More Qs: What's so wrong with mixed feeding then?

[WinkyWinkola]

Is the baby not getting all the benefits it needs from every other bm feed?

And, is individual bm ever tested by NHS for enzymes etc to make sure it's ok for the baby and isn't lacking in anything?

because the womans body takes all it needs to make the breastmilk before the woman uses it. if that makes sense?

your body will make the breastmilk as nutritionally complete as it possibly can, even if you live on a diet of junk food you will most likely have enough "goodness" to make decent breastmilk.
and evenbreastmilk lacking in a few things is better than formula anyway

like i said previously, you would have to be seriously malnourished before it affected breastmilk

I don't know the answer to that LadyLaLa - interesting question. I suppose the mother would get cravings if she was running very low on a particular nutrient? I know I get cravings when I am breastfeeding and my diet is not the best.

Maybe a baby takes very little in substance of vitamins etc compared to what we actually eat, since they are so small?

i am really interested though that women on methadone are encouraged to breastfeed and have the baby monitored rather than formula feed and give the baby small doses of methadone

surely that shows how worthwhile it is to breastfeed??

babies are teeny they probably don't need so much vitamins etc that your diet qould have to be appalling before there wasn't enough to feed baby. mum would suffer though.

I'm interested in this lack of dos and don'ts thing. Maybe they think it would put people off which goes against the grain for trying to promote it

or maybe it really does mean that drink/drugs etc aren't a problem for BF mother. I can't believe that though it seems counter-intuitive.

Baby Friendly Initiative on the subject of methadone and BF.

Basically babies that were BF for at least the first 72 hours are 'significantly less likely to need treatment for neonatal abstinence syndrome'.

i seem to remember getting a strong message not to take drugs when BF, though maybe I just heard alcohol and nicotine and mentally extended that to cover all drugs. Certainly I heard about needing to check your prescription drugs were OK, a LOT.

I definitely got the message from somewhere that you should avoid recreational drugs (inc. alcohol and tobacco) when BF but cannot remember where from. Birth To Five no doubt mentions it.

But when women are already using drugs then harm reduction is whats needed. BF + carefully controlled methadone dosage is better than formula, which is the alternative. Methadone withdrawal is not safe during the first or last trimester, and as many women using drugs get very little antenatal care it may not be possible for them to detox before the baby is born and needs feeding.

Yes it must be there somewhere. You would have thought they might have a leaflet or something though to give out if you are BFing after the baby.

I'm not super worked up about it, just find it a bit odd and wonder why.

Winky are you going to come back? Are you OK?

'I wouldn't have thought they test anyone's breast milk for nutritional value, although they must know on average what's in it so as to make the formula.'

I'm afraid this is not true. They haven't got much of a clue what is in breastmilk. However you can think of it a bit like blood without the red blood cells. No matter how malnurished you are, your blood is pretty consistent. Breastmilk is actually quite close in make-up to human blood, so what can get into the mother's bloodstream can get into the milk, but once it has left the bloodstream it has left the milk.

"And, is individual bm ever tested by NHS for enzymes etc to make sure it's ok for the baby and isn't lacking in anything? " asked the OP.

I replied that they will have tested it to see average amounts to make the formula. ie average fat sugar vitamins minerals and so on.

Of course they will have done this when they were making formula.

I nowhere said that formula was the same as breastmilk - obviously they can't replicate antebodies etc.

No need to do the quoting back and rubbishing thing.

Actually I can't be bothered, I thought the drugs thing was interesting, but if it's just going to be the usual picking things apart stuff I think I'll leave you all to it.

Gosh, no need to be so defensive. I thought I was being helpful.

The words 'shoulder' and 'chip' come to mind!

Individual breastmilk has been tested in many research projects...not as a sort of test to see if an individual woman 'should' breastfeed or not, but to learn more about links between diet and breastmilk. The results of studies show the quality of maternal diet has very little effect on the quality of breastmilk, which is pretty consistent.

Basically, there is normally no need for concern about this.

Smoking, use of street drugs, use of alcohol - none of this is recommended but use of any of these things would not be a reason to recommend not breastfeeding. Babies in utero get rather more of all of them, via the placenta and umbilical cord, than they do when breastfeeding. Babies of drug abusing mothers are normally advised not to withdraw suddenly when bf, for the sake of their babies, but to undergo a managed withdrawal.

Thanks for all your responses. What an interesting thread.

It's not about me. A friend of mine (I've posted about her before) has started mixed feeding her 4 week old son.

She seemed so keen to justify and explain her position to me, I felt bad for her.

She's had problems with inverted nipples, baby feeding every hour and still not sated, crying etc. Until she gave him formula and he is now very content. No midwife or HV tending to her directed her to a bf counsellor or lactation specialist although she said they were very supportive and never once pushed the formula option.

She had told a mutual friend her milk was lacking in some enzyme and wasn't good enough hence her expressing amounts into bottles wasn't going to work to keep her ds happy. I wanted to know who had told her that her milk was lacking in some way but friend said it had been tested.

I'd never heard of that before but I'm thinking that the new mum is feeling that she has to defend and explain her choice to mix feed.

I seriously, seriously doubt her milk has been tested and found lacking in an enzyme, Winky. I have never heard of this, and I really think I would have.

It's a shame your friend was given no other option by her carers.

So if she's using both bm and formula, are the actual benefits of bm reduced?

Or the risks involved with formula introduced and mitigated by the fact she's still bfing?

Are there any studies on mixed feeding?

Any formula reduces, but does not wipe out, the benefits of breastfeeding. Antibodies in breastmilk remain, but obv the baby does not get the same amount of them.

Yes, there are many studies of mixed feeding - a number of papers differentiate between the health impact of full bf, partial bf, and no bf.

Any bf is worth doing.

Thank you.