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.

my dh and bil were both ff
they are both in excellent health and pretty clever, bil is a professor at Exeter Uni
I was bf until about 8/9 months (though I suspect some formula was snuck in occasionally)
I am not thick but my health is not amazing, rubbish immune system. There's no doubt the formula boys are in better nick than me
I ascribe this to the fact my bil and dh were both apparently very good eaters whereas I was a nightmare and barely touched fruit and veg until I was about 22 (love it now, but maybe it's too late!)
By the by, my friend who was nobly expressing all her milk for her three-month-old ds who wouldn't latch on was told by paediatricians not to bother as after six weeks bm had virtually no advantage over formula because of all the probiotics in it
Any views on that? Were they just telling her that to make her feel better or is that true? As one who's bfing dd2 at 10 months I did somewhat wonder why I was bothering and feel a bit jealous of the lie ins/days out she now enjoys now she's not governed by the boob

I'm afraid the paediatricians who dealt with your friend got it totally wrong - there are pre- and pro-biotics in breastmilk, and human ones, of course

There are no probiotics in formula (yet) and the prebiotics are culled from other (non-human) sources. One very common source is algae, for instance.

There are many, many differences between formula milk and breastmilk - there are many missing ingredients in formula, and even the ingredients that are in it are bovine or synthesised.

How cruel to tell a hard-working expressing mother she was wasting her time...

Yikes
Think I won't share this with her.
Though the other issue is she was storing loads and they said that was no good as (say) a month-old stash of ebm wouldn't keep pace with the growing baby's needs.
So it is all worth it eh, tik tok?

My sis & I both bf for 8 or 9 months, neither of us have any health problems. We have both bf our children, all of whom (5 altogether) have no significant health problems.

My mum strongly believes in bf for health and I remember once she said that she was concerned that my father had not been bf and would he develop high bp or something?! I have to say even for someone like me who is very pro bf I thought that that was a bit over the top. Anyway my father is no longer alive but I'm sure it was nothing to do with being ff.

I personally believe that bf is very important for the early years and that probably after the age of five or so the main benefits are no longer as obvious, but someone please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong? tik tok?

Oh dear....of course her ebm is just fine!

What's wrong with her stash? It remains good stuff! I don't understand why they say it 'won't keep up' with her baby's needs? Breastmilk changes a little, very gradually, over time, to match the growing baby's needs perfectly, but milk from a month ago is virtually identical and why would formula (processed, and from a different species) be better?

It makes me sad that ignorant professionals can say such undermining things

ah, TT, I think the confusion for me came way back when I first read anything on the 2005 survey. it was on the nct site.

I was f fed as were my siblings and my mum smoked through all her pregnancies (this was the early 1970's!)

Dont think she was encouraged to bf from what she says and I was quite a traumatic birth apparently.

Dont feel particularly disadvantaged - didnt have asthma or excema but my sister had bad excema as a kid.

My ds aged 5 was ff as will the next one.

i was never bf and was in an incubator for three months after being born 2.5 months premature. my immune system is crap, though i imagine that has more to do with being premature - and being a tired mum! - than not being bf. more significantly, my mum says we never bonded (oh so tactful) and i think that is to do with lack of physical contact. not all down to not being bf then but not insignificant either.

Can I ask you bf experts a bf question?

I was told by a paed that bf only really protects babys immune system til 6 months of age when the breast milk changes - and thats why the WHO recommend exclusive bf til 6 months...is that right?

No, bfing protects a child as long as he is being breastfed. If you and your child, say bfing 3 yo) are next to each other on a bus, and someone sneezes on you both. The milk your body is producing starts to have antibodies in it to fight that specific strain of cold or flu virus within 3 hours.

Likewise, when bf children get sick their illnesses tend to be less severe and of shorter duration.

Can't believe how bad that paed's info is. The WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding (no other foods, drinks, water etc except breast milk). It recommends breastfeeding for all children for at least till their second birthday and beyond.

Could I jump in with my question for the bf experts on here? I am still bf-ing DS who is now one. I was thinking of stopping because the HV said there were no real benefits from now (he says the WHO 2 year guideline is for starving nations). Was thinking of going to formula or cowsmilk (HV said later). Any thoughts? Sorry for quick hijack ...

ask your hv for evidence of this and then cackle inwardly when they come up with nothing

no, it is not for starving nations it is for all children. ~That is why they are call the World Health Organisation.

another hv talking bollox. sorry. this makes me rant.

feel confident about continuing to bf you child if that is what both of you still want to do.

this is an excellent video on 'full term' breastfeeding. The mum is tandem feeding two older babies. IMO she made the doctor look a prat in the second part of the interview. And LK has the same misunderstanding about the benefits of breastfeeding and the 3rd world.

i also like chibi's suggestion. much more relaxed and less ranty that mine.

My thoughts for prussell:
the benefits of continued breastfeeding for you: reduction in your risk of breastcancer and ovarian cancer, plus...... ahem..... at least an extra 300/400 calories a day (that's a bar of chocolate!)

As for your lo: breastmilk is a 'superfood' - full of pre and pro biotics, easily digested, with anti-viral and antibacterial qualities. In the long distant past they used to give it to adults suffering from stomach disorders! It's much, much more suitable for your DS than cows milk. Why replace your milk with something inferior?

Breastfeeding is beneficial for your son because it makes him feel happy, loved and secure. There are health benefits to natural term breastfeeding, but these aren't the most pressing reason to continue I think - the reason to continue is because it's natural for small children to carry on breastfeeding during the toddler years - it's what most would choose to do if they were given the choice.

I was bottlefed and so was my brother who is fifteen months younger (in the late sixties and early seventies). I have allergies galore (take your pick, whatever you mention I'll probably sneeze at it) and brother has eczema and terrible hayfever (I also have those, but not v badly).

Our two much younger siblings were breastfed. Fashions had changed and my mum gave it a go and found it quite easy. She'd been put off the first time by tales of her mother with milk running down her front when she was late for a feed. Anyway, younger two siblings are eczema-free, hayfever-free, and mostly allergy-free. Apart from my baby sister's nut allergy which is rather serious as allergies go.

We're all reasonably intelligent, although my brain seems to have turned to mush since having a baby.

I do wish I'd been breastfed, having seen what pleasure my own daughter took in it. I haven't seen the same single-minded adoration and sheer physical pleasure in any bottlefed babies that I have known, although maybe I just haven't known any well enough.

kiski - are you sure about the 3 hours thing? You're right about the mechanics of it - the antibodies appear in the milk, sure enough, but I wouldn't have thought it took anything as long as three hours....is there a reference for this?

I was FF from birth.So was my sister.

I had no childhood illnesses.She had them all.

I am a fit and healthy adult,she is not.

We are both intelligent although I did better education/career.

I FF my children and so did she after a poor BF start

I dont feel in any way disadvantaged and had a very close relationship with my mum before she died

I think this is a great thread, because I don't think I was bf, or if I was, for not very long. I know that my brother was for 6 weeks and my sister for 9 months (this is mentioned a lot) but me being bf or not is never mentioned (or was once when mum suddenly said that I was bf for four months, but it really seemed like a random number she had plucked out of the air). I only noticed this a couple of years ago. I would love to be able to say to my mum that it really doesn't matter to me, because I think she feels bad about it. I don't see how I could raise it though - I have breastfed both of my babies and she has been so encouraging and supportive that I think it would make her feel worse to admit that she may not have bf me at all, or for not very long. I don't have a close physical relationship with her though - she always pulls away first if we hug, which makes me a bit , but I am all arms and legs so am maybe not very cuddly! I was amazed when my DD1 was cuddling her and mum said 'two tactile people' because i would never have described her (mum) as tactile with me. My sister seems much more comfortabe with my mum physically e.g giving a massage which I could not imagine doing. However they have a very stormy relationship and say terrible things to each other. I hope that women who feel guilty for not having breastfed are heartended by the fact that most people who were not bf do not feel resentful of this. In the end most women try do their best for their babies at the time and that is all we can ask of our mothers or ourselves.

I was Ff, so was my twin sister. 4 hourly from birth on a shedule.
I bf dd for 26m. On demand.
I'm fine
She's fine

For prussell: from the WHO background document on the child growth standards, which are based on children "fed after the first six months according to guidelines for complementary feeding recommended in the Global Strategy for Infant and Young Child Feeding."

"The Strategy states that breastfeeding is an unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants. It recommends that infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health. Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, they should receive adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues up to two years or beyond."

" Are the new standards just for children in developing countries?
The new WHO Child Growth Standards are global and for all children. They are intended to monitor the growth of every child worldwide, regardless of ethnicity, socioeconomic status and type of feeding.
Therefore, the standards are meant for use in both developing and developed countries. Many developed countries are concerned about obesity in young children but have local growth curves that identify the problem only after a child has become obese. For such countries, the new standard will be a useful tool for identifying overweight and obesity problems before they become too difficult to control or to prevent.
The new WHO Child Growth Standards provide a solid instrument for helping to meet the health and nutritional needs of all the world?s children."

why the blink doesn't bold work on text you cut and paste? Bah.

I was formula-fed - and I spent first few days in an incubator - and also my parents used to mix in a bit of guinness, yes that's for me, not for my mum. I'm v. academic and intellectual. Perhaps if I was bf I would have been a total einsteinian genius. (And not have eczema)

Sabire I am being tongue-in-cheek - I agree with you. But I have reflected on this before - did the period when FF was encouraged have a negative impact on us all? Yes only 6 IQ points, and as you say meaningless on an individual level, but what about society as a whole? Though you do have to wonder why the previous, breastfed generations were so thick as to decide formula was the dog's bollocks.