Can breastfeeding really cure all?

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I am confused by some of the claims made about the benefits of breastfeeding. (Especially the link made to curing cancer on recent program) A friend of mine exclusively breastfed until 6 months and her daughter has all sorts of awful allergies and excema, I also breastfed and my baby caught the same bugs as everyone else. Yes its best for mother and baby, yes its wonderful but I think that some of the advice and information given about the supposed benefits can be exaggerated.

hazeyjane, my daughter is still breastfed at 26 months and it was only when they started her on inhalers and Montelukast that she hasn't been in hospital once a month with a chest infection, croup or bronchiolitis. Please don't blame yourself, it happens with breastfed children as much as formula fed children, the statistics look across the population, not at individual cases.

I still find it funny that breastfeeding is the only minority that has to be careful what they say (or do!) so they don't upset the majority.

Something else that makes me laugh (this is an example, not me picking on this post):

"This was't a one off by the way, but if you breastfeed you are unlikely to encounter that particular brand of prejudice."

If I wasn't posting one handed I'd post in links to newspaper articles, "Protect My Baby, Protect Me" etc. Even after the London picnic two women were verbally abused on their way home for breastfeeding their children. The newspaper articles have responses saying "it's disgusting" "do it at home"... I wonder if we did a poll on MN how many nursing mothers were told at some point by family member, friend, stranger, HCP to "just give them a bottle" how many we would find?

Indeed Tink. Less than half of all British babies are being breastfed by 1 month of age, and many of them will be being mixed fed. It must be a vanishingly small minority of babies who never receive formula (do we know how many?) So almost every mum in the UK formula feeds. Formula feeding is the norm in this country.

wastingmyeducation - I think it's great you still do it even though it's hard. Someone I know said a bit of her nipple actually dropped off in the shower (eek) and she is still bfing too - I think women who do it are amazing and the harder it is the more amazing I find it. I would listen to your story. The thread was asking if breastfeeding was a cure-all though so just as much about the exaggerations as the benefits.

Where I hang out breastfeeding is the norm. I was the only FF at this party. Likewise at our local cafe in Borders - the bfs outnumber the FF by a long way. Clearly not representative of UK as a whole but real nonetheless. I know breastfeeders get abuse and have defended friends in public. Just pointing out that have had abuse from other mothers for FF too and a lot of decent BF mums find that surprising.

Garbled - sorry - got to go,

breastfeeding would have prevented this...

MrsBates, you say (apropos research into the health impact of infant feeding) : "But I think it is overstated and therefore often misleading. "

Where is is over-stated? Clearly, someone claiming that breastfeeding is 'a cure all' is deluded, and if they posted on a thread like this one, they'd be challenged. If you 'think' it is over-stated, then you will be challenged, too, to present examples of where this over-statement happens. I can think of one example here (when someone's doctor told her that her baby would not have eczema if she had breastfed which is clearly daft, 'cos how would he know?) but is this sort of thing happening often???

On a thread asking for help with a breastfeeding issue, with a mother facing a challenge like the baby not latching, or similar, I would not post (let alone 'bandy about' ) research into IQ and obesity.

But when threads like this one here move on to research (as they may do - the very title of the thread invites it) then why can't I (or anyone else) post relevant studies? I am at a genuine loss to know why we can't be grown up enough to talk in adult terms about it all - and yes, since you asked, I do think challenging this is childish. If discussion about the research upsets you at the moment, then I expect you, as an adult, to deal with it by hiding the thread.

Not yet, anyway!

xx

pre MN i did know "breast is best" but there's a lot more to it that i knew nothing about

"nobody can 'make' me feel a certain way. i am the only one truly in control of my reactions to what others say."

That's why it's called "taking offence" you can't offend someone else, you can offer it to them, but they have to take it from you.

Sorry, just to clarify, when i took my dd2 (then about 6 months old) to our gp with eczema, she asked whether I breastfed, as she was doing a research project, when i said I wasn't b'feeding she said that it would 'probably have helped if I had breastfed'. This did make me cry all the way home, which does not mean to say that i don't think she should be doing that research, or even that she was wrong in telling me that dd would have been better off if i had b'fed her (although I suppose it was possibly a little late for her to be telling me that 6 months down the line.

exactly
what was the point in that situation?
if you asked what you could
do differently next time then maybe

'In this thread I think quoting research is completely valid.' - I am quoting myself earlier in this thread and in my first post I said quite clearly that I wasn't disputing the content of the research, just saying re the OP that life experience doesn't always tally. Nowhere have I challenged the studies and have also said they are interesting. What I will challenge isn't discussion about the research, but as I and several others on this thread have said, the instances where research is used to belittle other choices. I have also said that Tiktok isn't someone who uses research to do this but regret that some of you have such reluctance to accept anyone else does. That is exactly the kind of behaviour that leads to being called a 'mafia'.

I am sorry Tiktok thinks I can't talk in adult terms or none she recognises anyway. I can think of a few I am resisting the use of at the moment. I know she is usually helpful and measured - I have read her posts before - but telling someone she 'expects them' to hide the thread 'if they can't deal with it' sounds a little controlling. If there are any other threads which involve conflicting points of view I should avert my eyes should I? I thought this was a discussion forum.

I think if LaVieEnRose and others who are adamant that bf has no significant benefits were simply to say 'you can't tell which children are breastfed by looking at them I'd have to agree with them. When you stand in the playground at dd's school and watch all the chilren running around shouting and laughing, you'd never know that 9/10's of them weren't bf for more than a few weeks.

But then you wouldn't know that a fifth of them were born to mothers who smoked during their pregnancies; or that many of them eat diets that are seriously deficient in fresh fruit and vegetables and far too high in refined carbohydrates; or that a good number live in damp, substandard housing which affects their health.

You can't 'see' these things or work out the significance of them on anecdotal evidence alone. If this wasn't the case then it wouldn't have taken decades of medical and epidemiological research to discover their importance in relation to child health.

It's a bit sad that adult women seem to think that the connection between any particular behaviour and health outcomes has to be visible to the individual to be meaningful. Says reams about the poor quality of science education in this country.

MrsBates - no, I am not being 'controlling'. I stand by my expectation - that I continue to post research studies on a discussion thread and to discuss them, and to answer questions, and challenge foolishness, and that people who are in a situation which makes this (grown up) discussion hurtful to them will hide the thread (in a grown up assessment of their own, current, needs).

What would be really controlling would be for you to expect me (and others) not to post research studies in case they are read by someone who might find them hurtful.

MrsBates, sorry, I read that you do not object to the use of research in the discussion, but the use of research to 'belittle other people's choices'.

With you there - but can you let me have an example of where this is done?

Just nipped over to the thread linked to here which contains a comment by Sabire that MrsBates felt was nasty and critical. Did you continue to read the whole thread MrsBates? Did you see the apology posted by Sabire?

It is interesting that the only example you can find of a nasty post about ff is one that was a) a light hearted snipe about which celebrities breastfeed and b) was apologised for very quickly.

If you had read this whole thread you'll seeing that was someone else's example which I quoted. I haven't looked for any examples but have come across negativity on here, as others have, and as I have repeated over and over, in real life too - my experience of this isn't confined to a website.

Tiktok, I don't EXPECT you to do anything at all. Luckily I'm not controlling either so am perfectly happy for you to carry on posting your research studies and I will carry on reading them if they have anything new to say.

This particular discussion isn't hurtful to anyone and finding scientific research 'hurtful' would be foolish indeed. The desire to keep pointing out how 'grown up' you are is increasingly amusing though. Do go on.

Oh this is going nowhere

True so I am going somewhere. Might train as a BF counsellor. Toodle-oo.

gabygirl, it was me that posted the link to Sabires post on the other thread, as I said in my post if i could work out how to cut and paste, i would link to other posts that seemed to me to be rude to ffeeders, but I didn't have much time when i was looking then.

I did see the apology, which comes several pages later, but I don't think that is the point, I was responding to stealthpolarbear saying that noone on here is rude to f'feeders. You say it is a lighthearted snub, but as a f'feeder, I guess I would be lumped in with the Jordans and Kerry Katona's, which I found insulting!

I thought Moondog's comment here was rude too,www.mumsnet.com/Talk/1364/502188?pg=23

Goodness me! I hope not!

Sabire's post was on a thread 2.5 years ago, and moondog's comment was 6 mths ago.

On mumsnet at least, we're hardly what you would call flooded with rudeness and negativity, are we?