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

Pent, yes, I prefer that.
FF increases risk of .....

And the other factors that increase risk and numerous.

I know it is silly to take it to a personal level. But I know not why I was diagnosed at aged 1.5 when I was ebf. And I wonder why Spidermama's son was diagnosed so young. I think she ebf all her children didn't she ? Sometimes there is just an exception to the rule.

fabsmum, good point about people picking and choosing which research and which personal anecdotes to go with. 'Back to sleep' is another one - virtually everyone follows that one, which emerged from epidemiological research as does a lot of public health....because you cannot do a randomised controlled trial and 'prove' the connection. All you can do is look at lots and lots of babies and control for the confounding factors and compare the bits you are looking at. No one says these days 'my mum put us on our fronts to sleep and we all survived'

Oblomov, to do an epidemiological study on diabetes and bf would be possible - here's one:

Early infant feeding and risk of type 1 diabetes mellitus - a nationwide population-based case-control study in pre-school children (Diabetes/Metabolism Research and Reviews;
Volume 24 Issue 3, Pages 211 - 222).

Some studies are fine with small samples - it depends on the study.

No study - not even an RCT - will ever, ever say 'this proves' something, unless it is a lab-based, single issue test, looking at very highly controlled elements. Anything related to human behaviour - forget it. The smoking and lung cancer research would never say that.

I think you will find talk boards talking about 'bf prevents diabetes' but this is what happens in a non-scientific 'place' like a talkboard.

The evidence we have is that formula feeding increases the risk of diabetes; this is physiologically plausible; it is found across a range of studies, carried out in different settings and with different methods.

You don't have to 'believe' it and if the only thing you want is actual 'proof' you never will

x-posted with Pen - good post, Pen.

It is far more 'scientific' to talk about the risks of formula feeding, because breastfeeding is the physiological norm. To 'prove' that human blood for a human 'prevents' something or other is futile.

However, people really, really don't like 'the risks of formula feeding' as an issue, either!

And Oblomov - talking about 'the exception to the rule' (in relation to diabetes in an exclusively bf baby) is not very scientific, either There is no 'rule'.

"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."
Yes, I agree, the risks of ff are only part of the picture, and if you make the decision in your particular situation that the benefits outweigh the risks then you're making the logical choice and the best choice for your family!

In the same way as I get annoyed by the "well I was ff and I was fine" comments, I also get annoyed by "bf prevents cancer / obesity etc". If I don't challenge them then I assume it's because people understand what is meant, which I realise is wrong.

Tiktok, of course I have to agree with your points, because you talk sense, and not emotively. Cow

She always does that! She also has an annoying habit of trying to prove her points with the facts

oh don't you just hate that {wink]

Sorry - a bit O/T - want to throw this one in as it's been playing on my mind.

Re: research comparing outcomes for exclusively bf babies with mf/ff babies.... In our local hospital 50% of all bf babies are supplemented with formula before leaving hospital. I also remember reading research (can't remember the details), which raised the issue of mums ability to accurately recall how much/how often they had supplemented bf. Also thinking about the amount of infacol/coleif etc gets tipped down the throats of babies in the UK.....

Basically I'm wondering how 'exclusive' exclusive bf actually is, when it comes to research. Any thoughts Tiktok?

Fabsmum - actually I ate camembert while I was pregnant - kept forgetting. As did all my French and Spanish friends whose doctors encourage 'a little of what you fancy' approach.

And I think you are very optimistic about health issues. We have a population that is becoming increasingly obese when all it really takes is a bit of exercise and decent diet to be fit. The cigarette industry is still going strong. In my area I am in a minority because the children have car seats.

I am not saying we shouldn't continue to discuss these things. But I think only a small number of people really take their heads out of the sand re health issues. I was wondering how that might be changed and I think dressing up the science to sound more anecdotal is a good approach for public health campaigns.

Following the campaign re SIDS (Back to Sleep) cot deaths have reduced by (I think) 78%. I don't think it doesn't work. I was pondering HOW it might work for feeding - for adults as well as babies.

my arsey comment about bf is "bugger off" to the man who comes on here to boast that he know more about Bf than i do.

unless your definition of knowledge is confined to "reading" or "watching" and excludes "doing"

sorry, not reasoned debate but responding to OP

Interesting point fabsmum.
I never claim to have ebm, becasue with both ds1 and ds2 it was never exclusive, exclusive.
Ds2 was given formula before I even came round from my GA. Then I bf him for weeks and weeks and topped up with ebm. but then, after a while, I used a few formulas here and there. I guess, deep down in my heart, I am not happy about it. maybe I am a bit ashamed.

(Yes, I talk sense all the flippin time, me )

fabsmum - ok, mothers (according to the research) do recall their feeding accurately (there is one paper, at least, which shows this, comparing official records with maternal recall two years later or something similar).

The official definition of 'exclusive breastfeeding' for research purposes would ignore medication and vitamin supps.

There are WHO definitions (of 'predominantly breastfed', 'partially breastfed' and so on) which are not always followed, but of course any research about 'breastfeeding' should be read with the question 'how much breastfeeding?' in mind...some papers just compare 'any breastfeeding' at all, even one feed, and have the babies as 'breastfed'. That's ok if you are recording 'incidence of breastfeeding' or 'initiation of breastfeeding' but useless if you are looking to see if (for instance) diabetes is affected, as you'd certainly need more than a small amount of bf to make a difference.

There is research which looks at exclusive bf, though, and it does happen.

There is plenty of evidence that bf and ff is 'dose related' - the less ff you do, the fewer the risks.

Information that tells people to do or not to do things is going to be more or less effective according to how hard or easy it is to do!

Not eating camembert in pg is not that hard - even though the health risk is really tiny, people will (usually) obey, or at least the mothers I meet obey (interesting word....obey).

But about a quarter of pregnant women continue to smoke in pg, where the risks are a lot higher - because it is hard to stop smoking, especially if you are in a family or social group where many people continue to smoke.

Similarly with Back to Sleep - easy enough to do, no real problem there.

Feeding? About a quarter of babies are never put to the breast at all. The reasons are very, very rarely double mastectomy or mother in a coma (though some people may have a sexual abuse history and this affects their view of infant feeding - some US research is just uncovering this). They're usually social - mothers can't see themselves doing it, and no one they know has had a good experience doing it, and they have genuine and deep issues about using their body.

So while the public health message needs to be clear and consistent, changing behaviour needs more than sloganising.

Tiktok, I like that. I am totally sure that I fall into the category of 'Predominately bf'. And that makes me feel alot better.

True Tiktok. People just don't want to hear it. It is so deep rooted. I have told Tiktok this before:I only know 2 people who have bf.
None of my sil's,none of my friends, apart from one. No one at my PN group for ds1. One person at my Pn group for ds2.
No one in surrey bf's. tis true, I tell you. well wierd.

I think tiktok has hit the nail on the head there - it comes down to a host of social reasons which no amount of evidence will change - as a society we need to change. How that could come about I don't know but there's a deep seated issue of history repeating itself here.

I suspect only through the provision of good quality support for new mums and grass-roots education, IMO in classrooms at both primary and secondary levels, can the huge number of babies who never get the opportunity to breastfeed be reduced.

Great thread, eventually

I get annoyed when information like 'breastfeeding stops respiratory infections' is thrown about on MN. Surely it reduces the risk of a RI and perhaps the severity if the mum has an immune response, but to actually stop the child ever developing one? Ditto 'stopping' breast cancer.

(I'm actually BFing my son while I type this, and get annoyed when the advantages of BM get overstated, as it just hardens opinion.)

Fairmidden, the reasons why a quarter of UK babies are never put to the breast is one issue, connected, mostly, with social reasons.

But the reasons why mothers stop breastfeeding are, mostly, different from that. They want to breastfeed - obv. some will be desperate to do so and broken hearted at the thought of not doing it, and some will not really care either way, and the rest of the 75 per cent will be in between, somewhere.

Help and support should be available everywhere for all those women, the desperate and the not-bothered. Once you get a critical mass of women breastfeeding happily for as long as they want to, then the 'hard core' 'refusniks' are less likely to feel that only formula feeding is 'normal' and they will give it a go.

None of this is helped in any way by people making claims that infant feeding has no effect on health, or that it's more important to give homecooked food than to breastfeed, or that research can 'prove anything'. The public health message that this is worth doing is important.

oblomov has a good point. I never thought of ff cos my mum bf all 7 of us and none of us ever touched a bottle, even of ebm. My sister bf hers so for me that's just the way you feed a baby. I was fortunate in that it only took about 8 weeks to sort out all the rubbish stuff (mastitis/thrush/bad latch) and actually get on with enjoying it but ff was never really an option I considered because even at our mums 'n tots over 50% of us bf. I debated stopping in the first few weeks cos it was so freaking painful but I had my mum's disapproving face looming in my head so I didn't (probably not the best reason but it did the trick). I did find it a lot harder than I thought and if I hadn't had the support of DH, the fear of my mum and the fact that I wasn't the only one at the mums 'n tots with my boobs out, I may well have turned to the bottle.
I'd deffo bf again unless there was a physical reason I couldn't, just like I really wanted a home birth but had to accept an em c-sec. Natural works for me but if that fails, it's great that there is an alternative.

tiktok, of course I agree that the public health message is important but I suspect that there are some individuals who are not reached by that message, or who have been influenced strongly before that message reaches them.

It's certainly the case that geographical regions have varying levels of BF initiation, and I would speculate that these regions probably also have lower rates of BF at, say, 3 months - for various reasons, obviously not all social. But it does suggest to me that social circumstances must have a huge impact on choice of feeding both pre- and post-natally. Wouldn't one way of quickly increasing the "critical mass" you mention be to specifically target those mothers in low-initiation areas? Obviously the support has to be there to help these mums to breastfeed successfully, and the support has to be good quality. But in terms of "normalising" breastfeeding surely getting more people to actually consider it is vital - and for this I really think it comes down to schools.

StealthPolar

"...the risks of ff are only part of the picture, and if you make the decision in your particular situation that the benefits outweigh the risks then you're making the logical choice and the best choice for your family!"

That got me thinking that logic and weighing up of risks are rare in women who start out bf and switch to ff. From personal experience and anecdote the choice, as to whether to persevere or not, is made when exhausted, hormonal and in pain.

Maybe that is why so many parents are raw about the whole breast vs bottle issue. They know their own decisions were not necessarily rational.

yes I agree. But is that not an argument for knowing the bare facts in advance so when you are sleep-deprived, hormonal and in pain you don't have to go and search them out? Yet people on this thread and others call for the suppression of facts and presumably wouldn't want them discussed antenatally either, in case it makes women feel bad. I can't get my head round that - people who want other people to have t make decisions in ignorance - that's incredibly selfish.

Has anyone actually called for a suppression of the facts?

There are posts on this thread and others saying the research makes women "feel bad" and assume their children are going to grow up to be... . Which is ridiculous. One poster was told off for providing a link to research that had been requested on this thread

yes, I agree, I think it is

The information should always be made available in antenatal classes. It should also be on school curriculums and obviously, more support for mothers who do choose to bf is desperately needed.

I've argued in the past that bf should not be promoted because of the pressure on new mothers. But, on second thoughts, maybe promotion is necessary so that those who choose to bf are supported by their own family and friends.