was this a stupid thing to say?

[robinrednomorenowemptybreasts]

my cousins just had her third baby, baby is a week old, when talking to my mum after mum had been to visit, mum said the baby was going every three hours, and that she got to have a cuddle after the baby had been fed.

when mum said the baby was being bottlefed, i said oh thats a shame, mum got quite annoyed with me.
i would not of said that to my cousin or aunt or anything.
and now im wondering if i was out of order saying that.
please be honest, i won't mind if you say i was, i just thought it a shame

Although there are people who have smoked for ever and lived to be ninety.

Pooka of course I don't believe all studies are flawed but I just struggle, and again this goes back to my experience, to see that formula is a terrible thing.
Comparing it to smoking isn't really vaild I don't think!
I'm not saying it's better than breast I'm just saying I don't believe all babies who are ff will go on to develop the health probs the stats list - and I don't believe all bf babies won't either.
My point is that there are so many other factors. And yes I take that into consideration with the cosmetics studies too. Of course not all people who use non-organic shampoo with develop skin condtions. My orignial point there was that it makes me laugh the way people will condemn me for not bf but then scoff when I tell them my views on parabens.
At the end of the day we can only do a mixture of what we feel is best of us and our families. Be that ff and organic nappy cream or bf and johnsons!

Not all bf/ff research is epidemiological - there are randomised trials as well, if you can believe it....they wouldn't get past ethics committees today as the evidence is too strong for the risks of formula (so you could not randomly allocate a group of babies to formula feeding, thus preventing them from being breastfed).

There are plenty of prospective trials, which track a bunch of babies through infancy, childhood and later.

The research is sound. It's crazy to think it's some sort of flaky thing that changes all the time - the more we know about infant feeding, the greater the differences in health between bf and ff babies, and that's how the changes work!

"I don't believe all babies who are ff will go on to develop the health probs the stats list - and I don't believe all bf babies won't either."
No, that's why risks are discussed, rather than certainties.

Not one person has scoffed you for avoiding parabens, swmum (at least not on mumsnet).

Not one person has even suggested that 'all' ff babies develop illnesses or that 'all' bf babies remain well all the time...and no one has even implied it.

No one has even said formula is a 'terrible' thing.

You're making stuff up

Oh, and no one has 'condemned' you for not bf.

You really are making stuff up

Well, as an example, my mother smokes. Is nearly 70 and fully healthy. Both my grandfathers smoked and died in their 80s of old age. Ditto my great-grandfathers. All in fine health until they died in their 80s or 90s.
So in terms of experience, as far as I can see, smoking doesn't cause cancer and doesn't curtail life. So I choose not to believe the research.

Nobody thinks that all FF children will develop those problems you know. Well, no-one with any sense.

In fact, my great-uncle didn't smoke. And he died young of TB. So perhaps it actually protects against TB?

tik tok I'm really not protecting myself from the truth. It's not simply a lifestyle choice.
I will now go and look for these studies and see if that helps me form a clearer picture.
The thing is we don't see the research papers do we, we see newspaper articles etc which only give half the picture - and are frequently conflicting.
Maybe if more detail was given we'd all make more clearly informed choices on a huge range of things in life.
If I were a less robust character I might see your comment about 'grown up and intelligent' people as a little hurtful or patronising, but as it is I don't really care because as I said I'm not protecting myself from the truth - I simply want to find out what it really is! Which is why I do enjoy this kinds of discussions. You may not have changed my view but you have given me food for thought and I intend to use it.

bound to pooka! pass the benson&hedges!

Do you have any idea how much the government pays out in milk tokens, every child whos parents are on benefits gets them until they are how old, is it 2 or 1, thats a pretty penny and well worth a push in the breast is best direction lillymunster. I shall have to see if there is any info on that cost would be interesting,

"I don't believe all babies who are ff will go on to develop the health probs the stats list - and I don't believe all bf babies won't either."

No - I don't either, and nor does anyone else who's read the research. What the research shows is that the majority of both breast and formula fed babies are healthy, but that formula fed babies as a group have consistently higher levels of illness than breastfed babies, even when social class etc etc is controlled for.

The simple fact you could say things like that (that you don't believe 'all' babies who are ff will become ill) shows how profoundly you misunderstand what the research is saying.

well actually they give out milk tokens that can be exchanged for formula milk OR fruit and vegetables/cows milk for the breastfeeding mother to drink.

Oh and I mentioned earlier that I wasn't referring to people on mumsnet scoffing - I actually said in the real world. Just to clear that up so as not to offend anyone. Neither did I mean that anyone on here was condemning - I mean in society in general and from my personal experience.

swmum, i agree newspaper reports of research findings are often conflicting on many subjects - but i cannot recall a single report saying ff is better than/as good as bf. this is one of those areas where the usual complaints about confusing science don't really ring true.

colacubes, afaik those tokens can be used by bf mums as well, to buy cows' milk/fruit & veg, so i don't think there's a particular financial benefit there in promoting bf. BUT there would certainly be benefits for the NHS budget if more babies were bf, i suppose, which seems to me to be a good thing, not a cynical move

swmum, I was assuming you were a 'grown up intelligent' person, and pointing out that the argument you were using - 'I don't believe the research' was not in keeping with being grown and intelligent

You are right that newspaper stories are not great at giving detail, but you will be hard-pressed to find any that report a study as saying 'formula feeding just as healthy as breastfeeding'.

Just put 'risks of artificial infant feeding' or 'risks of formula feeding' into Google, and select what you see intelligently, follow up the research leads, read one or two academic papers on PubMed, and see what you think

Ladies I have to make dinner and tidy up my house which has remained a mess while I chat on here!
But thanks for all your opinions and I do take all of them into consideration. That's what's wondeful about MN is that we can share our knowledge. At some point tomorrow I will have a good look at what ever studies I can find.
I don't think I will change my mind but that's not to say that any of you are wrong - we are all just different in our views.

"I will now go and look for these studies and see if that helps me form a clearer picture"

www.babyfriendly.org.uk/items/search_results.asp?view=2

There are 19 pages here detailing research you might want to have a look at - much of it about the health issues connected to infant feeding, although a proportion of these papers are on wider issues relating to the subject.

Yikes - swmum, for goodness sake, approach the whole thing with an open mind, won't you? 'I don't think I will change my mind' before you have even started looking at any information is not the approach of a grown up, intelligent person

cola - just checked: Healthy Start, the tokens system which allows £3.80 worth of food-related tokens/week to all eligible mothers (about 90,000 of them in total each year) costs the NHS £400,000 a year.

Not sure what your point it about that, though!

Wasnt my point was a thought regarding why the government would hinder studies, that was put to me, was thinking on my toes, seems a small amount, I have seen one woman on her own spend that much in tokens on b&h before now.

Swmum, all the best for your new arrival,

I am approaching it with an open mind tiktok or surely I wouldn't have said I would look into the studies. I simply think my view will remain that ff is more suitable for my situation that's all.

I really appreciate all the advice and opinions I've been given as I've said. And I thank any one who has taken the time to post in response to my questions/views.
As I said, we are all just different and we make our choices on that basis. What works for one woman won't always work for another. I comepletely respect all your views whether they are ones I hold or not.

Fio - tokens were available in the past exchangable for full fat pasteurised milk, or infant formula. The monetary value of them was greater if you swapped them for formula, therefore they were sort of worth more, and favoured ff. "Healthy Start' replaced this old scheme, with tokens exchangable for more foods and with no diff between formula and cows.

Thanks Cola! Now I really must dash!