I expect this article will make some people very angry

[GinaFjord]

the case against breastfeeding

blueash....you're wrong! The research on the health effects of bf and ff has been done in recent times, when formula was commercially packaged and sterilisation routine.

I'm glad you had no problems. Many women do have problems and need good information and support. Misinformation about the health messages being to do with homemade formula in the 'olden' days does not help

neenztwins - just to add, that in the UK, babies who are formula fed, or partially formula fed, are more likely to need hospitalisation in the first months of life (big study, large cohort of something like 15,000 babies, done very recently - stats at Baby Friendly if you search for them). Now, even in the UK a hospital stay is not a good thing - babies survive, of course, and they have, usually, no long term effects. But it's no fun and the experience is sad for all the family.

These babies get older and the hosp. stay is forgotten about, usually, for all everyday purposes - and you may not know which babies in your circle had this experience. But their risks of having it were increased becauase of ff.

"but I know lots of babies who are FF and they are absolutely fine, healthy, thriving babies".

One in five women smoke throughout pregnancy and many more eat inadequate diets. Can you see the problems of poor prenatal nutrition and of smoking in pregnancy manifest in the children around you? I can't. Most of the babies born to smokers are fine - you can't tell by looking at them that they've been being slowly poisoned all thoughout their gestation. I also can't tell which children in the playground are eating too much salt or sugar at home. My brothers little boy (age 4) eats no fresh fruit or veg at all - he lives on sausages, cheese and white bread. He looks just as robust as my children who eat really healthily. If the health disadvantages of our actions were obvious to us we wouldn't have been eating liver in pregnancy and putting our babies to sleep on their fronts for decades before research found these things were risky.

Every baby is different so comparisons of individuals are completely meaningless. A breastfed baby may be less healthy than his bottlefed brother, but he'll still be more healthy than he would have been had he been bottlefed himself.

I think I should add that I am somewhat older than the rest of you, I came on the site via a search about IUGR because my granddaughter had that.

When I was a breast feeding counsellor women stayed in hospital until the cord came off and we could visit a hospital ward for a couple of hours 2 or 3 times a week and see the same women. When you have nothing else to do but feed your baby for a fortnight and you have expert help readily available breastfeeding is far easier to establish.

Those were the days of 6,10,2 feeds as well because the midwives had to make up the formula in batches for lots of babies at a time and and demand feeding of bottle fed babies was not feasible.

So compare the chore of bottle feeding plus the health issues with the ease of breastfeeding in comfort with no toddlers to watch and run after, no work to return to and you can see why "breast is best" became a slogan.

Also you milk supply was really easy to establish because when you had finished feeding your own baby you would be encouraged to donate milk to the premature babies. They put you on an electric pump and you body thought it had to produce milk for more than one baby.

Blueash, again, you are misinformed. When mothers were on postnatal wards for the two weeks you describe (probably from about 1950 to about 1975) breastfeeding rates plummeted...the reason they fell was at least partly to do with the fact that babies were routinely kept in nurseries and their feeds were scheduled.

Rates of bf began to go up again around the late 70s - this co-incided with shorter post-natal stays, 'rooming in' of babies with their mothers, and less strict scheduling.

Thanks for the link Tiktok.

There are studies that show FF babies are:

more likely to be overweight
more likely to have type 1 diabetes
more likely to suffer diarhoea
more likely to suffer UTIs

Unfortunately I don't understand the jargon wrt the stats. eg "A protective effect was found for exclusive breastfeeding longer than five months (odds ratio 0.54, 95 per cent confidence interval 0.36-0.81) and for total breastfeeding longer than 7 months (0.56, 0.38-0.84) or 9 months (0.61, 0.38-0.84)."

What does odds ratio and per cent interval mean?

It's proven that FF babies are more likely to suffer the above ailments but how much more likely? eg if the incidence of a BF baby being overweight is 1 in 1,000 and for an FF baby it's 2 in 1,000 then that is double the risk, but it is still a very small risk either way.

What I am saying is there is no doubt that BFing is best for baby, but exactly how much worse is FFing when you look at 1:1,000 v 2:1,000 etc. Again, I am not trying to be controversial, I am genuinely interested.

You're right to moan about tech jargon, neenz...things are far easier to understand in proper numbers.

I do understand stats, as long as I have the text book open beside me to remind me!

You could post this on a thread elsewhere and ask for a stats boffin to explain - post some of the figures.

OK, I might do that Tiktok. It just takes me back to when my mum was on HRT and there was all the fuss about HRT making you more likely to get breast cancer... when Mum looked into it it was a 3.2% chance of getting breast cancer with no HRT, 3.7% with oestrogen HRT and 5.1% with combined HRT. Yes, that is an increased risk, but it is still a small risk overall.

So when we are told that FF babies are 'more likely' to be sick/obese/diabetic etc it is pretty meaningless because 'more likely' could be the smallest of increase in chance and could therefore support the argument that FF is 'a close second' to BF.

What I mean is we need to see the actual figures before we conclude that FF is not a 'close second' to BF.

I can tell you the differene is not slight, though, neenz - much more marked than the HRT stats you give.

Take the hospitalisation study (you can read all of it on the web - search
Breastfeeding and Hospitalization for Diarrheal and Respiratory Infection in the
United Kingdom Millennium Cohort Study). They try to put some of their findings into numbers. LRTI is lower respiratory tract infection - in babies, usually bronchiolitis or some similar non-life threatening chest infection.

"Exclusive breastfeeding
protects against hospitalization for diarrhea and LRTI. It
is estimated that 53% of diarrhea hospitalizations could
have been prevented each month if all infants were
exclusively breastfed, and 31% could have been pre-
vented if all were partially breastfed. Similarly, 27% of
LRTI hospitalizations could have been prevented each
month by exclusive breastfeeding and 25% by partial
breastfeeding."

If you keep looking at studies you will find some 'plain numbers' ones.

4.3 per cent of babies are admitted to hosp. in the first 8 mths with diarrohoea or LRTI, BTW.

There are of course many more babies who have these conditions and dont go to hospital. You'd need to add the plain no. studies on to them for a full picture.

This is my first foray into a breast feeding debate for some time. I had heard but did not believe that the support and guidance formerly offered on the topic had been had been supplanted by threats of dire consequences for failure.

Does anyone really expect to influence/persuade new mothers by terrifying them? I am all for "it's better for the baby and better for you and I will help/show you".

Anything else is bullying.

Who's talking about dire consequences, blueash?

Neenz asked for information so she could better judge for herself what the impact of formula or breast would be....I tried to help by pointing her in the direction of some research and we discussed the diffculty of interpreting it. Do you think I should have said 'I don't know the answer to your question' in case someone thought diarrhoea and LRTI was a 'dire consequence'???

And I resent your implication that I am bullying.

I am not influencing or persuading - I am sharing information.

Neenz- come back for goodness sake and tell blueash you are not terrified!

Sheesh....

I am really pissed off now !!

Blueash, what do you do when your approach 'it is better for the baby and better for you and I will show you' produces the perfectly intelligent question 'in what way is it better and by how much?' Do you say 'I'm not telling you because it's scary' or 'I have no idea - just believe me'???

I found the study here

It says that 12 in 100 babies (FF or BF) are admitted to hospital by 8mo.
1 in 100 is admitted for diarrhoea
3.2 in 100 for LRTI

50% of these admissions could have been avoided by exclusive BFing

therefore
1 in 200 FF babies is admitted to hospital with diarrhoea which would have been avoided if they had been BF
1.6 in 100 FF babies are admitted with LRTI which would have been avoided if BF.

So if your baby is FF, he has a 0.5% chance of being admitted to hospital with diarrhoea by 8mo, and a 1.6% chance of being admitted with LRTI. All babies whether FF or BF have a 1% and 3.2% chance.

If I have read those stats correctly, then that to me is not a greatly increased risk.

The use of 53% and 31% makes things sound massively overwhelming when actually they are not because you are talking about very small numbers in the first place.

x-posted there... no I am not terrified. Tiktok and I sing from the same hymn sheet. I am very pro-BF, I support many friends who Bf, I absolutly believe BFing is best for baby and I wish it was the norm in this country and that everyone did it and there was the right supprt for it. I also want to become a BFing counsellor in the future (bit busy right now!). I am just questioning exactly HOW MUCH better it is for baby, because from what I see in my world (ie no sick FF babies) there seems to be little difference.

Blueash I thought your earlier post about staying in hospital for 2 weeks and pumping to increase supply was very telling - it showed that if women get the right support in the early days the majority will be successful at BFing. If only it was like that now...

Surely it's about long term health as well though - not just how many babies are hospitalised with gastroenteritis etc?
there are so many factors breastfeeding influences aren't there?
I'd be interested to see some more stats.

I just think you have a volatile disposition if you get be upset and pissed off so easily. Calm down it is only a chat room.

Definitely, goingnowherefast. But I predict we'd see similar levels (eg 50% of babies affected by longer-term effects could have avoided it if BF).

this is an interesting article I just found by googling. It seems to say that, yes, there is an increased risk of SIDS, ear infections, LRTI, diarrhoea etc but it is a very small increase (and the increased risk of SIDS is not statistically significant).

Just going back to your seat belt analogy Tiktok, I think that is a bit naughty because babies do die through not wearing a seat belt, but no babies die because they are not BF (unless FF is used incorrectly), and some are hospitalised because they are BF if the BFing is not going very well and the baby gets dehydrated.

Got to go now to make the DTs' tea but I'll be back later after putting them in bed .

Thanks neenztwinz. That was an interesting article.
Is it not correct that some babies could die as a result of not being bf - if it increases the risk of childhood cancers not to bf? I have seen this claim before, no idea of its validity. I'm just learning a lot from this thread and interested to challenge some of my own views.
Also Tiktok did say she wasn't comparing formula feeding to not wearing a seatbelt in terms of seriousness I think.

Blueash, I do get cross and pissed off when I am accused of bullying, and when I am accused of deliberately scaring people...you are new on the site and dont know me at all, or what I do here, and yet you think it's perfectly acceptable to jump in and criticise, and then have the cheek to tell me to calm down when I protest!

neenz - I dont know how I could have made it clearer. I was using the seat belt thing as a way of contrasting appreciation of statistics, and explained this.