So today I learned that gorillas nurse their young until they are 3 or 4....

[georgimama]

That's it really. Was at Bristol Zoo and the lovely keeper gave a talk about all their gorillas. They have a 23 month old baby and he is still nursing and apparently will continue to do so until he is about 3 or 4.

I just thought that was lovely. Seriously cute gorilla baby.

[VictorianSqualorSquelchNSquirm]

"Oh god vvvqv, did you have to put Guierilla feeding? I have this image of militant breastfeeders (sorry vs but the face is yours grin) sneaking up behind ff babies in Morrisons and shoviomng their norks into babies faces, mock- surreptitious style!"

Thanks Peachy!!!

Hunker, do you ever pick up your mail!

[SharpMolarBear]

It's much more likely she's about to start picking fleas of baby gorilla and saying he should be wearing a hat in this weather

[hunkermunker]

I wasn't asking you to go over anything, Rhubarb, simply saying I didn't say anything about cot death.

Sheesh!

[tiktok]

LOL at the MIL gorilla

She could, of course, be a nice hands-off breastfeeding counsellor gorilla, checking the attachment 'cos mamma says it's hurting.

[Rhubarb]

Yes but the Little Britain sketch is funny!
Where did the "bitty" thing originate anyway?

[onwardandupward]

Do you know, I think that is the first time I had ever said or typed the b word in any context.

Don't worry. I won't do it again. Actually, I do find the bitty concept pretty offensive, as an extended bf-er and in general as a wearer of breasts, but that MIL gorilla hovering is so clearly just itching to say "give the baby some formula and give yourself a break dearie" that I coudln't resist.

[Rhubarb]

Don't say "bitty" onward! That's rude dontcha know!

Hunker, I believe I addressed the points about ff babies in this country. I've no wish to go over them again.

Glad this has ended peacefully!

[onwardandupward]

Great picture. I like the MIL gorilla in the background, clearly gearing herself up to shout "BITTY!" in the bf gorilla's ear

[mabanana]

cute breastfeeding gorilla - don't look Expat!

[sweetgrapes]

[mabanana]

And I'm very bored and tired of fighting about it and I'm sure you are too!!

[mabanana]

Well it obviously could have been a bit clearer! Especially as I had no idea which 'debate' you were referring to. This has been a long and wide ranging thread (or debate) covering many different issues. It has not in any way been confined to whether you exaggerated the strength of any links between formula feeding and SIDS. Even in the post in which you mentioned 'sides' you covered different issues, and implied that there were two (to me mysterious) 'sides' involving many people of whom you were just one. I simply do not see myself on any 'side' on this issue. It's too important for that.
I saw one poster (not you) suggest this thread was all about 'formula feeders having issues', and I found that tediously reductive and inaccurate, but as it is a theme that tends to recur on these threads, it did occur to me that I was being lumped in with a so-called 'anti-breastfeeding 'side'. So maybe I should point out here that I've spent around three and a half years breastfeeding, loved it and felt I was doing the right thing for my babies and for me. I would love it if that cut my risk of breast cancer massively. I could do with something to counteract the grim possible effects of my wine habit, and my tubby tummy.

[tiktok]

I said 'side of the debate' - couldn't be clearer. The debate was whether it was ok to mention links or not - I am surprise that this was not clear but there you go. On Sat 12.03, you said the effect on feeding on br cancer was 'not massive' - this was in a post which countered previous posts, so if you did not mean to imply someone/people had implied it was massive, then I have misunderstood, sorry.

[ghosty]

WE ARE TIRED OF BEING 2ND CLASS MN CITIZENS

WE WANT COMPS!



OverseasmumsnetteRsunIteForfaIrtrEatment

[mabanana]

And I reiterate, I'm not on any 'side', whatever it is supposed to mean. I find the whole concept of it when discussing cancer, and the deaths of women and babies really so inappropriate.

[mabanana]

Tiktok, you actually said, "but it's clear which side of the debate you are targetting your posts at, so I make no apology for assuming I was 'in' with the others" - I don't know how was supposed to guess your apparently very specific meaning from this! And you know, putting a smiley doesn't really make it any nicer.

[mabanana]

Goodness me, Tiktok, how much can you misquote me? Are you going for a record? I most emphatically did NOT say that anyone had said the protective effect was "massive". You cannot find where I said this, because I did not. I merely said that at least one poster (no, not you) had raised the issue and talked about hundreds of mothers dying, and I merely wanted to put that in perspective and give more information from a highly reputable source.
You say, "The sides I was referring to were related to the debate about whether it was ok to even mention links or not - as you well know." Nope, you didn't give that impression at all, but of course, as your comment was rather obscure, and I felt, snide, it was hard to tell, hence my genuine bafflement as to what 'side' I was supposed to be on. As it happens, I thought, though was unsure, that you meant being pro or aginst breastfeeding. I still think the use of the word 'sides' - as in 'we know what side you are on' during a debate about babies dying is in poor taste.
I am hardly against giving information, am I? All I disputed was your description of the links between formula feeding and SIDS being (here we go again) 'robust' and 'uncontroversial' where 'possible' 'controversial' or 'unproven' might have been more appropriate and accurate words to use.

[tiktok]

And just for the record, not all sources agree the links between infant feeding and breast cancer mean the effect is 'small' .

The Lancet paper that published the results of the most extensive study to date on this had a different view. Cancer Research reported it as 'breastfeeding provides major protection against breast cancer' - here is the full report [[http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/archive/pressreleases/2002/july/40356

There are 2 ways of looking at this issue -
i) the public health view, which calculates the effect on a population level : " If women breastfed each of their children for an extra six months, it could prevent over 1,000 cases of the disease in Britain each year."

ii) the effect on an indivdual woman, which is impossible to calculate and for whom the increase in protection/risk is bound to be smaller

[tiktok]

mabananaa, the disingenuous, faux concern you express about me supposedly taking 'sides' on baby deaths is actually quite unpleasant. The sides I was referring to were related to the debate about whether it was ok to even mention links or not - as you well know.

I have never said anywhere what I think of the strength of the links between ff and SIDS - I entered the discussion to point out that many robust studies have found the link exists, and that is still the case.

Fine for you to report that the link between not bf and br cancer is small - my objection was that you pointed it out, you said, in order to counteract suggestions that the link was 'massive' - and no one, least of all me, had made that suggestion.

[hunkermunker]

"I appreciate what hunker and tiktok are saying, but I think that their views are a little extreme regarding cot death."

Have I said anything about cot death? That's a genuine query - I can't be arsed to search the thread, but I don't recall saying anything, extreme or otherwise. My point was and continues to be that you cannot say that no babies in this country die because they're ff.

[SharpMolarBear]

she was talking about sides of a debate, which this is. I don't think she meant any more than that.

[mabanana]

Tiktok, I think it is very sad that you see something as important as SIDS in terms of 'sides'. It's just this sort of inappropriately polarised thinking that causes a lot of people's problems with breastfeeding promotion. I am not taking 'sides' - I am, if anything, a facts pedant. I don't like it when people say things that are not backed up by good evidence be that 'the worldwide average age of weaning is 4.5years' or "I am reporting uncontroversial, long-standing and robustly evidence-based links between ff and cot death" when those any possible links are indeed controversial, and the the evidence is far from robust, and is indeed very mixed and contradictory. At best, the studies which do show a link say it is 'weak'.
While I'm sure you are usually extremely well informed, on this single point you made a mistake and perhaps inadvertently exaggerated the strength of the research, and that's fine. We all make mistakes. What I think is less fine is to pretend that to challenge it to take 'sides' (I'm not even sure what 'side' I am supposed to be on, actually)
As for my pointing out that the protective effect of breastfeeding on breast cancer is quite small, why are you so annoyed that I pointed that out, and why do you assume it's about 'sides' again? I felt as some people were saying that 'hundreds (thousands?) of mothers were dying because they didn't breastfeed', this might be scary or guilt-provoking for some women, and it would be interesting for everyone to see that the effect may well be smaller than you might think, and it is very unlikely indeed that not breastfeeding will mean you will die of breast cancer at at age when you will leave your children motherless. I really don't see why this is a bad thing that needs challenging. It's simply true.

[Rhubarb]

Sorry tiktok didn't mean to aim the whole developing countries debate at you.

I've tried to find article using your quote as a search term in Google, I can only find this that mentions bottlefeeding and it states that the findings are inconsistent.

But then I suppose whatever links there are that support your view, there will be other links that discredit them. Therefore we appear to be circling each other!

Sorry, have to go, roast duck ready!

[tiktok]

Mabanana - I have never said anything about 'proven' or 'unproven'. I have explained what I meant, and I stand by these links being based on strong evidence. I don't know how anyone can say a link is proven anyway - so telling me not to say it because you have shown it to be unproven makes no sense. I resent very much your accusation, mabanana, that I said ff was a cause of SIDS - I don't know how I could have been more clear that I was not saying it was a cause. You may say 'I didn't mean you, I meant other people, and it's not all about you, tiktok'....but it's clear which side of the debate you are targetting your posts at, so I make no apology for assuming I was 'in' with the others

Rhubarb - I haven't taken any part in the debate about other countries on this thread. I can't respond to that part of your post, even though you direct it at me. I think that part of the debate is confused and not very well-informed so I am staying out of it!

However, I have to ask you again to do some reading. You say, "The cot death debate runs along the same lines, that a bacteria present in formula milk may contribute to cot death" - there may be some speculation somewhere that formula milk contributes to SIDS via bacteria (and I think I do recall some discussion some years ago - pure hypothesising, and in any case if the baby died of an identifiable bacterial infection it is not SIDS). The 'cot death and formula' debate centres on the epidemiological links between formula feeding and SIDS, and how strong they are. I don;t think anyone on this thread has ventured to suggest why the link would be there - the speculation that does exist about the link that I think is worth taking seriously would be the way ff babies tend to sleep longer and more deeply which is not physiological, and which may mean that a vulnerable/sick baby may not rouse sufficiently to alert his carer. But this is speculation.

[tiktok]

whoops, sorry, mawbroon