Breastfeeding has no benefits

[TeenyTinyToria]

What do you think of this? From a column by Melanie McDonagh in the Telegraph today -

"Cambridge University researchers published a study last week showing that the NHS is so obsessed with breast-feeding, it leaves bottle-feeding mothers unsupported.

For such mothers, I'd recommend a liberating article in the Atlantic, an American magazine, in April, in which Hannah Rosin reviewed the medical literature on whether breast milk actually confers the advantages the lacto-fascists claim. She found that while breast-feeding provides babies with some short-term gastro-intestinal protection against infection, there is no proof of long-term benefits. Most of the blessings ascribed to breast feeding may be because breast-feeding mothers tend to be educated and prosperous, and so likely to have healthy lifestyles.

Breast feeding may well be pleasurable ? though that's not how I found the bout of mastitis it gave me ? but it's pleasure hard purchased with the time it takes up. It doesn't do much for breast shape either. I'd say: after a fortnight, give it a miss."

'I have a friend that bf and she is finding it a struggle to lose her preg weight, I however ff from the word go, and have lost all of my preg weight and had done by two weeks after the birth.'

A very shallow comment!! I'm more concerned with ensuring DD3 is healthy than losing any weight I put on in pregnancy

I'm sure there are plenty who share Abibub's position, ie that the 'choice' between ff and bf is pretty much like choosing between, say, choosing between a jar of food and freshly made. Baby gets fed anyway, and we know that bf is a little better in some kind of way, but you can't really quantify it, as they add vitamins and things into the formula as well (rather like they add to jars). Oh, and there's something immunity but even ff babies can fight off colds, so that's ok.

Abibub, you sound like a caring mummy, and it's good that you are happy with what you believed was a straight choice. But what happens if a mummy is stressed because she wanted to bf but had no support, and ended up ff? What about the baby who is ff but constantly brings up half the feed? You can't just go back to bf if ff isn't working. It isn't such a straightforward choice for far more reasons other than a partner helping out or not and something vague about your immune system. Th

Abibub - no one is anything but pleased for you being so slim We're all delighted that you decided to formula feed and your baby took it without problems - and of course women should feel free to feed the way they decide is best for them and their families.

The majority of women want to breastfeed. Something like 80 per cent of women plan to do so, and something like 76 per cent of them actually start off breastfeeding.

Their choice is as important to them as it is to you. Wouldn't you say? The argument that everyone should do what they want yada yada yada does not hold water, as soon as you remember the choice of women to breastfeed.

What happens to the women - the women who have chosen to breastfeed - who stop breastfeeding in the first few weeks?

9 out of 10 of them wished they could have continued. What has happened to them being 'free' to choose how to feed?

They've hit problems - true.

But the vast majority of these problems are either easily (yes, easily) fixed as long as the mother has good info and skilled help, or they are not 'problems' at all, but unrealistic expectations of how often a bf baby needs to feed in the early days.

How helpful is it to them to hear someone say 'everyone should feed the way they want to, tra la la, and anyway, there's no real difference between breast and formula and what about the bad aspects of the immune system?'

For the record, there are no disadvantages to the baby of breastfeeding, except for very rare metabolic disorders which also mean they cannot be fed with standard formula. If the mum is HIV, the research shows outcomes of exclusive bf are no worse than exclusive formula feeding (worst outcomes are mixed).

The baby would undoubtedly 'prefer' to breastfeed.

Of course, you are free to decide that this is not a powerful argument, but please don't tell other mothers they are equally free to breastfeed - because they are not.

I knew someone with knowledge and training would come along and express it better than I did.