Exclusive BF for 6 months may be harmful

[Longtalljosie]

Oh bloody hell

The problem is it's only one study but will be seized on even if later it's put into context.

The other problem is the way it implies that breastfeeding is in some way a problem.

The third problem is the possibility they might turn out to be right, because I loved BLW and want to do it again...

I can hear certain members of my wider family from here...

SUN headline even worse than I thought.

Would you believe it actually says,

"Breast is not best"

I don't believe it !

(Hence earlier over generous reporting of it in my post - I thought they must surely have said "may not be best" - But No ! )

Hope they get lots of MN complaints !

I completely empathise with Unwind. I breastfed for just over 6 months and was proud to do so, not letting so much as a morsel pass my ds lips until he was within days reach of 6 months old. The week he turned 6months I tried him with some par-boiled carrot sticks and a teeny taste of baby rice made with breastmilk. A HV at clinic that week told me "on your head be it, you could have damaged your son". Without knowing my PND she sent me into a terrible state. Harmed my ds? I felt terrible, but like many posters was being advised left right and centre about how I "should" have weaned him much sooner.

Then, after essentially following all the "current" advice and breastfeeding for 6 months we quickly discovered upon weaning that ds has a serious egg allergy. Oh, so now I've been told I've harmed him again. Seriously!

I couldn't be more upset by all of this.
takes big sip of calming wine & big bite of chocolate

Please, by the power of Mumsnet, can we urge policy makers to stop giving parents such conflicting advice!

thank you for my introduction to nhs choices.

hopefully evolution will continue regardless of this study.

Ok, this first paper looks at 4-5 months plus versus 6 months plus, so if you weaned at 6 months you'd actually fall into the first group really. Anyway the difference is small.

This one is saying that chronic iron deficiency in infancy is a bad thing. No shit sherlock.

This one says again, it's not great to be very iron deficient. Interestingly, it measures anaemia by haemaglobin levels which is the measure in the first study which found little significant difference between the 4-5 month+ and 6 month+ weaned infants. It was ferritin in the blood where there was an 8% ish difference.

These are the 3 papers cited in the review.

Because , of course, it IS best !

Here here Jugglingjo

From the article:

We suggest three prerequisites for devising such a pervasive public health recommendation in nutrition; similar to those adopted, for example, in the development of policies in other areas such as immunisation.

*

  1) An evidence based approach to appraisal of the available scientific data, after prior assessment of the adequacy of these data to support change in practice.
*

  2) A synthesis balancing the risks and benefits of the proposed intervention, accounting for a range of plausible outcomes.
*

  3) An auditing mechanism in place for detecting any adverse population effects of the recommendation once implemented.

In the United Kingdom, it would be the brief of the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) to advise the Department of Health on the first two prerequisites. Ideally, this should be supported by a broad professional consultation process, helpful also here for the third.
Doubt must exist whether any of these prerequisites were met in the United Kingdom when the recommendation was announced.

and why were these bloody obvious prerequisites not met?

Thanks suzikettles - will have a look at those now.

Remember Unwind - only the first paper is making any suggestions about weaning and anaemia, and actually it's mainly concerned about formula v bf infants (hence I suspect the differences between ferritin - all that supplemental iron in the formula, and less of a difference in the haemaglobin - surely the clinically important measure. I'm not a doctor but it's the measure that AAP use in the 3rd study)

Haven't read all the posts but I feel sorry for new mums now. Its hard enough as it is without all this conflicting advice! DC1 is 11 and as a hungry baby HV advised to start baby rice at 10wks and I know of other mums who bottle fed who were advised to put baby rice into the bottles to 'fill baby up'. My mum reckons she started us all on solids at 6 wks!

I do find the 6 month thing a bit too old just going by my own DCs. But as healthy adults of my own generation who were weaned v early and by my own DCs, and knowing many women who didnt sart weaning till 6 months you can see it really isnt going to adversely affect DCs health whatever you do.

I agree taokiddy. This is about populations. The chances of weaning age (within reason, rice in bottles can be a choking risk) affecting the health of an individual is v small.

I was weaned at 12 weeks, dh practically at birth, ds at 6 months to the day. All healthy so far.

Not to say that this research shouldn't be done and guidelines shouldn't be written because public health is an important issue.

My children are buggered. WExbf and veggies, weaned at 7 and 6 mo.

ah well.......

suzi I don't think either study is relevant for concerned parents like me - the second one is specifically on school age children and adolescents.

The first one is on children who had "chronic, severe iron deficiency in infancy"

I can't access the full text version, but would think it extremely difficult to control for other factors in this study - whatever it was that caused these infants to become so severely iron deficient in the first place, and it to be diagnosed.

Symptoms of infant anaemia are given on this thread above, I am not sure if that poster is an expert, but I am not able to find anything anywhere about the nails and mouth corners of anaemic infants. Irritability, jaundice or pallor seem to be the key symptoms. And given that my DD had two of these, I think she should have been tested.

Thank you Winkola for your response.

I appreciate your comment that the WHO's advice on breastfeeding is not "dogma" but "science". I could argue that there is a thin line between science and religion. There have also been some dubious (cough, cough) "scientific claims" about exclusive breastfeeding such as it increasing IQ etc (and let us please not get into a debate about that as I am sure that we can all find evidence either way). However, my intention was not to dismiss all the WHO's claims about the benefits of breastfeeding. Of course, there are many health benefits of breastfeeding to both mother and child (and I do not believe that there is a single member on Mumsnet who is not aware of them). I myself am a breastfeeding mum and, as such, I am very pro-breastfeeding.

However, breastfeeding "dogma", yes "dogma" (or bullying if you like) from health professionals, charities, parenting forums and individuals has gone way too far!! Can we please drop "Breast is Best" and endorse that "Mother Knows Best".

The WHO should not give the same advice to mothers in the Third World as the First World with regard to weaning, breast-feeding and bottle-feeding. I cannot put it any better than another Netmum (in reply to your post):
"The relevance is that one of the reasons to prefer breastfeeding in developing countries is to do with access to clean drinking water and for that matter uncontamiated formula".

There is also an issue (in the third world) of lack of access to information about appropriate weaning foods.

I am afraid that I am still sticking up for common sense. As mothers let's support each other rather than judge each other. Ignore the current dogma; whether you bottle-feed, breast-feed, wean at four months or six months - "Mother Knows Best"!!!

Poor old DS2. 11lb at birth and he had to wait until he was 6 months for solids.

My big, beautiful, sleeping, eats-everything-still-breastfed-19-month-old-boy has clearly suffered

And I wouldn't normally go round saying

"Breast is best" ( because it's a bit insensitive ) But driven to say it in response to the SUN's outrageous headline

"Breast is not best"

Breast defintiely best to me. Although mine were weaned v early by todays standards, the first 3 DC never had a bottle but DC4 had bottle and breast pretty early on just cos it was easier tbh. But adored feeding all of them (still do!) and adored and bonded with them all :-)

Perhaps I am completely misunderstanding something. But I thought iron deficient anaemia relates to somebody's current diet. So even if a 6 month old baby did run a little short on iron, if their diet is iron rich now they'll be just fine. Is that not so?

Damned if you do and damned if you don't... my DS is nearly two and I started weaning (whilst continuing breastfeeding) at four and a half months because he was so blinking hungry!

He and I would have fused into one being if I'd gone on the way we were - with him feeding again within an hour of the last feed. I know if we had persevered, perhaps I would have made enough milk and could have stayed exclusive, but frankly, I wasn't prepared to find out how much longer it would go on - a week was long enough. As soon as I introduced a small bowl of baby porridge each day - he went back to three/ four hourly - and we were both MUCH happier.

I continued to wean slowly and gently and continued to breastfeed until 11 months, when he starting having a good chew instead of a drink (ouch!). He is a good and varied eater, with no (so far) food allergies or vit/min deficiencies...

I am pregnant again and will employ the same strategy IF NECESSARY! I am 40 this year, and perhaps my age makes me more able to ignore all the various advice and go with what seems sensible at the time...

Upwind, I don't know, these are the only papers they cited in support of their anaemia hypothesis.

Probably best to speak to a doctor if you're this worried. They'll know your dd's history.

Is she well now?

"I feel sorry for new mums now"

My son is 3 weeks old and I plan to wean him nearer to six months than 4. Nothing in what I have read about this study has convinced me that 6 months is damaging for a baby. I do wonder what my health visitor might say to me now as she has already suggested weaning at 4 months rather than 6 and I suspect that many people will use the report, and the publicity around it, to make new mums feel bad for waiting for 6 months.

I am scared about what some family and friends might say - how they might use this to suggest earlier weaning or even as an anti-breastfeeding thing.

with DS1 I weaned him at 17(!!!) weeks and with DS2 who is approaching 6 months old next week, I've been trying him the odd day here and there with a very small spoonful of babyrice and my breastmilk (exlusively BF until recently). This study won't change anything for me. I have a mothering instinct and will decide what is best for each child as they grow, like most other mums.

may I ask a queston?

What is the nutritional content of babyrice? Is it full of iron or some other nutrients?

baby rice to my knowledge contains iron, zinc and other nutrients..

I've BF and I've FF and been hopelessly confused each time with aspects of both. The 'Breast isn't best' headline has deepened the confusion for many mums just trying to do the 'right' thing and even the strongest-minded mum can be unnerved by new 'evidence.' Maybe I'm hysterical but are headlines such as the 'Breast isn't Best' in breech of some code or other? Apart from being confusing, utter bollocks, simplistic, inaccurate, and not having anything really to do with the report (shite though it was) - it was just utterly appalling jouralism. And this went across the board - even the BBC - when shurely it should simply have been a discussion on when to get babies on to solids. Does anyoneknow if there is mileage in acting on this kind of grossly inaccurate reporting??
BTW did the sun manage to resist a Breast IS best pun on page 3