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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Were you formula fed as a baby?

500 replies

Janni · 01/04/2008 21:55

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.

OP posts:
kiskideesameanoldmother · 04/04/2008 12:53

there is a reference for it TT but I will be damned if I can find it at the moment. I only remember it now because it was such an eye opener when I read it myself. I used the same example as the document I read so i don't know if it is googleable on a few phrases. the document wasn't scientific itself. It was an article but when i was typing last night, I was amazed that I couldn't remember where i read it.

blueshoes · 04/04/2008 13:49

snowleopard: "Though you do have to wonder why the previous, breastfed generations were so thick as to decide formula was the dog's bollocks."

The key, as has always been the case, is access to accurate information. No point being Einstein if you are bombarded with wrong misleading information by sources with a commercial agenda.

Sabire · 04/04/2008 14:29

.... slightly o/t but anyway....

Stumbled across this link this morning (while mumsnet was down...)

www.brianpalmerdds.com/pdf/section_A.pdf

It's about sleep apnoea and the relationship between in and infant feeding methods and dummy use. It's really fascinating.

Some of you will probably think this is a bit weird but I particularly liked the pictures of children's palates - this is something I've dwelled on before - the shape of children's palates when they've been bottlefeed or breastfed. Breastfed babies generally have much shallower and wider palates, where as bottlefed babies and babies that use dummies a lot develop much higher, narrower palates. I can actually see it in my daughter's friends - how whether they were breast or bottlefed has changed the shape of their faces. You have to know what you're lookin for but once you know it's quite easy to spot. Has anyone else noticed this?

duchesse · 04/04/2008 14:39

I was breast fed at first, then introduced to whacky solids such as scrambled egg, weetabix and fish from 7-8 weeks onwards. I suspect that I was fed doorstep milk after about 3 months but my mother is very cagey about that.

I now major have intolerances to wheat, egg, milk and tea. Which is your basic UK diet.

duchesse · 04/04/2008 14:41

Oh and recurrent chest infections until around age of 25, dodgy ears, sinus problems. Great stuff.

frootloop · 04/04/2008 14:41

uuurgh, you could have warned people about the dead baby head pictures Sabire, i feel a bit queasy now.

becaroo · 04/04/2008 14:43

This is a very interesting thread and I know from my own horrendous experience first time round how much duff/donwright wrong info there is about bf and how bloody useless HVs and midwives are when presented with bf problems.

However, I have ME and there is a theoretical risk that I could pass on enteroviral nasties through my bm so I think for me it wouldnt necessarily be helping the babys immunity...indeed could damage it.

I wondered what peoples thoughts are on this? Surely it is better to ff if your bm is of poor quality/contains nasties??

I have already decided to ff my next baby (due in september) but I am very interested in your views on this issue.....

Perhaps sometimes breast isnt best??????

snotbuster · 04/04/2008 14:50

Haven't read all of this very long thread but can I point out that the ff generation (70's babies like me) then progressed onto nutritional horrors like findus crispy pancakes as soon as we hit primary school. It's a wonder we're functioning at all.

PuppyMonkey · 04/04/2008 14:54

Indeed Snotbuster. And now you should be worried about palates too...

sitdownpleasegeorge · 04/04/2008 14:57

God how I loved those Findus crispy pancakes !

We thought they were the height of sophistication compare to egg and chips.

snotbuster · 04/04/2008 14:59

Perhaps crispy pancakes are easier for children with deformed palates to chew...(hastily constructing conspiracy theory involving the manufacturers of formula and frozen convenience food)

snowleopard · 04/04/2008 15:01

Yes I suppose that must have been a big factor blueshoes. It really amazes me though that at a time when we were discovering DNA and inventing computers etc, we made such a fundamental error about something so basic. Also, how did it happen that from that time, we now have a legacy of so many women being unwilling to bf because they just find it offputting or gross?

I had an acquaintance when DS was born who declared she would ff, she just didn't fancy bf, it was a bit gross, it wasn't for her. When we met up a few months later and she saw me bf she seemed really sad and said she should have bf after all, as it was obviously great for the baby and for bonding. But where did she get those negative feelings about it, now it is so actively encouraged?

A bit off-topic sorry but I'd love to hear from Sabire on this.

tiktok · 04/04/2008 15:05

becaroo - viral and bacterial 'nasties' do not get passed on via the breastmilk. HIV is the only condition where this is a problem. You say you have a 'theoretical' risk of passing something on - I doubt this is the case, but formula carries far more than theoretical risks, so maybe it is a question of judging which risks are greater.

Breastmilk quality is very consistent, and shows up in research as being so, regardless of mothers' health and diet.

Certain drugs do reach the breastmilk, but this is not always necessarily a harmful thing. Some drugs are in the milk but are destroyed by the baby's digestion system, or else pass through the baby unmetabolised....there's no one rule for everything.

I have never heard that ME/CFS would be a contra-indication to bf - www.mecfsparents.org.uk/ and there is nothing on here, but maybe this group would offer more info.

tiktok · 04/04/2008 15:09

Actually, snowleopard, it's a very small number of women who think breastfeeding is disgusting and gross....they do exist, I know, but the vast majority of mothers choose to breastfeed their babies, so the feelings can't be that strong

It would be nice to give those women a bit of extra support and understanding, so that if they want to, they can overcome these feelings.

I mean...few of us imagine we could manage to mop up someone else's vomit and diarrhoea, but when it happens to come from our own kids, we just get on with it

snowleopard · 04/04/2008 15:12

Oh tiktok I stand corrected - I though the non-bf proportion was much higher. (Maybe it varies with location...)

tiktok · 04/04/2008 16:06

It certainly does vary with location, snowleopard, but latest figures show something like 80 per cent of mothers overall in the UK start off breastfeeding.

Sabire · 04/04/2008 16:22

"Actually, snowleopard, it's a very small number of women who think breastfeeding is disgusting and gross"

I know it's not the same as saying they think bf is 'disgusting and gross' but in the 2005 DOH survey, 1 in 5 women gave 'don't like the idea of breastfeeding' as a reason for choosing to ff.... which obviously isn't the same as saying 'think bf is disgusting and gross'. Even so - it's quite telling really.

I'm not surprised that people don't like the idea of breastfeeding. I'm not sure how I'd feel about vaginal birth if I grew up in a society where the vast majority of women who tried for a vaginal birth ended up having an emergency section through poor care, and where c-section birth was perceived as the norm. I think it's totally understandable that people who aren't familiar with bf are freaked out by it.

tiktok · 04/04/2008 17:34

Sabire, do the maths ....one out of 5 women who ff from the start (about 20 per cent) say they 'do not like the idea of breastfeeding'.

That means about four women in 100 say they 'do not like the idea of breastfeeding'. I guess not all of those may feel it is disgusting and gross, so we are talking about a tiny minority here.

Many women have ambivalent feelings about it, but it is unusual, on the info we have here, to feel true, powerful distaste for it.

Sabire · 04/04/2008 17:42

But tiktok - but as a percentage of those choosing to ff it's fairly high!

I agree that not many people feel a true powerful distaste for breastfeeding - but I think many people have a strong sense of unease with the idea of bf.

juuule · 04/04/2008 17:47

4 women in 100?
Doesn't one out of 5 (20%) mean 20 women out of every 100?
Or have I missed something in the maths somewhere?

tiktok · 04/04/2008 17:51

juule - 20 women out of a 100 formula feed from the start.

1 in 5 of them say they do not want to bf because they don't like the idea of bf.

1 in 5 of 20 women out of 100 is 4.....out of 100

juuule · 04/04/2008 17:54

So I did miss something
I'll just slink off and lurk again.

becaroo · 04/04/2008 18:20

Tiktok....I got my info re: bm and possible infection from the book "Living with ME" by Dr Charles Sheperd who is the medical advisor to the ME Association.

I do not accept that all womens bm is the same quality...illness and incapacitation can have devastating effects on your whole body and I would include breasts and the production of bm in that (and of course any medication passes into bm).

Of course, I am not an expert and did not manage to bf my first child - although I did try, mainly because the county I live in will not even discuss ff in parentcraft classes (which was very upsetting for my friend who could not bf due to breast reconstruction surgery).

becaroo · 04/04/2008 18:25

Oh, and on the subject of not wanting to bf...I know someone who just didnt want to. Never gave a reason, just said she didnt want to...maybe even she doesnt know why??

I also know someone who VERY successfully bf for about 3 months before switching to ff...she just got fed up of it I think, but I remember thinking "crikey if my baby was putting on weight, happy and alert and slept through from 5 weeks, I wouldnt give up!!"

I had no idea the rate was 80% that start bf...I thought it was much lower than that.

becaroo · 04/04/2008 18:26

Snowleopard...I was also given guinness

What were our parents thinking????