HV told friend that bf is no better for baby than formula [hmm]

[ladylush]

Needless to say I expressed my surprise.

If your friend has had problems with bf, the HV could simply be trying to reassure her that it's not the end of the world if she formula feeds. Which it's not.

Yes maybe it was to save her lots and lots of guilt.

Yes I agree - she probably is trying to reassure my friend, but she said there is an evidence base to show that there is no advantage over ff

My friend is very careful with her words - would be very surprised if she distorted what was said

There was an article in a newspaper saying this a few weeks back. It was an interpretation of some research, some people interpreted it differently. I assume the HV read the article.

That's interesting. I'd like to see the article if you manage to link it.

Found it! www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6942427/Breastmilk-no-better-for-baby-than-formula-scientist-c laims.html

His claims have been refuted by others, but I think it's worth investigating more. I think he means it's more that breastfed babies tend to have healthier parents, lifestyles and food etc. so they are part of a healthier society, iyswim.

So the HV is quoting science, but of course all science is disputed at some point or another!

Thanks Shaz Just read it. Don't know how the HV could have reached her conclusion based on that article alone as it fails to address many aspects of bf

Maybe she meant dont beat yourself up for ff.Rather than in depth analysis of a specific paper

I was confronted with this opinion at work just last week and having now read the article can only assume that the person only read the headline and didn't bother to read the actual article itself. I truly hope that this is what the HV in question did also.

hanaflower I'd appreciate less of the patronising sigh. I don't know much about any of the studies, I just found an article in response to a question. I didn't say it was good or poor.

Niceshoes - the HV made reference to research.
Bouncing - I'd like to think that a HV would do more than read a headline before imparting advice to a new mother! My friend has had a tough time with bf and will probably end up ff. She has tried her very best and deserves support but I don't think the HV should be telling anyone that bf is no better than ff unless she really believes it (based on research not opinion) and I am sure that her advice is at odds with DOH guidelines.

But maybe she did. I'm not being mean about HV - just trying to reason why someone would come to that conclusion when so much evidence exists to the contrary. The person at work who challenged me with this is actually an ex-GP and knows how to tell a good clinical study from a not so good one. When questioned he admitted he hadn't read the actual study in question but just read about it in the newspaper.

Do you know, they never actually thought the world was flat. Perhaps didn't know it was spherical, but they certainly didn't think it was flat. Tis a myth. I thank you, Stephen Fry.

Didn't they?? Certainly looks flat here!

"According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of ?flat earth darkness? among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth?s roundness as an established fact of cosmology."[2] David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers also write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."[3]

In 1945 the Historical Association listed "Columbus and the Flat Earth Conception" second of twenty in its first-published pamphlet on common errors in history."

So it was just us peasant thickos really looking out of the wattle and daub hut and screeching 'ere innit flat out there.

They have known it was spherical since Greek times at least.

Also you don't have to walk very far (or sail very far) to realise that the surface is curved and that you can see more of the curve by climbing a mast or similar.

Some more info here

On the subject of that newspaper article, I believe the author of the research expressed concern that his conclusions had been misreported and that in fact the newspaper headlines were not in line with his findings - I'll see if I can find a link about this.

However not sure how useful a "friend of a friend"'s reported remarks that an HV might have said are. There's an awful lot of room for misinterpretation. Sorry OP, I don't mean to be dismissive, but since we don't know the exact wording or context, it's hard to say whether the HV was justified or not.

Actually further to my last post, it was Michael Kramer who issued a statement about his views being misrepresented

I'm not sure if Prof Carlsen said anything about the reporting on his research, but as you can see, the abstract of his paper doesn't bear much resemblance to the claims in the papers informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/00016340903318006 though I think in this case it might have been more down to the slant of the press release issued to the publicise the findings.

I might just carry on claiming it's flat to be awkward. And ships aren't going over a curve, they're falling off the end of the world. I know at least 3 people I could probably convince of this.

I suppose, pedantically, bm isn't better than formula. Formula is inferior to bm though.

hanaflower I'm sorry too, was unnecessarily snippy!

Carlsen's research was on hormones in pregnancy.

It was nothing to do with the comparison of bf to ff....yet he added his views about it, and this was reported. This caused some concern among bf supporters in Norway who were not at all pleased with him

There is no science in his views at all.

The HV is simply not correct in what she said to the mother. She may have wanted to reassure the mother - but why do it by saying something that the mother can easily find out is not true? Don't most mothers prefer to be treated like a grown up?