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

at Monkies.

I think I went right off Cornish when she used her 10 years experience as a health economist to try and look as if she knew what she was talking about when it comes to research and bf.

It was plain as day that she is the very worst sort of 'expert' - the sort who doesn't know a great deal but does not let that put them off stating misleading 'facts'and arguing incoherently.

When one has to resort to their occupation (don't you know who I am...) and not on the strength of their argument, it's a bit sad.

Not that I agree with Tik Tok all the time (the cream cake debate for instance )but she argues on the basis of fact.

cream cake debate?
OK, I'm going to ask, feel free to tell me that in the same way as Spiderman your air of mystery all adds to the persona (I think you have said that!)
Tiktok, I've been dying to ask for a while, do you post anywhere other than infant feeding? Do you have DCs? Tell us stuff about yourself?
(I've never been able to phrase that without looking like a mad stalker or worse, look like I'm challenging you, which I'm NOT, just curious about an MN oldie that we know so little about....actually thining that through I'm guessing it's because you want it that way. Sorry)

Cream cakes.....? All I can recall of this is being pretty derisory towards the advice from a mw/hv to eat cream cakes to improve milk supply, and I would stick with that.

SPB - I do sometimes post elsewhere on mumsnet, though rarely. Sorry - there are reasons why I don't give much info about myself, but I do have children, I am an NCT bfc, there are aspects of my professional life too that permit me to delve into the research side of infant feeding. And that's all I'm saying

But you're not opposed to cream cakes? Just don't consider them obligatory?

xx

Fair enough! Can I just say that cloak really suits you

I admire tiktok so much. She is incredibly well informed and unfailingly courteous to posters.
Unless they are spouting unadulterated crap.

How can it be nutritionally useless??? why is cows milk thought better of than human milk?

to charlie!

Just to point out about iron stores running out at 6mths- they don't, they gradually start to depleat because up until that point the baby uses the stores it was born with. That is why weaning onto solids and not off the breast is recommended at around 6mths, because iron is required from other sources. Cows milk has less iron content per 100ml compared to breastmilk and hence it is 'fortified' with iron. This misleads mothers into believing that the formula is more iron rich than breastmilk. It isn't.
Anaemia ia common in children between 9mths and 2.5yrs regardless of feeding method.

And, the iron in breastmilk is much more "bio-available" than the iron in "fortified" cows milk, so for all that there is more iron in formula, most of it passes straight through, where-as the iron in breastmilk is absorbed and utilised.

cornish: "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."

Yep. And this is integral to FFing, however careful a mother is. And the infection data shows it is valid in the UK setting.

So I don't understand the point cornish is making. The infection risk exists if infants are not bf.

Also disagree with the comment about not shouting about benefits so that mothers can mske a choice.
Surely your choice should be an informed one?
Given that most of us don't have the time or expertise to really critique the literature appropriately, having someone who is prepared to summarise it allows a choice based on the available information and personal circumstances.

I have definitely benefitted from the expertise of regular posters here (lurks a lot) thank you tiktok and others.

Tiktok - for a number of reasons I won't go into here, I have had to go on a course of drugs that are totally incompatible with breastfeeding. I was initially told by my French GP that I could take the pills at night and then breastfeed in the morning.

I rang SOLDIDARILAIT, the French breastfeeding support network, who spoke to a senior breastfeeding expert/Pharmacist at a hospital in Paris who rang me back at 10.00 at night and talked through all the possible combinations and how I could manage to breastfeed and take the course of drugs.

We reached a compromise - her idea of high dosage for 4 days and then breastfeeding 6th day to allow residue to dissipate, with a breastpump in the interim, as opposed to the original px for a two weeks course.

So, the reason I am hijacking is that, after all my banging on about the complete and total lack of breastfeeding support or knowledge here in France - they have come up trumps. Totally. And if you ever need a contact here iN France, I am more than happy to put you in touch!

hijack over. Sorry!>>

Glad you got what sounds like brilliant and timely help, gggg.

A good source of info about drugs and bf on the web is
toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT

Thanks for that link Tiktok. Continuing this digression - should someone have questioned the cocodamol I was taking post-cs as I had a sleepy, v. slow to gain baby?

xx

There has been some recent concern about codeine and bf, wasting - a google should help you find it. But paracetamol - no controversy as far as I know. IIRC, the codeine concern was with a small minority of babies who turned out to be v. sensitive to the low levels of codeine in the milk. Don't think it made them sleepier, though I might be wrong.

Yeah, it's just the codeine element. It looks like some babies are at risk of extreme reaction and death, but that many babies will have a bad reaction, as it's basically morphine, and can make them sleepy. He was sleeping for 6/7 hours and I was unable to wake him for feeds. Great! And I insisted on something more than paracetamol for the pain, so it's just another thing to feel guilty about. Poor little bugger!

xx

On the codeine thing... (Just googled stuff because I was on co-codamol for a while after my c-section)

It looks like a small amount of women have duplicate copies of a particular gene and this increases their metabolisation of codeine to morphine, meaning they have high levels of morphine in the blood and therefore their milk.

The risk is low but the symptoms are a very sleepy baby. The study found this gene was present in about 1% of Caucasian women (higher in Ethiopian and I think Southern European, although I can't remember).

I've gone and closed the window now but I'm sure anyone can find it quickly on google.

Bloody Hell, I took cocodamol in large amounts for the first 8 or 9 months of DD1's life (for a prolapsed disked courtesy of birthing in stirrups!) but the little Minx never slept for more than 3 hours at a time, typical!!!

Oh, he's barely slept since! Making up for it!

xx