Nutritional value past 1 year - the truth please!

[muddler]

So medical profession and various books say there is no nutritional value in human milk past a year. I am still bfing 1 yo ds morning and night as he loves it (and I love the cuddles) and he won't drink any other milk from any ither vessel!
Is it really nutritionally useless? Might as well wean if it s, having my boobies back would also be nice

Give her a chance, TikTok, if her cats are anything like mine she probably hasn't managed to worm them yet!

Yes I would very much like Nancy to link to any instances where you gave wrong and dangerous information.

The thing is my son is now 10.5mo, so approoaching the one year mark.
I'm pretty sure that as soon as he reaches his 1st birthday a switch isn't thrown so that he starts not needing breastmilk and start demanding moo juice!

Bouncing, it was Nancy whose disappearence I noted - not cornishzulu's

To Tiktok

I owe you and all the other posters another apology: Having now dewormed cats, spent my money and re-read emails to various colleagues from over a year ago - I can concede the mistake was mine. The cut-off date was 12 weeks not six. So, there you go. Babies benefit unconditionally from exclusive breastfeeding for the first 12 weeks of their lives.

I can only blame it on extreme exhaustion and a poor memory at the mo due to many many many sleepless nights with wailing infant, but I hope that in the spirit of MN discussions, my apology will be accepted.

Now, to the original point - I interpreted Muddler's initial question as asking whether her baby would be detrimentally affected by withdrawing BF at this point. She quoted medical opinion on the subject. My answer was no, and I stick by it.

The Millenium Cohort study found delays in fine and gross motor skills in babies who were not BF or BF for less than 2 months. I cannot locate the hospitalisation data you refer to.

The point here is whether there are significant marginal gains in immune protection or nutrition after 12 weeks, and I can't find any good research to support this.

When I had to make my decision about converting to formula with DS, I too read many research articles. But there is a difference between being asking as a researcher and asking as a mother. Motherhood has been one panic-stricken episode after another for me despite my professional background. And like every mum on this Forum, I only wanted to do the best for DS - hence asking GPs and colleagues. That was not my only resource.

And while I agree with you about lobbying for BF and making it more socially acceptable, I disagree vehemently that individual cases and queries must be dealt with purely against this background. Muddler, who asked a legitimate question, has been alienated by the posts and that can't be a good thing.

Hopefully the more robust amongst us will stay and thrash this out but we all need to be more careful and sensitive in our posts...me included.

Thanks Tiktok for engaging in this discussion - I am not being facetious, I really do appreciate the defense of your position. And honestly, like you - I believe that BF is a wonderful thing and absolutely agree that it should be aggressively promoted where appropriate.

Bouncing

The cats were extra evasive today!!

You still didn't answer me!

Are you saying that the WHO lies to us?

xx

Ermintrude:

"If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle." Rita Mae Brown

I'm still feeding DD at 19 months - for us its the right thing to do and I don't have plans to stop in the near future. She takes a huge amount of pleasure and comfort from breastfeeding and at the moment I can't justify to myself why depriving her of that is a good thing for us as a family. If she gets nutrition and immunological support as well, so much the better

Wasting

I never said that WHO lied. A policy recommendation is just that - a recommendation. WHO's recommendation is based on very good data - but that data does not necessarily apply to every situation equally.

The UK parallel would be the Govt issuing guidelines recommending no alcohol consumption in pregnancy because data from a limited sample of women shows alcohol abuse. I don't want to start a parallel debate about alcohol in pregnancy as this has been covered - but hopefully you can see what I mean.

None of this is to suggest that BF is not entirely positive for women and babies who can do it.

Thank you. That isn't what you said initially, and it sounded like 'oh that only applies to third-world countries' that we hear too often. Presumably they have more evidence that it is beneficial than that it isn't?

xx

I appreciate your response, cornish, thank you.

The cut off date is not 12 weeks, though. I think your colleagues must have been thinking of the Dundee cohort study which found benefits were significant into toddlerhood if the mum breastfed to 13 weeks, regarding gastro and resp infections; the same team looked at the same cohort aged 7-8 and found "exclusive breast feeding is associated with a significant reduction in childhood respiratory illness" and their finding was that this emerged if excl bf went on to 15 weeks. These are classic studies, published in the BMJ in the 90s, but still of great value. Note the team do not look at every aspect of child health but as gastro and resp infection are to do with immunity, of course, the strong inference is that immunological benefits are the underlying mechanism by which bf babies lower their risk of these conditions. Search on Howie if you want to know more - but I have just checked and my facts are correct.

Kramer at al found in their work (taken up and disseminated by WHO which was a systematic review, and the same conclusion shows up in subsequent studies in many settings, inc the developed world, that infection is reduced right the way through the excl bf period ie 6 mths.

You can find the Millennium Cohort hospitalisation study here:

pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/119/4/e837 - almost 16000 babies in the cohort, study found risks of gastro and resp infection needing hosp treatment increased if babies not excl bf. UK babies, controlled for socio-economic factors.

Thanks for admitting your error, but you are still pretty wrong!

I absolutely appreciate your concerns as a mother and your wish to do the best for your baby - and you clearly did, in a thoughtful and careful way. But what you can't do is then come on here, and report what 2 GPs and some ex-colleagues told you as fact - because this is not fair to mothers who need the best information they can get.

cornish, you are in knots now.

The WHO policy informs their Global Strategy which is a document for (erm...) the whole Globe, for all babies. Of course WHO and any other NGO/government/organisation is wise to make a distinction between what is recommended as policy and what is applied to individual infants. The policy (and strategy) is based on huge amounts of data - I cannot believe you are implying somehow the samples are small, and you cannot have read it if you think that - and while that huge amount of data can never be the last word, it is a pretty good basis for decision-making on what to tell mothers and what to tell governments when it comes to strategies to improve infant health.

Telling people that there are no immunological or nutritional benefits to breastfeeding after 12 weeks in a UK setting - as you did - is misleading, unhepful and undermining, and this cannot have been your intention.

this study in Spain found a significant difference in hospital admissions betwenn infants bf to 4 months, and those fed to 4-6 months.

Oh, and the iron thing: this study shows that babies still have excellent ferritin levels at 6 months

(I have been distracted by the Chen study Nancy mentioned and, with luck, will review it in due course. Tis fascinating and doesn't support her precis of it at all)

Interesting study - again, we are talking about gastro and resp illness, which while not life threatening in the West, are pretty miserable conditions for a little one to go through, esp if bad enough to need hospital treatment

I meant the Spanish study - I have not read the Chen work, MrsB.

(their n was 25)

Yep - iron.

'Fraid that's another boo-boo, cornish You did say 'well-established fact' that iron stores 'run out' at 6 mths. Happily, as I said, they don't

25, MrsB?

As opposed to, say, 16,000 in the Millennium Cohort, eh?

Where is Nancy?

Surely that is the point: the job of government and WHo is to make recommendations that fit everyone...but it can't and that has nothing to do with sample size. I never said it did.

Furthermore to quote the Kramer review: ^Although infants should still be managed individually so that insufficient growth or
other adverse outcomes are not ignored and appropriate interventions are provided, the available evidence demonstrates no apparent risks in recommending, as public health policy, exclusive breastfeeding for the first
6 months of life in both developing and developed country settings.^

This is not the same as saying that exclusive breastfeeding confers universal immunological and nutritional benefits.

Just read the Hospitalisation study and have to agree that it is very convincing, but there is something that remains unclarified in this research, i.e the incidence of infection that may be attributable to contamination of bottles, teats, milk, and food in infants who are not exclusively breastfed.

I thought that the point of MN was to share personal experiences, and not for posters to tell other posters what they can and can't do.

And finally: a genuine question for you: at what age should BF cease?

"at what age should bf cease"?

For whom? My baby? When she jolly well wants I should think. Before 35 I hope. What a strange question.

when ds was in hospital, he had low iron and the staff did associate this with extended bf. he is also vegetarian, but they made the point that they saw a lot of 'older' babies who were anaemic and breastfed. can anyone comment? i would like to continue part time, but am aware that formula might be more sensible?

stroppyknickers, keep bf and give him some iron. There's more to milk than iron. It could also be the case that they only remember the anaemics who were breastfed because of their prejudice.

xx

I've been reviewing the literature on this on PubMed, and toddler anaemia is most associated with: poor diet, low birthweight, and intake of cows milk or other milk in large quantities (ie not eating solids, just drinking milk of whatever type).

When you think about the numbers, it also doesn't make sense that they would see 'a lot' of older babies who were bf and anaemic - in the 2005 feeding survey, by 10 months 78% of women had ceased breastfeeding, and 96% were giving the baby milk other than breastmilk as well. After 12 months the number bfing is much lower than 78% (not detailed in the survey)and I'd guess that probably less than 1% of babies don't get milk other than breastmilk at that point. The incidence of anaemia/iron deficiency (which, btw, is set at a figure which seems to be contraversial) is 12%. So the number of extended breastfed, anaemic toddlers is tiny.

Best to keep breastfeeding and keep offering the dried apricots ! Add a vitamin supplement if you are really worried

my stack request for the Chen article has been returned

can't believe the [insert internationally-renowned lib here] doesn;t have it!

abstract here for Tiktok, cmot, welliemum etc