BBC item on duration and frequency of breastfeeds

[frisbyrat]

This throws up some interesting results. Could it just be an anomaly, given the tiny sample and short duration of the study?

I wonder how they came to their conclusions about the hormone and protein production levels.

Was just reading this myself. Interesting.

It's a poor study, and it has been roundly criticised in the journal it was originally published in....you can see the responses on line if you google the original paper.

what a load of bollocks

WTF are you meant to do with a hungry baby then?Leave it to cry.
Sorry but ds is feeding now, and about every hour or two, sometimes for as long as an hour, because he needs to, if i fed him to their time schedules he'd spend the day crying.

it is clearly utter rot, we would hardly evolve to feed strictly 3hourly. and what a stupid study to limit the amount the other group feeds, just to make the point that 'their' way is better.

Phew. I was a bit as I read it.
I can't find the reactions to it online, though - please can a more accomplished googler link for me?

Pretty pointless saying the mums stopped bfing because they fed so often too, chances are those mums wouldve stopped bfing even on the three hour schedule, or had real issues totally unrelated to timing.
It's too small a group IMO with too many other outside influences on the results.

adc.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/93/4/292 is the response to this article, but it deserves more attention, really, as the findings are surprising given what we know about how breastfeeding works.

If the findings are to be trusted - and the study is so poorly designed, one might be very suspicious - the results are easily explained by the fact the intervention group had more attention from the researchers. The control group had no attention at all - they were just studied from records and then asked to remember their bf experience (sometimes 2.5 years later in great detail with regard to breasts used, time on breast and so on - see the study). The intervention group had to be attended to, to record the length of time they were bf for and so on. Breastfeeding is a social and behavioural phenomenon, and any attention like this brings about a Hawthorne effect (sociology students will know this is the effect of being studied, which skews the results). Just showing an interest in someone's breastfeeding has been shown in other studies to prolong the time breastfeeding lasts.

Thanks. That makes a lot more sense.

Did I dream that I read somewhere that follow up at 6 weeks for bf is now going to happen?
It would be interesting if they also record:

• exclusive/mixed feeding
• pattern of feeding-baby-led or scheduled (or maybe better categories)

It would be fantastic if they could repeat at 6 months, but I don't think that's ever going to happen!

Ah, I read it in our PCT's LDP, I think...

Would also be good if all advice was recorded, for example if baby lost a lot of weight and top-ups were advised or HCPS gave some of the other crap advice I've seen on here.

Well in theory all advice should be written in the red books, shouldn't it?
So we just need online red books - I wonder whether that's included as part of the Connecting for Health thing?

Although IME (and I have very good HVs) the only record other than weight/length in the book is "vaseline recommended for cradle cap" and "D&V" (against a dip in his weight)

Well DS2 has just been weighed by a great mw, and has lost more than 10% birth weight so in theory this has to be flagged but it doesnt say much in his red book, just that she saw him.

Was that an omission do you think? Or would she avoid writing that in case less experienced mothers than you would read it and worry?
(I spent lots of time in the first few weeks reading my post natal notes / red book every time something new was added )

It may have been for a good reason, she did say tht as both she and i are happy with him that she wouldnt bother telling the paeds which she is meant to apparently.

common sense - wow!
How are you both doing, anyway?

good point
or maybe they do

We are great thankyou
Just awaiting another birth now as my dear cat is pacing and looking for a nest!
I must be mad a newborn and kittens

I'm sure the whole feeding by the clock thing is what's responsible for a whole generation of mothers "not having enough milk" to feed their babies.

Quite disappointed that the BBC health and science correspondents obviously still lack the capacity to report on research objectively or with any sort of critical angle. As one of the miniscule percentage of women who did the whole exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months thing in spite of my baby being demand fed, I now have an immense sense of achievement that my body managed to feed a child in the face of such adversity .

I abide by the mottos "we're all mammals", and "cavewomen didn't have watches/Moulis/baby walkers" etc etc

I saw this too and was confused.

It also said:

The World Health Organization recommends that babies are exclusively breastfed until they are six months old, but only around one in four UK mothers follows that advice.

Where did they get one in four from? I thought it was more like 1%.

I thought it seemed incredibly high too mawbroon.
I know this is old stats but surely it hasn't changed that much!