Tiktok, I have every respect for you, you have given me great advice in the past and it pains me to have this kind of debate with you. I hope that we can have differing views and still remain friendly.
The reason I took my original standpoint is because I strongly disagree with people looking at other nations and saying "well they do it so that proves it must be good". As someone said early on in the thread, the developed world and the developing world have very different cultures. Reasons for bf in the developing world DO differ from reasons here. I don't think anyone can argue that it is much easier to ff in this country. If you are on a low income you get your formula for half the price or less. Our tap water is clean and sanitation generally good - i.e. we do all have access to flushing toilets.
In fact many people in the poorer areas of developing countries aspire to bottle feed their babies, believing it to be healthier thanks to companies such as Nestlé and because it's a symbol of how wealthy you are.
I don't see those assertations as racist, in fact I think that believing that developing countries breastfeed more and for longer is ignorant. In fact according to WHO, just 39% of infants from 94 developing countries were exclusively breastfed for up to 6 months. Much more than in the UK, but still not as huge a percentage as some people might think.
I used the sanitation and water hygiene statistics for these poorer areas when I made my assertation that ff babies don't die because they have been ff in this country. In developing countries such as Ethopia and Sudan, children are more likely to die because of the poor formula mix, because of the high contamination factors (see China) and because of the mix of dirty water and poor sanitation facilities, making diseases easier to catch. In this country, we don't have the same sanitation problems and we have access to clean water. But as hunker pointed out, our formula is just as likely to be contaminated. However our breastmilk is likely to be more contaminated than the breastmilk of mothers in developing countries because of our lifestyles. Uses of toxic cleaning products, paints etc etc have all found their way into our bodies and alarmingly, come out through the breastmilk.
It is rare that a baby in this country would die as a direct result of contamination of formula milk. It would be a huge scandal if it did. The formula may contribute due to the contamination, but the links are not proven.
The cot death debate runs along the same lines, that a bacteria present in formula milk may contribute to cot death. But again evidence is scarce and atm it's all hypothesis. Yes we should be aware of this, but my opinion is that ff mothers are bashed enough as it is. There are many reasons mothers choose to bf, for some it may not even be a choice and so I think that banding around statements like "your baby is twice as likely to die from cot death if it is formula fed" to be callous and insensitive.
As PhDiva said, I feel I am batting away random attacks that have nothing to do with my original argument.
I hope this can end on a friendly note. Even though I am naturally devastated to have lost the respect of vvqv!