"I can only assume you all live in caves, use no chemicals, processed foods, dont drive, dont fly, dont use mobile phones, plastic bags, swim in the sea, dont injection your children with synthetic chemicals, because if you truly are all the things you say you are regarding science and its guidance on these matters, I really cant see how I could argue, but your not are you, you just choose your cause and ignore the others."
I haven't got the time to read all the research on all the possible risks to my children inherent in living in this polluted world. And the research on these things is sometimes conflicting or inconclusive.
That said - if all the major health bodies in the developed world, like the WHO, the NHS, the Royal College of Midwives, the American Academy of Pediatrics and UNICEF advised that, say, children shouldn't use mobiles because they tripled the chance of them ending up in hospital - and made this recommendation on the basis of a thorough review of thousands of studies going back over a decade.... well, then I'd be pretty strongly persuaded to go with it.
You seem to have overlooked in your arguments about the persuasiveness of the research evidence on the risks of artificial feeding, that all the major health bodies in the world have had teams of highly qualified scientists pouring over the evidence for years before making their recommendations.
They don't cherry pick one or two studies - they examine hundreds - thousands even.
As an individual it's almost impossible to make sense of the avalanche of health research that's published on a daily basis - but with something like breastfeeding - well it's much simpler because the large organisations have done much of the work for us. Yes we can read individual papers - but what we really need is an overview - and that's what we get through the recommendations made by organisations like the WHO and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Choosing to breastfeed your baby is one of the simplest and most effective things you can do to improve their health and development in the short, medium and long term. Later it becomes so much more difficult. I struggle to get my children to eat as well as I'd like now they're a bit older, but I do my best. I look back on their babyhood and think - that's the ONLY time in your life when it's relatively simple to give them the absolute best in terms of nutrition; once you've got breastfeeding established it requires no thought or planning on your part - unlike day to day shopping and cooking once they're on solids.
SWmum - Can I just throw one other thing for you to consider before you make a decision either way. No one else has mentioned it on this list but it's something that I've thought about a lot.
It's about a quality of life issue - the fact that a baby who is breastfed is being given fresh food every day, that varies in terms of its tastes and consistency. A ff baby is fed on food that is highly processed, that always tastes the same, and can in no way be described as 'fresh' (unless you're the sort of person who'd also describe powdered mash potato - a la Delia Smith as 'fresh'!). It wouldn't occur to me to feed my older children soley on a diet that consisted of reconstituted, freeze dried anything, so why would I want do this for my baby? Maybe it's because I'm a bit of a foodie, but I hate the idea of my baby not having fresh milk when it's the sole source of nutrition in their diet for months on end. Hope you're not offended by me pointing this out but I think it needs to be said - this issue isn't just about what YOU have to do - it's about what your baby will be eating EVERY DAY for months on end.