Were you formula fed as a baby?

[Janni]

Do you believe you would be healthier or more intelligent had you been breastfed?

Do you believe you were disadvantaged in any other way by being formula fed?

I was not breastfed.

I breastfed my own children for 20 months.

I realise though that I do not feel in any way disadvantaged for not having been breastfed myself.

I just wondered how others felt.

Sabire: so cracked, bleeding nipples and mastitis don't exist? Or women should just put up with them?

"Sabire: so cracked, bleeding nipples and mastitis don't exist? Or women should just put up with them?"

They're experienced at the level they are BECAUSE OF SOCIETY'S IGNORANCE about breastfeeding: the new mothers who have no idea what a properly latched on baby looks like (because breastfeeding is largely invisible and if not invisible then MUST be discrete); the birth culture in this country which results in women having huge amounts of intervention, most of it unnecessary and much of it damaging to breastfeeding; the terrible postnatal care from midwives who don't have time to help a mother get a baby latched on properly; the ubiquity of mixed feeding in the early weeks that's linked to engorgement, nipple confusion, thrush and mastitis; the ignorance of the general public and GP's who don't understand what mastitis is and how to prevent and treat it; the lack of skilled breastfeeding support, so that a minor problem with bf so often degenerates into a major problem within days.....

None of the things you mention are intrinsic to normal breastfeeding - they're a symptom of just how crap we are as a society at supporting breastfeeding: women MOSTLY get these things because of poor care and personal ignorance about how breastfeeding works. In societies where bf is the norm bf is nowhere near as problematic as it is here in the UK.

So - don't compare dysfunctional,abnormal breastfeeding to 'normal' bottlefeeding. It's about as fair as comparing the experience of trouble free breastfeeding to the bottlefeeding experience of a mother that's been left to make up her first feed from a tin with no instructions on the back and faulty or no sterilising equipment, who then has to give it to a baby who's been primed not to want to take a bottle.

And no - women shouldn't put up with bad breastfeeding. It should be prevented from happening in the first place and if she does get mastitis/sore nipples etc expert help should be on hand to overcome these things as quickly as possible.

Can somebody with those six or more crucial IQ points please explain to me how I can nod along to madamez' post, then also agree wholeheartedly with Sabire's?

What is WRONG with me?

madamez is Daily Mail to Sabire's Economist.

You're cruising for a bruising there blueshoes

Madamez & the Daily Mail as bedfellows. Delicious

BTW I was ff-ed so lost out on my 6 points. Not that it makes a significant difference to my intellect, going by previous posts

This is really interesting to me. I was totally FF from birth my mun wasn't given any encouragment to bf (born mid '70s) and she thinks that I'm quite mad for bf my dd. Mum was given some tablets to make her milk go away, and thought that bf was just for "hippies".

I grew up in a household where everyone smoked, parents, grandparents, uncles, aunties etc. I'm the healthiest person in the world no allergies or breathing problem never ever been ill (except for chicken pox at age 16 which was sooo embarrassing for me at school). I've kind of rebelled against my parents by never ever smoking, not drinking and bf my child!!

It's interesting for my mum and me to see how things have changed in the 30 years since we both became mothers. Mum keeps phoning me to say she's amazed that I've bf for so long, and every time I get dd weighed my mum marvels at how she has put on weight and says
"you did that for her, I'm so proud." And I am too!

Dare I say...I've only read the OP. I was FF but I have no idea whether it has disadvantaged me. A few points more intelligence is never going to be a bad thing, of course, so I wouldn't mind being a bit brighter. I don't have allergies but I had bad chests/throats/colds as a child. That may well be due to my parents smoking, though.

I bf my first for just 3wks and then went on to bf my other three dc for at least 14mths each.

FleeBee - you did really well to do things so differently to your mum but also to have her approval now.

Me and my siblings (there's 5 of us) are remarakably healthy. I only ever had 1 vomiting bug as a child (oh boy, do I remember that ).

I always thought we were all FF (apart from my youngest brother and sister).

Turns out mum BF us all. She only managed 6 weeks with me (late 1960's) before the HV bullied her into FF.

I think now that we are all in our 30's/40's then the benefit of BF will start to show. I wouldn't be surprised that Bf, combined with good genes and a healthy lifestyle, will contribute to us all being v.healthy in later age

I am not anti-bf, nore am i anti-ff. I am pro-choice though and i think every mother has the right to make her own choices for what she feels is best for her and her baby and she shouldn't be made to feel guilty about those choices. If a woman chooses to ff then it's just plain wrong to then guilt her by saying her child will be less healthy, have allergies and have 6 IQ points less (wtf)

What happens if you get an adult who was ff from birth with an IQ of say 130 and an adult who was bf from birth who has an IQ of 120?

Imo, i don't think the research took into account the persons lifestyle ie;smoker-non smoker, where they live;city-country side etc. I think the state of an adults health should be based on individual cercumstances and life-style rather than making such a wide assumption that ALL adults who were ff are automatically less healthy.

My sister and i have lived by the sea all our lives.

I was ff as a baby and i am healthy, never had a serious illness or been to the doctors alot. I do not smoke, i hardly ever drink and my diet is balanced.

My sister was bf, always had things wrong with her; colds, cold sores, eczema etc. She has smoked for 11 years, she drinks lots and has and has a poor diet.

Now i am not trying to say that ff is better than bf by telling you about my sister and i. My point is, we have both lived in the same place all our lives, she was bf, i was ff and when we were children she was probably the healthy of the two having been bf. As adults though, because of our individual life-style choices, i am probably the heathier of the two.

So yes, maybe if you let all the ff babies live in one world and all the bf live in another and let every person live exactly the same lives then the bf world would certainly be the healthier one. But in reality we don't all live the same lives and some live healthier lives than others.

Sorry this is so long.

No FioFio - it's actually been remarkably restrained and quite interesting

Icing, the 78% of mothers in the UK choose to initiate breastfeeding with their newborns. By 6 wks only 48% are still breastfeeding. In a survey by the NCT, 9 of 10 of the women who had stopped by six weeks said that they would have liked (chosen)to breastfeed for longer.

clearly there is more factors than choice and 'guilt' in operation here. so please read the rest of this thread to see how several posters have addressed the guilt thing and other issues you have raised in your post.

i was bf but my dh was ff and has always been healthy and has a PhD..

kiski - the Infant Feeding survey 2005 is the one that finds 9 out of 10 women who stop by six weeks would have liked to continue, and this has nothing to do with NCT....NCT may have done a similar one, but I don't know of it.
The 5-yearly Infant Feeding survey asks women this question (among many others, of course) every time, and finds a consistent response. The vast majority of women who stop early on did not want to.

The other way the Infant Feeding survey looks at this issue is to ask women why they stopped.

'Because I had breastfed for as long as I planned to' is not a reason affecting more than one or two per cent until about six months.

Icing, the points you make (other lifestyle factors) are perfectly sensible, but these are controlled for in studies.

Your own experiences and your sister's are not relevant in the grand scheme of things.

You say, "What happens if you get an adult who was ff from birth with an IQ of say 130 and an adult who was bf from birth who has an IQ of 120?" I am not sure if I understand this question, but the research indicates that the adult bf from birth would have had an IQ of 114 without the bf, and the ff adult would have had an IQ of 136 if he had been bf.

No.

bf for a few weeks, my mum says her period returned after 4 weeks, she went on the pill and her milk dried up (sounds very suss to me, as I was still bleeding 4 weeks after). I am a 2nd child and my older brother was bf for longer.

No, I don't feel disadvantaged - I don't remember it!

I was bf for 2 weeks and then ff. I'm no more intelligent or beautiful than my own two bf dc's .
I had childhood exzema & my ds (bf for 19m) too, genes have clearly more to do with getting it than the way we were fed.

my two older sisters were bf, and I was ff. I am the one with the allergies (pretty dreadful hayfever and eczema my whole life).

Of course it MIGHT be nothing to do with it...

300th post! Do I get a prize?