If you have an arsey comment about breastfeeding

[SunglassesPolarBear]

come and say it here please, let's get them all out in the open and in one place.
So far today I have seen a comment along the lines of "don't know why you bothered" to someone who was please to have reached 6 months of excl bf, and an incredibly rude and unhelpful comment on a thread started by a woman who was worried that her supply would be affected by her DH giving their 10 day old a bottle of formula. Snotty comments (whether to bfers or ffers) are NOT WELCOME on those sorts of threads, so go on, offload here.

Oh, before we start, some myths I'd like to bust:

• Improved health outcomes of bf babies are not down to social class - that has been accounted for
• People bfing past 3 weeks / 6 months / a year are not doing it just for their own sakes
• It's not only OK to bf in public "if it's done discreetly"

erm..sure more will come up

oo, thank you herbeatitude. [proud]

piglet, saying every opinion here should be respected is being a tad optimistic, don't you think?

Some opinions are just not worthy of respect. This has nothing to do with whether I 'agree' with the person or not. If someone has an 'opinion' that research into the risks of formula is worthless, because their friend's kid was breastfed and has been in hospital with a gastric infection, then am I going to 'respect' that, nod sympathetically, and say 'of course you may be right and the research into several hundred thousand babies may be wrong'...or am I going to use my common sense to explain that research assesses risks and does not predict outcomes for individual babies?

As you say, opinion here can be based on personal experience. That's fine but don't ask me to 'respect' it as a means of making generalisations about feeding.

if people request the research than fine, they have on here i have no problem with that, its not something i find helpful to me.

no ticktok not if the opinion is rude or obcence, if the person has not got their facts quite right, just point them in the right direction without being made to feel bad stupid. You are a bf counsellor and have information to hand, but most of us are just mums with personal experiences who would like a say and to contribute to these forums. I am beginning to think that i should not post on here, unless i am a professional with proper facts.

Sorry tiktok i am not talking about you, it sounds like it, but i am talking about everyone on here, not you. sorry if it came across that way, i apologise. my dyslexia is showing quite badly now lol

piglet, I'd hate anyone to think they can't post here unless they have tons of facts to hand...discussion of research and facts is only one part of the whole debate, anyway. People's experiences matter and of course we can all learn from them.

Pointing people in the right direction to check out the facts is not popular with some, though! You yourself objected to BabiesEverywhere posting the diabetes links!

Well, about the bf and type 2 diabetes, can i just ask that say if a person was bf but than as an adult they eat junk and become obese isent that medically linked. Just because they are bf does not prevent the person from getting type 2 diabetes if they make poor lifestyle choices as adults. I am going to give you an example, my mother in law was bf, she is very obese about 20 stone and has type 2 diabetes. Oh by the wsy tiktok i will probably need your help on bf later as we want to give our daughter a little brother or sister too.

piglet, but the research does not claim that breastfeeding as a baby stops you ever getting diabetes!

It's a question of risks, not of prediction or guarentees, as you must surely understand.

After all, I could run into the road 50 times and never get hit by a bus. But my risks of being hit by a bus are still increased if I decide to do this instead of using the crossing

(Happy to help in the future if you have another )

...and to continue my bus analogy: walking on the pavement still doesn't guarentee I will always be safe near traffic.

thanks tiktok lol, i get the pictture. all these benefits of bf are usless if the person has bad lifestyle choices.

thanks very much, the NHS bf support is quite bad in Milton keynes where i live.

piglet, bf is not useless in those circs, just not a magic shield against all illness. Someone who is ff and then eats badly later is still at a higher risk than someone who is bf and eats badly, so the bf will still reduce the risks, if all other factors are equal.

Still reading the rest of this thread but had to respond to idontbelieveit who said:

"As a breastfeeder, one thing I find it really hard to get my head around is people giving babies a bottle while they're still in the pushchair on the bus for example. If my baby is hungry on the bus i have to get her out and feed her, she always gets that physical contact when she has milk. I know it's not recommended for babies to be given bottles in this way and many/most bottle feeding mums would always hold their babies but I see young babies with a propped up bottle an awful lot.

Another thing that I have noticed is that older babies (9 months plus say) drinking formula often hold the bottle themselves and sit by themselves. A breastfed child always gets that physical contact when they have milk. With bottlefeeding the adult can decide not to give that contact and it must be easy to get on with something else if your older baby is occupied drinking milk."

My DD started fighting with me for possession of her bottle of EBM when she was about 4 months old. She is now 8 months old and whenever she has a bottle (now formula) she holds it herself - if I try to hold it for her and cuddle her while she feeds, she struggles to get away. She breastfed until very recently but for the last couple of months made it very obvious that she was not keen on being snuggled close whilst she was trying to get on with the important job of a) learning to feed herself and b) looking at her dad, the cats, and all the other interesting things going on that weren't visible in my chest. She gets lots of eye contact and is cuddled, chatted to and played with most of the time when she isn't feeding or sleeping. Having done it for 8 months, I fully appreciate that BFing gives an automatic opportunity for closeness and cuddling that has to be more thought out with bottles, but the fact that it is "easy" to get on with something else whilst your older baby feeds themself is not necessarily a bad thing. I don't think any parent needs to make life hard for themselves on purpose, as I would be if I was still struggling to make my DD lie down and relax to feed when she doesn't want to.

"all these benefits of bf are usless if the person has bad lifestyle choices"

Errr, no.

As Tiktok said earlier on - bf is thought to 'calibrate' the body in some way, in other words, it helps ameliorate some of the ill-effects from an unhealthy lifestyle. One example of this would be in relation to circulation. Adults who were bf in infancy are thought to have lower blood pressure than they woul have had had they not been breastfed.

aaaaaargh
can we have a dictionary definition of the word risk please?

The concise Oxford Dictionary defines risk (noun) in terms of a hazard, chance, bad consequences, loss, etc., exposure to mischance.
It defines risk (verb) in terms of: to expose to chance of injury or loss, venture on, accept the chance of.

so is the word "chance" clearer do you think? Or necessary and sufficient causal factors? ff does not mean you will get X, just as bf does not mean you won't. However the risks / chance are higher for ff than bf (but not 100%, as bf is not 0%).
I really can't put it any clearer.

Treedelivery and Stealth - the tone of voice was supposed to be in agreement with Tree and certainly not to suggest suppressing dissemination of information. I think MN is a fantastic place to find excellent information or at least to be pointed in the direction of where to find it for yourself.

I mentioned the 'guilt' thing because the OP was about offloading etc and the 'no-one can make you feel guilty' thing is rubbish when people are already anxious. Some MNs respond with sympathy and support, some with exactly the facts that have made the poster anxious about ff in the first place. I agree that tone of voice isn't always clear but their are definitely posts - and RL comments - which use the research to make points when personal experience and chat is more helpful.

As piglet said, some threads end up alienating those with anecdotes or individual experiences to share because of a school marmish attitude from the self styled experts. (Not referring to the people who do actually seem to be experts - Tik Tok etc) but they seem to have acolytes who are not so considered in their approach.

Most women who are upset about the whole debate are the ones who feel let down because they already know the breast milk is better. People who are happy with the situation are unlikely to be bothered with these threads - they are busy propping up bottles or expressing their milk or whatever and don;t give a rats' arse about all this.

My SIL, who is successfully breastfeeding, looked here for advice before her baby was born and said she was alarmed by how 'militant' SOME people are on MN. There are people who will tut or rant whatever you choose - mother's in law telling you to stop bf, do-gooders telling you you should have done it for longer when it's already too late. SO I was agreeing that life was probably simpler at one stage and whatever you do someone will be on your case.

piglet - the impact of breastfeeding can ameliorate 'bad lifestyle choices'. Not sure why you understood me to say the opposite.

SallyJay - I hear what you are saying about tone and comments. But I think if people come to a thread where debate and discussion is taking place, they are going to hear some robust and not-especially-sensitive voices. That's what happens on a talk board. The tone on these threads is quite different from the tone on threads which share experience and ask for support. The same posters may be posting on each thread but change their tone appropriately

I don't object to anecdote or personal experience at all....but using anecdote and personal experience in a debate or discussion thread as if it trumps decent, good quality research is going to get challenged. I'm thinking of the posters who say 'my neighbour's kid was breastfed and has asthma so that proves breastfeeding is no different', which is just juvenile and which deserves a scathing response!

Tik tok - I agree - I guess I was thinking of threads which began as supportive ones and get hijacked by the kind of posts my SIL found militant.

Also unsuspecting (maybe newer) MNetters can stray into a robust debate by accident. This isn't anyone's fault, and no-one should have to adjust their tone on account of this - also most people - if they realise there has been a misunderstanding, or that someone is upset, do adjust their tone, even mid-debate. Also a lot of new mothers (I being one when I WAS new) thought of bf as the natural choice - my preference but live and let live - probably a hippish approach to the whole thing. Now I know it the whole subject is a minefield of emotion and politics. I think if you begin by thinking of bf as an earth mothering, benign sort of thing - a question of parenting style rather than health, MN will open your eyes.

I know the use of anecdote you are referring to is ridiculous. But now you mention that, how do you counter it do you think? I know it gets challenged on MN, but I believe the majority of people DO rely more on anecdote and folklore than research. IMO it is more usual for someone to think 'yeah yeah, but I was smacked and I'm alright'. The Daily Mail school of reportage really.

Of course you can be fully informed, weigh up the risks and your own circumstances and decide to ff. Or as I did, when bf didn't work for me, gave EBM, then mixed and eventually formula but felt I was happy I'd done what I could in my situation. The good thing about the research is it can reassure that the risks are relatively low - depending on the interpretation - and I chose to view the plus side. There is someone - I can't remember her name - who jumps on this sort of perspective and says she feels sorry for the babies who are ff. (!) I am still interested in the debates though since I might have another child and will try to bf again.

SJG - Thanks for that Futher insight rather than agreeing with me, although I am down with that too!

I'm knackered and can't remember what I said that you agree with, dur. Clearly this bf mamma in no postition to debate a wallpaper choice never mind the complexities of health promotion.

"I know it gets challenged on MN, but I believe the majority of people DO rely more on anecdote and folklore than research"

Not in relation to health issues they don't. How many people do you know who eat camembert and liver during pregnancy because 'their mum did it and they're absolutely fine'?

Re: how this issue is addressed on mumsnet - I'm profoundly grateful for the freedom and intelligence with which this subject is discussed on this board. I have never engaged in an honest, vigorous discussion with a mixed group of ff/bf mothers in R/L because people are too inhibited by their anxiety about putting their foot in it or making themselves look bad to say what they really think.

If it wasn't for the internet understanding of bf and all the issues surrounding it would be a million miles from where it is now - because in R/L people will only talk in platitudes about it.

BabiesEverywhere, thank you so very much for posting the links.
Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Was too busy, bf'ing ds2 - 6mths
I have now read them. I find them very interesting.
And I do believe in the benefits of bf.
However, I have to say, and I know this will infuriate you. But I still find them a bit unconvincing.
I mean the 1st, italian test was done on 28 children. Any test done on only 28 patients is not alot, is it ? sample size is very very small. 16 bf and 12 ff. And it was found antibodies lower in bf. O.k. this is interesting. I accept this. But then it goes on to say .... " could have" a preventative effect. Waht does that mean. 'could have'. Does it or doesn't it. what did the tests actually show. what they PROVE.
Interesting. But it hasn't PROVED anything to me.

I also found all 3 studies, interesting but didn't ........ PROVE. PROOF. Plus the sample sizes were very small, in all three studies.
People start misquoting - and I don't mean any of you - I mean people generally, start saying " Bf prevents diabetes". I am really sorry, but I just can't quite take that.

I think that people who say "BF prevents diabetes" don't understand statistics, or risk assessment, or human biology.

BF doesn't prevent anything. Anything AT ALL. It is the normal, physiologically natural way of feeding a human infant.

FF, on the contrary, introduces these statistical risk.

We talk about prevention and risk in an totally upside-down way.

BF does nothing.

FF has negative risks, however small.

There's no PROOF, Oblomov, because BF HAS NOTHING TO PROVE. (not shouting, just trying to find ways to be emphatic! ).

On the contrary, the burden of PROOF lies with FF - to PROVE that it doesn't risk a baby's health. And unfortunately, it can't do that: there is a risk, albeit in the developed world, a statistically very small risk, that it endangers a baby's health.

However, in the underdeveloped world, FF is positively dangerous.