms... then it could happen.

I thought her presentation was really good and her message well thought out - the fact that you have to think about what she is saying and how easy it is to miss her point mirrors the same deliberate muddiness of language used to promote 'breastfeeding as best and bottlefeeding as normal'.

i don't think there will be a return, pooka, for precisely the vulnerabilities that the formula companies take advantage off, all that soothing, we're here to help stuff. if you've taken comfort from that message (i did, despite the fact that i never wanted to ff) then it's VERY difficult not to feel upbraided when formula is discussed as inferior, despite the fact that you OF COURSE know it to be true and always have done (which is why the comforting messages were so soothing in the first place). it's very fucked-up.
you'd need a brilliant govt minister to attack this issue and there's no way anyone would because it 'attacks' too many people who won't pay enough attention to the complexity of the discussion. look at this thread, clever women like spidey and swedes not getting their heads round the point... it's hard to listen if you feel you're being lectured.