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...

Exactly Queen, my DS2 was quite into putting food in his mouth at 5.5months and as I'm a paed nurse I assessed his gagg reflex and decided it was good enough. But I really don't believe he was getting that much from his food until nearly 10 months. That's when I noticed he started dropping feeds. Astoundingly he is developmentally fine.

Juggling my DS2 is 2 and still doesn't really eat meat, I.know he would not have wanted it at 4 months.

This summary seems pretty clear, and unpicks the study quite well IMHO.

This article from Unicef is interesting, too. Sorry if it has been posted already. Haven't read through all the pages.
www.babyfriendly.org.uk/pdfs/unicef_uk_response_to_BMJ_article_140111.pdf

you can make purees including meat though can't you?

Boobbuffet - I read that blog that provides a critique of the article. To summarise from it:

3 out of the 4 authors have received funding within the last 3 years from formula/baby food companies.

The "evidence" for this paper stems from 136 EBF babies and totally contradicts numerous other studies that found EBF babies had sufficient iron stores at 6 months.

Something needs to be done to refute the "evidence" in this paper. It's ghastly

Franbamn....ready meals through the post!!! Having lovingly breastfed as nature intended you are advocating feeding solids not lovingly sourced, cooked and blended (organically) by moi?

BoobBuffet - that's brilliant. Just what we needed

jugglingjo my health visitor suggested dried apricots as a good iron source.

Agree with FrameyMcFrame.
I just wish the whole debate wasnt so polarised. I dont understand why people seem to think it advisable to have a fixed weaning date that everyone should adhere to. Surely every baby is an individual. When I had dd 11 years ago the advice was generally 4 months but my health visitor was luckily highly experienced and confident in the advice she gave.
This was invaluable to us as dd had beeen born 10 weeks premature so the debate was from which date did we calculate weaning - actual birth or due date. We went somewhere down the middle after observing how interested dd seemed to be when we were eating. Health visitor advised try her with a teaspoon of baby rice. We did this and dd almost ate the spoon she was so desperate for more. She was clearly ready for soemthing beyond breastfeeding. Apart from a few purchases of baby rice the evil baby food manufacturers didn`t benefit from huge purchases of anything from us. I kept breast feeding for another 6 months.
If people had been berating me for not continuing with exclusive breast-feeding I would have told them to mind their own bloody business.
Dd is one of the healthiest children in her class at school and one of the tallest ( despite being prem). I do not ascribe this to my feeding choices for her in isolation from all the other things which influence these things not least that she has probably inherited a generally healthy disposition from me. What she has not inherited ( which all the self appointed experts thought she would ) are my allergies.

A bit of an aside, but in reply to idlingabout, can I ask why you think your dd's height has anything to do with it? My ds1 is the smallest in his class, as ds2 is likely to be when he starts in September. But they are healthy enough, not malnourished or under developed. That's just their size! Or should I now be worrying that my 'late' weaning has stunted their growth? (I'm not worried by the way, but I'm sure some mums might feel that way )

Sorry if I sound a bit defensive . I just get tired of people assuming that taller means healthier!

Upwind sent me this excellent link last night: dianthus.co.uk/duration-of-exclusive-breastfeeding-and-risk-of-anaemia which is well worth a read.

I made apricot puree all the time for dd. It was so delicious that I ate it myself- hot on icecream! Apricot sauce I call it. You do need to boil the dried apricots for about half an hour and keep adding water as they soak up so much then blend. Delicious.

Pinkip - sorry the mention of height wasnt meant to imply anything about weaning but more to dispel the oft mentioned myth that premature children are smaller and underdeveloped. S0rry for ny confusion. The point of my post I guess, was to point out that you cant have one rule for everyone and that Mothers should be able to make the best choice for them and their child without fear of criticism.

I should add that it's very high in sugar but hey ho- I introduced it later in weaning.

Oh and Pinkip - if you re-read my post you will see that I specifically was not ascribing dd`s state of health to my feedin choices but suggesting that other factors come into play. So I totally agree with you re size etc.

I find it so sad that a breastfeeding ''mafia'' have been spoken about. Yes, some people are evangelical about it but likewise; some are evangelical about bottle feeding and expressing.
I live in a posh area down south and I know many women who didn't try breastfeeding as it is considered wierd (still) or sadly there was a lack of support. I found it a nightmare to establish but once it was (after 6 weeks) it got better.

Posh - I remember dried apricots being mentioned, but I wish someone had told me about stewing and blending them. I never thought of that, though my DD did enjoy baby purees from jars with apricot. Wish I'd got my DS more into pureed veg and fruit too - he might have developed broader tastes, and less of a sweet tooth !(from all those rusks, and biscuits at toddler groups )

Great idea to share!

I have been re-reading the ?WHO? report on its recommendation that mothers exclusively breastfeed for the first six months and I take back what I said in an earlier posting about the WHO?s advice being dogmatic? the ?WHO? report itself is not dogmatic and it does not make ridiculous claims about breastfeeding. However, breastfeeding hardliners (or the ?breastfeeding mafia? is you like (and yes it is very sad)) who are all too prevalent amongst health professionals (particularly midwives), charities, parenting forums, people who volunteer to run NCT antenatal classes, journalists and some breastfeeding mums (but not all of us!), use the WHO?s recommendation to be dogmatic about exclusive breastfeeding.

I weaned my son at five months and was told by a health professional and a couple of other mums that I had therefore forfeited any breastfeeding health benefits to myself or my son. Common sense told me that this was nonsense. I have lost count of the times that I have heard people use the ?WHO? as an authority to demoralise bottle-feeding mums, mums who use mixed feeding and mums who wean earlier than six months. I understand that the intention of the WHO is to promote breastfeeding and that is a good thing but the ?all of nothing? approach ? in other words ?if you are going to breastfeed, you have to do this for six months exclusively or there is no point? is not helpful.

Headlines like ?Breast is not best? are obviously sensational and irresponsible journalism but no more or less than some of the outlandish claims made about the miraculous benefits of breastfeeding which are ubiquitous in the press (a good example of this is the un-substantiated claim that breastfeeding increases your child?s IQ). There are pros and cons with breastfeeding, bottle-feeding and mixed-feeding.

If the NHS change their recommendation with regard to weaning age (which has been rumoured for some time now), I hope that this goes some way in stopping the dogmatic ?all or nothing? hardliners and instead champions ?common sense? and therefore helps mums to continue to breastfeed and stops demonising infant formula. I do not believe that demonising infant formula and/or infant formula companies helps breastfeeding or bottle-feeding mums. There is as much ?scientific? evidence with regard to allergies being caused by weaning after four months but before six months as there is ?scientific? evidence that is in fact nonsense and to be fair the ?WHO? (and the more responsible members of the press) do not dispute this.

Mums ? we should trust ourselves and our own common sense ? whether you are breastfeeding, bottle-feeding, mixed-feeding, weaning at 4 months or weaning at 6 months ? mothers you really do know best. :)

Thanks idlingabout, I appreciate your comments, and sorry again for sounding defensive.

Brockbaby - to give the flip side to your experience, I was absolutely not supported in my decision to wait until around 6 months before weaning my ds's, so I'm not sure where the 'breasfeeding mafia' were then.

In fact, with ds1 (who had reflux), I was convinced by my hv to wean him at 20 weeks, against my better judgement in terms of whether he was ready. It was no big deal I suppose, but neither did it miraculously cure the reflux, make him shoot up through the growth centiles or start sleeping through the night, as she seemed to think it would. With ds2, who has always been 'petite', the hvs I saw were trying to convince me to wean him from around 17 weeks onwards and made it clear they were not happy about my decision not too. They had no science to back up their advice - and couldn't answer my questions on why some pureed fruit and veg would make him put weight on more quickly than breastmilk. It actually made me stop taking him to clinic, so great was the pressure I felt to wean early. This was only 4 years ago, so the government guidelines were already in place.

With dd1, I just didn't bother talking to hvs about when I was going to wean her - in fact, I didn't really bother talking to them at all . I am glad now that I stuck to my guns with ds2 and dd1, weaning them once they were able to pick up some food, get it to their mouths and drop it straight on the floor chomp on it (which happened to be around 6 months for both of them). That was what I felt most comfortable doing. It is very sad if this study makes other mums less likely to do what they feel happy with in terms of weaning.

"What makes some dude in a lab coat think that just because they've invented formula means that breastmilk is suddenly redundant and dangerous to babies health. What utter tosh!!" Once again, I really, really think the issue here is just appalling, appalling journalism. The headlines are shockingly misguided, and this huge response to what's essentially a tiny review piece is so disproportionate it beggars belief.

What's astounding is that the most recent Cochrane review was only in 2009 - Cochrane reviews have an excellent reputation for rigour, scale and reliability, and yet did that make the press? Not as far as I recall - it's the supposedly shocking news of this piece that's caught the attention of editors, but if you read the piece itself it says essentially very little indeed.

We should be furious with journalists and their editors for this stupid unnecessary creation of misleading and in some cases distressing guff. If MNHQ want another campaign, well, this should be right up their street.

And fwiw, I don't think I do always know best. I'm more than capable of making misjudgements and mistakes in raising my children, and am glad that scientific research is ongoing so that I - and my children's father, who has an equal say in their upbringing - can use it in helping us to make decisions.

The advice when my DCs were babies was to wean them at four months or when they weighed 12 pounds. The baby-care section in the book my grandmother used advised giving no solid food at all until the child was eighteen months old. I was advised that babies should be put to sleep on their tummies.

In other words,official advice changes over the decades and yet somehow people have managed to bring up babies in spite of it!

Brock I have a different use for the WHO guidance, when I had GPs, a consultant and just whoever fancied putting their 2 cents worth in, telling me there was no point continuing to BF after 6 months as there is really no benefit after that time, I held those WHO guidelines aloft and said there was. I am unaware of this IQ study you talk of and have never heard it dangerously reported in the media but I love BFing. I have never met anyone from this mafia you speak of, unless it was in the brilliant BfN counsellor who helped me continue feeding after having loads of trouble with BFing DS2, or the MW who advocated for me when the GP said I should stop being difficult when I demanded treatment for my breast abcess (it was huge and pus filled but I was told just to wait and see if it got better). I wish this mafia had been around when the above people were hassling me. Do I call them the anti breast feeding mafia then, or just ill informed.

Yes, advice changes, but in general, fewer babies die these days from SIDS, or from NTDs, etc so there's a lot to be said for ongoing research. I'm pretty sure that my own two children would not be with us, or at least not be as healthy as they are, had it not been for research into folic acid, for example.