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.

LittlestBadger, formula milk has saved many babies lives in this country. You have not ruined your daughter's life. You mustn't think like that. Nobody would ever think that you have ruined your daughter's life. Formula companies spend a lot of money into making their milks as nutritious as possible.

No-one is pretending anything and I think a great deal of people are taking this seriously. This is a serious matter for a lot of people. People spend a lot of their time on here advising mothers about feeding their baby - whatever way they are doing it - and they don't do it for fun.

Formula companies spend alot of time making us think that formula is fabulous which is why it is important to challenge ignorance. You shouldn't feel bad though littlest badger, never apologise, never look back, formula saved my baby's life and I'm glad I gave it to him although I did end up breastfeeding him in the end.

Sorry, didn't actually mean to post.

I am completely in favour of BF and will definitely try again. I just find these threads difficult when they get further and further into the harm caused by formula. It isn't that it shouldn't be discussed but the reactions can go quite over the top which perhaps doesn't do BF many favours.

Sorry again and as you were.

Turniphead, the studies you ask for have been done. They are controlled studies, and they have a lot more subjects that 100 in them.

"I am not ignorant, i just choose not to believe any old research that you can find on the internet."
Very wise. So why not avail yourself of the facts - scientific studies that have proven the formula has risks?
I have never seen the earth orbit the sun, doesn't mean it's not the case!

Wind em up and watch em go - I'm going to respond -TROLL. That's been all the way through this thread.

littlesbadger I'm glad that your DD is well. She is no doubt the picture of health like most toddlers. However are you actually arguing that we should suppress the facts in order to make women feel less "guilt"? So where do we draw the line?

StealthPolarBear etc - if you read my post I didn't say 'anecdotal evidence' - what does that mean? I was pointing out that it was anecdote as opposed to evidence. Also there was no suggestion that the advice about breast milk being best is some kind of conspiracy. Utterly ridiculous, but, as you and your ilk have just proven yet again, the scientific evidence is used over and over for an emotional rant. Someone used the term 'artificial feeding'. Oh dear. And some nonsensical reference to wearing seat belts, as if feeding your child cow's milk with added vitamins etc is endangering its life.

Life was so much healthier before that perilous formula was invented wasn't it?

And re links between disease - if you were referring to me at all, although I'm sure if you actually read what I wrote you couldn't have been - my father - a heavy smoker died of lung cancer, my MIL, heavy drinker died of cirrhosis. I imagine those personal anecdotes will be OK with you.

Over exposure to the sun can cause skin cancer. SunLIGHT, I think you'll find, is an essential provider of vitamin D, a deficiency of which can increase your risk of breast and other cancers and cause softening of the bones, since it is needed for your body to absorb calcium - maybe you haven't had quite enough of it this year dearie. Better have a glass of milk to catch up.

x post littlestbadger

"Sorry, didn't actually mean to post." ah the venting post you never really mean to send, always comes and bites you on the arse

Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude to you, I just feel that these discussion should be allowed to happen. But I am sorry you had a bad experience.

Turniphead, the research has been done,and it is valid and the departmental of health recognises these links between breastfeeding and obeseity and diabetes. I don't have the links to hand and I'm off to bed but I just wanted to point out that there are areas where the health effects of formula feeding are manifesting in an unhealthy population, sure there are other factors but this is a long term public health issue which has hit the poorest hardest because the effects are greater because they can't afford fresh produce, gyms, better healthcare etc..

I would like to add that I did not say that formula was a dangerous substance as LVER suggests. I was merely pointing out that governments don't usually prioritise the health of the electorate over profit.

I "couldn't feed" my first DC for lots of reasons. All of them due to poor advice and my own ignorance. I do feel sad about this sometimes but I don't beat myself up about something which wasn't entirely my fault and I certainly wouldn't want to make anyone else feel upset or guilty so I apologise if my PP was taken out of context in that way.

MrsBates I apologise for flippancy but your post was EXASPERATING.
You admit yourself it's anecdotal.
You say "but think all the stuff about IQ and allergies etc is used to give formula feeding mothers a massive guilt trip by the breastfeeding mafia." [ANGRY] Formula and then a good diet can produce perfectly healthy, resilient children - it's blindingly obvious.

Yes a lot of stuff seems BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS until science proves otherwise.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

How many women took thalidomide and went on to have healthy babies?
I bet it was obvious to plenty of people that it was just scaremongering and trying to make woment feel bad!

Before you start, I am not equating ff with taking thalidomide through pg. Someone else brought it up as an example of when science goes wrong. Can you not see the analogy there?

I deleted that aargh
oops

What do you mean? Are you disputing the fact that the majority of children fed on formula re perfectly fit with fully functioning immune systems etc or are you waiting for a some scientific research to prove that is the case? As Turniphead1 points out, you can select your science just as you can select your anecdotes. It's nice to have your point of view reinforced. I doubt you are as EXASPERATED as I have been by the hostility - not an exaggeration - I have encountered from the heavy mob I mentioned when I mix a formula feed.

Maybe I should get a nice pashmina so I don't expose my teats in public.

No MrsBates I am not claiming that the majority of toddlers fed on formula are nothealthy. I have no idea as to the state of any child's immune system really.
But it has been proved that children fed on formula are more likely (not "definitely") to suffer from a list of ailments. It's all to do with probabilities and the existence of something which seems to contradict this does not change the facts.
Is the hostility you refer to on MN? Personally I see no reason to be hostile to a woman for formula feeding any more than breastfeeding. I would disapprove if she did neither. However that doesn't mean we should ignore all the facts and claim the two are equivalent, they are not. Formula feeding has risks (which is the same thing as saying breastfeeding has benefits)

I mentioned thalidomide. At the risk of being vilified for using another anecdote rather than some neat unsentimental statistics, a friend of mine is actually a thalidomide baby so the effects are very real to me. It was an example of science not always being right.

I also said earlier, not flippantly, that I imagine the evidence re the benefits of breastfeeding is right. It's just the way it's used and the belligerent attitude of some breast feeders, especially in these chat forums, that is damaging.

Giving up trying wasn't easy and many tears were shed - even before encountering the negativity I mentioned - by me I mean. Every time someone tries to point out that formula feeding is a perfectly good way to provide for your baby there is an outcry. Lots of people breast feed without becoming some kind of lactation fundamentalists.

OK let's stop talking about the "research" and actually look at one, specific, recent study (2007) into 16,000 babies, which concluded that bf babies were less likely to be seriously ill/hospitalised that those who were not bf:

Breastfeeding and Hospitalization for Diarrheal and Respiratory Infection in the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study
Maria A. Quigley, MSca, Yvonne J. Kelly, PhDb and Amanda Sacker, PhDb

a National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
b Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom

OBJECTIVE. The objective of this study was to measure the effect of breastfeeding on hospitalization for diarrheal and lower respiratory tract infections in the first 8 months after birth in contemporary United Kingdom.

METHODS. The study was a population-based survey (sweep 1 of the United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study). Data on infant feeding, infant health, and a range of confounding factors were available for 15890 healthy, singleton, term infants who were born in 2000?2002. The main outcome measures were parental report of hospitalization for diarrhea and lower respiratory tract infection in the first 8 months after birth.

RESULTS. Seventy percent of infants were breastfed (ever), 34% received breast milk for at least 4 months, and 1.2% were exclusively breastfed for at least 6 months. By 8 months of age, 12% of infants had been hospitalized (1.1% for diarrhea and 3.2% for lower respiratory tract infection). Data analyzed by month of age, with adjustment for confounders, show that exclusive breastfeeding, compared with not breastfeeding, protects against hospitalization for diarrhea and lower respiratory tract infection. The effect of partial breastfeeding is weaker. Population-attributable fractions suggest that an estimated 53% of diarrhea hospitalizations could have been prevented each month by exclusive breastfeeding and 31% by partial breastfeeding. Similarly, 27% of lower respiratory tract infection hospitalizations could have been prevented each month by exclusive breastfeeding and 25% by partial breastfeeding. The protective effect of breastfeeding for these outcomes wears off soon after breastfeeding cessation.

CONCLUSIONS. Breastfeeding, particularly when exclusive and prolonged, protects against severe morbidity in contemporary United Kingdom. A population-level increase in exclusive, prolonged breastfeeding would be of considerable potential benefit for public health.

abstract

I'm sorry that your friend has suffered from the effects of thalidomide and I can see why that would make it very real to you. I still stand by my point that there were probably hundreds of people shouting down the first few scientists to notice a link and saying they took it all through their pregnancies.
I hope that no one has a belligerant (sp?) attitude towards ff on an individual level, that's unnecessary and unpleasant, and if you can find me a thread where someone has expressed such a view (and hasn't been told where to go by everyone) then I'll be impressed. However, objecting to the slogan "breast is best" and the normalisation of ff is not the same thing.

'Artificial feeding' is a technical term, used in textbooks, MrsBates. Harpsi was using the term in that way, as part of a serious discussion.

Turniphead, you are right that every aspect of a post-6 mth diet cannot be controlled for, but large epidemiological studies control for socio-economic aspects, which can be a proxy for lifestyle/diet factors.

You really don't get research that shows 'wildly differing viewpoints' - the whole ethos of research is not to show 'viewpoints' but to look at evidence. If you mean ' research can come to opposite conclusions'....well, this is not the case with breastfeeding and formula. There is no research to show (for example) that breastfed babies are at a greater risk of obesity or diabetes or infections, or that breastfeeding lowers IQ. The nearest you can get to 'opposite conclusions' is the asthma research (but there are good explanations of why it appears contradictory).