was shocked by the amount of bottle-feeders in hospital

[misdee]

found it quite upsetting at times. my bed was by the empties 'bottle bank', so saw how many people on the ward were bottle feeding. in the 4 days i was there, there were 10 women on the ward in total, and only myself and another lady was breastfeeding. The midwives offered help to everyone, but most decided on bottles.

the reason i found it upsetting was because i didnt want dd3 to have formula but that choice was basically taken away from me whilst she was SCBU and was given formula by tube.

The link with between childhood diabetes & breast/bottle feeding is very much not proven, I could go into detail, but it's very controversial -- AAP says there is a link, Juvenile Diabetes Association says there isn't, etc. A very large randomised 5(?) year study is currently ongoing to try to settle the issue.

I think a lot of people get very defensive about the choice of bottlefeeding when... they didn't. Choose I mean. They failed to successfully breastfeed, which is very sad, but not the same at all as somebody who decided it was too disgusting/weird/whatever to even try.

Eulalia
I would have thought that the person saying that bottlefed babies will be sicker than breasfed should provide the proof of their argument first.

Did I say I wasn't posting again? - I lied.

Eulalia - if I understand you - you are saying that there are not a lot of bottle fed, fully functioning adults around? and the proof is that they are unhealthy with heart disease, cancers and diabetes and these illnesses have been caused because they weren't breastfed?

Incredible!

I bottlefed because I was too lazy to breast feed and not ashamed to admit it.Did not want to have to get up in the night every night.My husband was able to help me out with the feeds because I used formula.I tried breatfeeding and it really hurt.It was hell!Why did nature make breastfeeding so painful for some women?

Bfing v. hard work for some of us. Give it a try & if you can't bear it, stop!

great post sansouci, inasmuch as it's succint, neutral and answers the question succinctly (sorry I sound like a teacher but it's a bit early in the morning here)

Shame this turned in to a dog fight.
dogfight... geddit? Geddit?

Gotcha, suzywong! I am a teacher... but would have been better as a diplomat (or so I'm told).

ah that explains it

I made the teacher comment because I have a morbid fear of sounding like my mother who was a headmistress....but that's another story

mrsdoorframe, I breastfed for exactly the same reason - I was too lazy to bottlefeed Just goes to show that the same 'problem' can have different solutions depending on the people who face it. Blimey, surely not because of something as simple as...human nature?!

GdiG, I answered Wanda's question about bottle fed babies having a greater risk of being sicker than bf babies with an uncontroversial example about gastroenteritis. You choose to question it because you don't know anyone who has had a baby with g/e (which astonishes me, as all it is is D&V and maybe I know different people, but I certainly know plenty of babies who have had that, including my own).

I give up. If you want to know the stats for hospital admissions for babies with g/e they are there somewhere. I could find the reference. I could write it here for you. But because you don't know anyone to whom this has happened, it won't be something that changes your mind. I might tell you that g/e is the commonest reason for hospital admission of children under one. But it won't count, because you don't know anyone who it's happened to.

I do agree, BTW, that many people make up their minds on all sorts of things, from what movie to see to what to feed their babies on, using their friend's experience rather than a google. But in a discussion, we can go a little beyond our immediate back yard...surely?

Wanda asked, I answered, and it still doesn't register as something that's correct.

I don't know of any evidence that people whose babies are admitted to hospital with g/e are dirtier than others, BTW.

tiktok you are very knowledgeable on your subject - no-one can deny that, however your last paragraph does nothing for harmonious debating. GDG never mentioned the word 'dirty' and methinks you are being sensationalist.

I have been googling on gastroenteritis in infants and all the sites I have looked at have mentioned inadequate hand washing after going to the toilet as being the main cause for spreading viral gastroenteritis - GDG had a valid point.

misdee i asnt given the choice in the beggining as soon as he was born cleaned and weighed they gave him a bottle i was alowed to give him the last drop then they took him away and force feed him another bottle

mummytojames, why did that happen?

I think the example given here of difficulties bf premature babies are interesting. It's of course premature babies who need bf more than anyone. In Sweden mothers will either bf their babies IF THEY CAN or there are bottle-banks where mothers who have got a lot of milk can donate their milk to be used for babies whose mums can bf.
This is not a criticism against mums of premature babies who cannot bf in this country by the way, just shows how behinf Britain is in facilitating bf. I offered to donate my milk to the hospital when I had DS1 because I had so much. I offered to come once a day with a donation, but they just looked at me as if I was mad. Does anyone know if any hospitals do this?

By the way- very good post by Karaj. I used to indirectly work for a big multi-national and saw first-hand how they marketed their formulae milk in third world countries. As the uptake of bf increases in the western world, third world-mums are targeted. Si immoral.

Someone here is saying that the difference between the health and well-being of a BF baby and non-BF is so small that BF is probably a utter waste a time. Were do you get such rubbish from ? Do you work for a formula company ? I am not even going to apologise if that remark offends you.

In many cases, as I have tried to indicate here in a logical manner, the difference bewteen a BF baby and formula-fed baby is LIFE AND DEATH. I find it really, really shallow that some people on this website are only interested in the UK and their own immediate neighbourhood and have absolutely no interest in women and babies living in other countries.

1.5 million (WHO statistics) babies are dying in poor countries because they are not BF.

Could you please explain to me how that is a SMALL difference ? Are you so selfish to suggest that you would go around telling women in Sub-Saharan Africa for example (one of the poorest regions in the world) that the diiferences are so small they shouldn't bother?

I am sorry, but that as irresponsible and anti-human life as the Pope telling people all over the 3rd World not to use condoms. So it is better to spread AIDS and die from an AIDS-related illness than to offend God, because God (according to many religions, not just Catholics) does not approve of pre-marital sex and contraception ?

Please do not spread misinformation on this website.

Hmmm..yes, but, well........Karaj, I agree with your posts about third world, but the difference between formulae milk and breast milk for these babies are much much bigger than for western babies because the formulae is mixed with dirty water and also these babies need the nutrition they get from their mums so much more. I think WHO recommends bf up to 2 or is it 3 years and that is mostly relevant for poorer countries I think. I think these are two different discussion really, but I think it's interesting to see how immoral and ruthless companies who make formulae milk often are.....

A lot of the posts have annoyed me on this thread and if I thought for a minute that those posting were open to other opinions and prepared to discuss them reasonably, I might have considered contributing properly to this (what should be) interesting thread. I thought mumsnet was all about open discussion and sharing of ideas. I welcome different opinions and strong cases put forward but I hate to see people deliberately twisting words around to score points and very inflammatory language used as a way of helping their point along rather than better explained opinons or facts.

Karaj - I think you have deliberately chosen to misinterpret the poster?s comments and it was really unnecessary to talk about the sub-saharan African plight in this way. FGS, she was NOT deliberately spreading misinformation around the net, she was just offering her opinion on a different angle of this topic entirely. Sure, one that I disagree with a bit, but don?t think for a minute she was doing what you basically accused her of. Please get the argument into a sense of proportion and relevance. If you wish to bring the global picture into it, do so but not in such a way to score points off some else. I know that my comments will annoy you if you read them - strange really, as I actually agree with your point of view quite strongly. I am annoyed that your post because it was put in such a way that IMO you lost the relevance of it by your aggressive and accusing tone. Hope that makes sense - just couldn?t let it lie as I was too cross!

Fairymum WHO recommends bfing to at least 2 years (and then beyond if desired) for everyone. It's not just for poorer countries.

Fairymum, re milk banks, there are not so many as there used to be due to fears about HIV and Aids.
Went to a fascinating talk by a m/wife who set one up in Countess of Chester Hospital (Chester!)

No, I know that, but I think the relevance is more for poorer countries.

The person who was making assertions about the "small" differences was talking about the UK and the industrialised world, I gather.

FairyMum - I agree that the differences are far greater in poorer countries. But I do not agree that the differences in the so-called industrialised world are so small that they are negligible.

As an example, my DS now 8 mo has only had one minor cold in 8 months. Thank goodness he has never been seriously ill. This is despite the fact that DH and I have both had 2 quite bad episodes of flu in the past 2 months (high temp, very bad throat infection, etc). DS recovered quickly from his cold and never went through the horrible viral infection that we had as adults (with supposedly better immune systems).

No one has ever been able to invent a formula to match the anti-bacterial and antibody qualities of human milk. And you can't really agrue with that. Well, you can, but you would be wasting your time in my case, because nothing is going to convince me that "formula is as good as breastmilk", no matter what part of the world you live in.

I haven't actually seen any postings at all which suggest that bottlefeeding is as good as breastfeeding. I have see posts which say that mums shouldn't be pressured into doing something that deosn't feel right for them. Oh yes and I did challenge someone's sweeping statement that although breastfed babies may get ill they won't ever get as ill as the bottlefed babies. Tosh.

I haven't actually seen any postings at all which suggest that bottlefeeding is as good as breastfeeding. I have see posts which say that mums shouldn't be pressured into doing something that deosn't feel right for them. Oh yes and I did challenge someone's sweeping statement that although breastfed babies may get ill they won't ever get as ill as the bottlefed babies. Tosh.

bathmummy - thanks for your comments. I have no intention of scroring points off someone else. I try to base what I say on logic and scientific fact. It is quite normal for a logical individual to get irritated when they read rubbish.

The person in question sounded quite categorical in her assertion that the differences are small. I would rather that person spoke for themselves than have somone else "interpret" what she was trying to say. To me she sounded like she didn't know what she was talking about.

wanda - sorry but that is a crazy thing to say! Are you seriously suggesting that the whole medical and research establishment in this country, and indeed the entire world are talking "tosh".... on what basis do you make this what is the most entire sweeping statement of all.

If you really need evidence - although any simple search on the internet will reveal it then I shall give you it....