who *isn't* ashamed to admit using formula?

[LookingForwardToSummer]

feeling crap after reading the 'exclusive breastfeeding' thread! i find bf really hard and have set myself the target of 5 months, i intend to feel very proud that i went that long and then use formula happily! i can't be the only one! all the stats show low bf rates - so where is everyone?

. thanks for pointing it out.

THW, but research, done properly, takes a long time. A paper from 6 years ago may be perfectly respectable and recent.

When the big overviews of studies take place, they include older studies alongside more recent ones - it's not so much the age of the study, but the thoroughness of it, the size of the sample, what methodology is used and so on.

For instance, if you are looking at a connection between infant feeding and cognitive development,or heart disease, or obesity, you would need to run your study for several years, and to take in loads and loads of children (to make sure you can control for things like social background, physical health, environment). You might need to track these children for a while, right up to and even beyond secondary school - which is what some of the bug cohort studies are actually doing.

It can then take years to crunch the numbers and examine your data, and to get your paper checked by other experts ('peer review') before publication, and then it might not even be published for a year or more.

That does not invalidate your research at all. There is a lot of really good research in the medical and health field that is decades old, and which has informed later research.

Of course, sometimes old research gets superseded by new stuff, or refined, or developed - but there are no signs that the clear and consistent risks of formula are going to be shown as disappearing any time soon. This is because we know, more or less, what causes the differential in health between ff babies and bf babies, and that is the foreign protein (the cows milk) and the lack of antibodies (in formula). None of that is possible to change.

bug cohort = big cohort

Not researching insects here

DELUDED NO.. DERANGED POSSIBLY

THW: "My thoughts however are that it doesn't take into account all the stuff that mom eats and the additives and god knows what is on the food she eats, coming through to the milk."

Your thoughts are sensible, but in fact it does take this into account. The additives in the mother's food may not get anywhere near the milk - most stuff ingested by the mother does not affect the milk at all (don't forget, her diet has to pass through her digestive system first - there is no hotline between her mouth and her breasts ). The research into maternal diet and breastmilk and consequent infant health is consistent - milk remains of a consistently high quality, no matter what the mother's diet. There is really a good lot of research on this.

yeah, so long as the babies don't have an intolerance to cow's milk protein, they're fine...

THW - the research evidence is quite thin for this, but it does seem that some women with very colicky babies can improve things by cutting out cows milk protein from their diet. It does seem that the molecules can reach the milk - if someone has a very upset baby then it is something to try. If the baby is affected, then the baby would be far worse having formula, as the cows milk protein would be reaching him 'direct' and in 'full strength'

Beyond that there is a lot of anecdotal stuff with other foods, when mums say they observe their babies reacting after they have had particular foods. I think with some individual, very food-sensitive babies this may be an issue, but mostly it seems more like co-incidence, and mothers looking for a reason why their baby might be fussy and whingy that day.

Any baby with a real allergy to something the mother is eating is likely to be much better off breastfeeding - ff could make him quite poorly indeed. These are the ff babies who have to go on products like the specialist hydrolised formulas, where the protein is already broken down for them.

wtf? you made a stupid point, that allergicky babies are better off on formula... bears no scrutiny whatsoever.

tori - if you have a moment to come back on the thread, I would be really interested in a response to my post on 19.02 yesterday, ta

Okay, I've now read the whole thread and have to say that as a failed BF'er turned mixed, turned FF I am now quite upset by the whole thing.

1. I was aware of some of the risks (e.g. SIDS and diabetes) and took every other precaution I could against them e.g. trying to avoid overfeeding etc...

2. I tried only BF for a week. In that time DD screamed constantly (and I mean constantly) so I had absolutely no sleep. I had cracked and bleeding nipples, mastitis and very painful engorgement which DD couldn't feed to relieve. I was discharged after 12 hours being told my latch was fine and despite requests had no help until almost a week after DD was born. I would also like to add that I had no help from the NCT helpline as they were rude to my DH when he said I couldn't come to the phone because I was having my stitches checked.

3. Eventually we got some help and sorted out BF. By that stage DD had had formula and had slept. Although I went to mixed feeds, I couldn't actually bear to try and BF again because I needed to sleep and had lost so much confidence. I now still feel guilty that I did work out how to do it and didn't try again to EBF although I don't think I'd have done anything different at the time.

I think the reason there is so much antipathy to discussions of tjhe risks of ff is because it is not something people can change. When you make the decision to ff, you make it on the basis of everything you know at the time. It is then very difficult to deal with extra information which you can do nothing about but brings home the fact that you have not done what is usually better for your baby.

Sorry this post is so epic, and not really in the spirit of the thread but wanted to say it anyway.

I am not ahamed[smile
I expressed when dd was in NICU.
DS1 I tried but failed and regained some sanity.
DS2 I FF from birth[and I had an epidural and elective section with ds2.So There

how so? i can find equally snarky ones from you, as it happens, but i had the self-control not to insult you personally for them.

the bottom line is that you've said this morning that threads like this 'up the guilt level' for women who had no choice but to ff. so... women like ME.

as i've said many times before i gave dd formula in the first week of her life and she was exc ff by five months. i just won't feel ashamed or guilty for it because i didn't have a choice in the matter. and as i've also said this morning i don't think i would put myself through the hell of mixed feeding for as long if i have another child, which puts me even more firmly in the ff camp.

however, that's no reason for me to let you away with unproven statements such as 'formula is improved' etc 'and ff mothers don't have to worry about passing on allergies through milk' (well no, cos if they have an allergicky child they've got bigger fish to fry by then cos they're giving him big fat cow's milk proteins which may be doing more damage).

just because your guilt at ffing (which i don't share) makes you want formula to have been improved, don't inflict your half-baked opinions on others who have ff but can still see the wood for the trees.

we need proper research, as you've said, but the stuff that there is serves to underline that bfing is best. so that's what we should be fighting for, that with better support more of us can do it.

BM contains human proteins, the energy source for creating them comes from whatever the parent eats. cow's milk contains bovine proteins, the energy source for creating them comes from whatever the cow parent eats. what's veganism got to do with anything?

just to be clear, i gave dd formula in her first week, then mix-fed primarily formula until my crappy supply ran out altogether at four and a half months. from my post it could be interpreted that her first formula was a one-off. would that it had been...

I fed both my boys on formula and have no regrets. Please dont lets get worked up about this. It is hard being a mother, although I believe there are some benefits to breastfeeding it wasnt for me.

There is always 'the latest research for this, that and the other. What is true and what isnt. Do we believe the research regarding MMR......

no-one's saying formula's not okay, so far as i've seen. it was a bloody lifesaver for dd who was jaundiced and losing weight hand over fist until she got it.

what's been said is that compared to cow's milk proteins (which have been moderated to go in formula) human milk proteins are better because, well, they're designed specifically for human baby tummies, that's all. by the age of one, most human baby tummies are developed enough to tolerate unmoderated bovine proteins.