Can breastfeeding really cure all?

[shuffle]

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.

SPB on Mon 15-Sep-08 13:16:03
because it is easier for us to sit back and choose what we want to agree with and go "la,la,la,la,la,la, I can't hear you!" to the other stuff.

MrsBates, when we were children we often didn't wear seatbelts. 1000s of children all around the country didn't wear them. There were three outcomes to that:

1. You were fortunate your parents were never in a crash.
2. Car was in a crash and passenger thrown free because they weren't wearing a belt.
3. Car was in a crash and passenger seriously injured or killed.

Look at the statistics and research on a whole and it shows that it's far safer for a child to be belted in a car. That doesn't mean every child will die because they don't wear a seatbelt because not every child will be in a crash. It doesn't mean a child won't be injured or killed during a crash. But it does lower the risk of something going wrong.

I find breast milk amazing. Formula manufacturers are constantly trying to make their products "as good as" breast milk but they can't without more and more research. They used to think it was just a case of matching the milk content and adding a few vitamins. Now they are finding that there are many, many active ingredients in the BM that they can only start to mimic. e.g. "Now with added probiotics etc ".... BM contains compounds (these probiotics etc)that actictively block the holes in the lining of the intestine and prevent nasties from passing through into the bloodstream - hence the reduction in childhood sickness/allergen sensitivity in BF babies.

Then there's the formation of curds in the stomach. Milk in the baby's stomach hits the stomach acid and forms lumps of curds. BM forms soft, small easy to digest curds whilst cow's milk forms large rubber curds that breakdown slower and with more difficulty. Goat's milk forms smaller, easier to digest curds (and contains less alergen inducing compounds). I'd have thought Gorrilla milk would be even better. Maybe the formula makers should start milking Chimps and Orangutans for formula milk production?

Sounds stupid? Well why is a cow more acceptable than a monkey to feed your baby?

It's all about chances anyway isn't it? You may be susceptible to asthma/excma/IBS etc and the BF or FF isn't going to completely stop you from developing them or not. But they may well reduce your overall chances of developing immune response diseases. I'd rather reduce my chance of flying out of the window of a crashing car (as TinkerbellesMum says) than not so I'd wear my seatbelt whenever I could (always).

This should actually help people who can't BF (for whatever reason) from feeling quite so guilty. BF is best but not the end of the world. You give the best start you can to your child but if you can't manage to BF then you can work at the other areas you do have control over.

That's what people don't seem to understand - risk / chance. Leads to a lot of flawed arguments IMO - although I am amazed by the ignorance shown on this thread.

Number 2 was supposed to say "thrown free and survived". My aunt was in one of those crashes, she wouldn't have survived the accident if she was wearing a seatbelt.

wind them up and watch them go

pmsl

ok back to RL

Not in my RL I hope! Are you very bored?

So is this an admission of un-namechanged trolling?
Or are these really your opinions?
Bizarre
What is the point? How very odd

To answer the op, yes, that man in the program you are talking about claimed to have cured his pancreatic(?) cancer with a cup of bm a day. Im not sure on that tbh, although I bet theres other stories like it!

My ds was FF, no bm at all (given my time again, I wouldnt hae done that), and has had d&v once. No ear infections, no asthma, no sickness, no chicken pox.
I think its just the luck of the drawer sometimes tbh. Nobody would argue that bm would make these problems worse .
The same cant be said for ff.
Simple.

ALSO, a girl I used to work (she'll be about 25 now) with said she wouldnt drink milk as a baby, and was raised on orange juice!
Is this/could this be true? Would a baby grow on orange juice?

Oh, Id also like to add - four month old ds, has been ff, now has his third cough and cold in four months.
Only yesterday I said to dp, he wouldnt have this cough and cold if id have bf.
I tried, but started too late, and eventually, had to stop.

LVER - you're awful, and, tbh, with your attitudes, I feel for your children. Its blinkered! And YOU'RE RUDE!
How childish.

Heres an extract from Mozarts book about sugar water.

Marla, what on earth do you mean?

LVER - you say something rather silly and incorrect, and people challenge you on it, politely, and you then react by saying you are laughing because you have deliberately wound people up....is that right?

You have a strange sense of humour. Do you want to discuss these issues or just to point your finger and snigger at people>

tiktok, could you answer my question about the orange juice?
Iv wondered for years! lol

riven....it's sad about your little daughter, and sad that you feel unhappy about the breastfeeding and formula feeding.

No one has ever claimed on mumsnet that bf babies are less likely to have epilepsy - there's no research on this at all, and I can't think there could be any connection between infant feeding and epilepsy.

flubdub - I seriously doubt a baby could thrive on orange juice, because there is nothing it it to promote growth. A baby might survive for a while on orange juice only - but it would not grow.

Sounds like an urban myth to me.

Yes, I thought she was fibbing! I know some babies cant stomach certain formula's, but I didnt think they just didnt like formula, OR bm either.

Rebexus - great post, v interesting thanks

In the orphanages in Romania, babies were often fed on carrot juice and survived, some not all though

flubdub, thank you for that link...
well, Mozart was told by his Father that eh was raised on sugar water only....hm...therefore he probably wasn't ...I mean, when do men ever get these things right!
I honestly could not believe that a Baby could survue on sugar water only....but, of course I might be wrong, eh!

LVER - Perhaps you'd be a bit happier if your husband was home a bit more but then, perhaps he works in paediatrics or general medicine in which case he is probably still at work treating some of the cases of illness caused by formula feeding that you choose to mockingly ignore through ignorance!