"I hear it's the closest to breastmilk" - a report published based on posts from MN and others

[hunkermunker]

Fascinating read, be interested to hear what you think

Oh my goodness thats a whopper document. I will have to save it and plough through it some other time.

Of the bits I saw though - some hv's need some training, telling people to spread feeds out to longer periods or feed baby less because he was putting on weight...

Its an eye opener about all the sleeping, spacing out feeds, and as for the hungry 3 week old babies that want a feed every two hours and so must be put on hungry baby gloop.

OK I don't wanna bang on about this ethical dilemma [oh yes I do ] but am reasonably qualified to comment on the issue of research ethics since I am actually a social researcher and I happen to supervise a PhD student on this very issue . But actually there is still lots of disagreement and ambivalence in the academic debate on this issue see for example this paper which outlines the issues involved quite nicely

So I would have been happier had the authors overtly discussed the issue (or did they and I missed it?) and indeed asked for consent at least from MNHQ (did they?) and equivalent bodies. They also ought to have notified MN members that they were here, collecting data, and given people the chance to opt out. IMHO.

Having said all that it goes on all the time, and if you apply the principle in cyberspace, you probably have to apply it to all public documents which is practically impossible. But ethics is never a simple science.

And BTW I don't agree with dolly: it does report what people are saying, and not generalisable stats. But in the best traditions of qualitative research, it is substantively valuable for that reason. That is not the same issue as the ethical one.

'if asked the same questions in a research format, would the same answers/comments have been given?'

LupusinaLlamasuit this is particular part of your post with which I was in agreement.

I disagree that the 'research' is substantive. For example

'Overall, the impression of health professionals projected on the sites was a negative one.'

'The comments are not verifiable in that they are secondhand; it could be that the chat forum user was misreporting or misunderstanding advice.'

The first quote does not take into account that people who would have no reason to complain will not have posted and the second is an insulting attempt to 'qualify' the first.

As for the ethical debate - I think people need to police themselves and not haemorrhage too much information.

at the fact that we haven't all been spending hours wasting time on MN. We have in fact being participating in research.

Or that's what I'll be telling DH anyway!

I was roffling at the cows in yurts one, I do actually remember it from the time.