Breastfeeding in the news this morning

[Jackieharris]

From what I heard on the radio a Brazilian study has linked breastfeeding with intelligence & 'success' later in life.

I've not read the study or seen any details so not sure about validity/is it applicable to UK/how long the sample bf for etc.

But I did also hear that in Scotland the bf rate at 10 days is less than 50%. I'm quite shocked at that. I'd have guessed it would be more like 70-80%.

Can't see this study/news changing that though.

What are the chances of GO announcing spectacular new investment in bf support in today's budget?

...and a septuagenarian crying over her FF guilt just makes me

You've convinced me, Purdey. You have never met any ff who are sad and self blaming. So obviously they cannot exist.

I must have dreamt the 70 year old woman who was tearful about her bf experience and her memories of being pressured into using formula. You are sceptical about it, so obv it can't be true.
The mothers who write about these feelings on Mumsnet are a bunch of liars, too.

Thank you for putting everyone right.

But as for showing us you think ff mothers don't use 'absurd' slings or that bf mothers don't put their babies down or sleep with their partners....Maybe you should get out more, talk to more people, have an open mind?

I am the mother of a one year old. I am out there. All the time. I'm living amongst mums day in day out. No-one is tearing at sackcloth. Maybe it's because we are free of all that middle class angst about these matters

You are unkind, closed minded and oblivious to people outside your own particular circle , Purdey, and quite unaware of it, apparently. And living in a weird world where you think angst about infant feeding is solely a middle class 'thing'.

Actually, I believe bf-ing - and the concomitant angst - is largely a middle class thing. To deny it is disingenuous and does nobody any favours. It is not unkind to point this out.

It is unkind to disbelieve people (or accuse them of angst which apparently is manufactured and unreal) if they are sad about their feeding experiences.

Well, there's sad and then there's angst. And then there are seventy year olds crying about it fifty years later.

Maybe read the thread purdey pie?

There are several posters who seem to believe this test was undertaken to make them feel even more guilty.

I can't understand the guilt either. But then I don't get guilty at research that shows learning a second language is good, or learning an instrument or having a mum facing pram or eating enough veg or hours watching TV.

Nor do I automatically deny the validity of the research either tho.

Surely it can be deduced that bright kids are born of similarly bright parents or rich ones

John can I take it you're not an Annabel Karmel devotee?

We can deduce you didn't read the thread or the study :)

There are so many reports of mothers ff because of medical reasons but what about other physical and emotional reasons? I desperately wanted to be, however my boobs were engorged after an emergency c section with both nipples inverted. I was discharged from St George's exactly 24 hours after my c section. I was not prepared for it and had no advice. I was in bits.
I was at home with a screaming baby, desperately hungry and nothing at all I could do about it.
Luckily and I have no idea why but we had bought a couple of bottles and ready made formula incase of emergency.
I have since read it's very common for engorgement post c section.
I then tried to feed from both boobs with no success. I expressed for the first few weeks and fed from the one that was functioning. They were so heavy and big that I had to balance the baby and my boob with both hands so he didn't suffocate and could drink correctly. It was upsetting and tiring in equal measures. I gave myself carpel tunnel on my wrist.
So popping for a coffee whilst bf was impossible as I had to make sure I was holding my boob with one hand and the baby with the other. Added to this my nipples were, as many are, cracked and sore as hell.
One night in the early hours when I was bent double in pain from my c section, with sore nipples and a constantly hungry baby, wracked with guilt I made the heart breaking decision to stop breastfeeding.
My son is happy, healthy, kicking, trying to talk and is perfectly contented with a great big smile on his face......and he is only ten weeks.
My partners brother was ff and got a PhD in microbiology at 23.
It's hard being a mum. It doesn't make you better if you had a natural birth, it doesn't make you better if you breastfeed, it just makes your experience of motherhood slightly different. We are all making our way and it would be better if we could acknowledge the amazing job each and everyone of us is doing to bring up our children than making judgemental comments that can be interpreted in so many detrimental ways.

no judgmental comments from me, and happily hardly any on this thread. You struggled massively and were let down horribly. Lovely that your ds is thriving!

I might have missed something but isn't it actually impossible to compare bf vs bottle feeding, as to make a proper comparison you'd have to compare the outcome of the same baby fed on breastmilk and bottle milk?!

And I say this as someone who bfed my dd until she was nearly 2...

It is not possible to directly compare the two, as you've described. So instead you can do as the Brazilian study has done and look at correlations that exist for breastfeeding and whatever outcomes you're interested in (IQ, education and income in the Brazil study). That can't prove a causal link of course, but with enough data/studies you can be fairly certain of a link. Not conclusive but probable.

Probable isn't good enough. It's ridiculous, any other area and it would just be laughed at.I certainly wouldn't be taking any drugs probably ok after research done on them.

"Fairly certain" is utter rubbish too,really wow,just wow. How can you be "fairly certain" on such tenuous science concerning relatively small numbers.And what is "fairly certain"? "Fairly certain" of what?

Cultures differ a lot. In this country the vast maj have both Bm and f at some point.Would love to see conclusive studies on British children.

The fact remains you have to use your common sense and look at your own family.I knew that with degree educated,book reading,healthy eating/living parents with a long family history of long living healthy members( many ff and longer living/healthier than the bfing side) the pain and angst caused by bfing simply wasn't worth it past 6 weeks.I was right. Our lifestyle far,far outweighs any tenuous 4 points. At the end of the day having worked with kids all my life I can say that my vocab,education,reading to my dc, the environment I provide and value of education far,far outweighs any relatively weak study with far more strength and with far bigger consequences.

"Any other area and it would just be laughed at" - really? Are you sure? Because in lots of situations it is not possible to conduct randomised double blind controlled trials, due to it being unethical or impossible. Therefore the only type of study you can do is to do observational studies to look at correlation. This doesn't automatically invalidate the results! It means you have to be very careful about what you are claiming, and do much more research into the correlation to rule out confounding factors.

Will you discount all conclusions drawn from observational studies, in every field?! Wow, just wow.

I think they should teach much more about research studies and statistics at school, including these kind of observational and social studies which are so important when considering a variety of life and health related choices.

I was fortunate to study some statistics within geography at Uni, but even so I've needed to develop my understanding of this for myself - thinking through confounding factors in a study like this for example.

As others have said the media reporting of such studies always seems to be at a fairly basic level too .... Typically "Link found between ...." and that's if you're lucky!

Juggling, I agree. It wasn't until I had long left school and done further study that I learnt about different studies and while I am no expert on stats at all, I can read a paper and appraise it. Basic stuff should be done at school.

On this thread, we've seen opinions that show some fundamental misunderstandings:

• that the Brazil study was a small sample - it wasn't. A cohort of 3000 is a large one for this type of study

• that only randomised controlled trials can teach us anything - untrue. There are many areas where RCTs are not possible; it doesn't mean anything else you can learn is of lesser value

• because you can only compare the effects of something by experimenting on the same subject, the results of a study that cannot do this are suspect - this is not true either, and would mean much drugs research would be null and void, as much drugs research is done on different groups (at its simplest, two groups, one which has the drug and one which has not). LPM, you might take note of this as your standards for medication research seem very high

• that researchers claim their findings are 'proof' and without 'proof' we can dismiss the findings - but in reality the language of research is to 'strongly suggest' and so on....it is very rare that research claims 'prove' something that is not a clear cut laboratory-based experiment. This includes the effects of drugs. LPM, take note, that 'probably' is about as good as you will get :)

The frothing and fussing of some posters at the idea this study might reveal something interesting is striking.

I have said before that research of this sort does not trump an individual's own need, and right, to do what she feels is the right thing for her individual family, baby, circumstances.

Funny how when studies show anything neg as regards co sleeping or bfing the fussing is always justified even when it is regarding something far more serious. Some of us have been MNers for a long time.

Sorry given there have been studies showing no link to IQ and bf I will be remaining highly sceptical and await the next study which is sure to come at some point.

The fact we have to clutch to our chest the findings of a Brazilian study on children who will have had far less life chances I find slightly humorous and no I don't regard 3000 babies as a large number.If the findings had found the reverse you can bet your bottom dollar the bfing crusaders would be saying the same.

I also think it is laughable to consider that there is a link between bf-ing and IQ; one can draw all kinds of conclusions from observational studies (and 3000 is not a decent number for this kind of 'study'). I agree, too, that if negative reports surrounding co-sleeping and SIDS are reported the attachment lobby are up in arms.

Did you read about the latest study that shows pollution from coal fires and traffic fumes disrupts parts of the developing brain in babies that support information processing and behaviour? No? Scans of inner-city children from before birth until aged seven to nine revealed those exposed to high levels of air pollution had lower white matter in their left brain, impairing intelligence and causing ADHD and aggression.

As they grew up it caused problems in concentration, reasoning, judgment, and problem-solving.
The US study looked at neurotoxic PAH - polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - and its effects on the brains of inner city kids.
They are contained in vehicles fumes, coal fires or oil central heating systems, power plants, wildfires and agricultural burning, tobacco smoke and hazardous waste sites.

So, babies in London are in danger of growing up thick and angry. Quelle horreur!

What's your point Purdey? That study into neurotoxic PAH looked at 40 children in New York, and showed a correlation between exposure and various developmental issues.

Are you saying that this study is as flawed as the Brazil study in your opinion and should be ignored? That you can draw other conclusions from the study? Or something else?

She's saying if you treated every tenuous "study" as the gospel truth and certainty you wouldn't leave your house and will end up in an early grave.

Funny how us mums aren't allowed to use our common sense.Seems to me the minute the milk starts flowing we are deemed to be no longer fully functioning intelligent adults and are instead amoebas who need to be told everything and should conduct our parenting from study to study.

Look, it's pointless to discuss it any more.

PP, 3000 is a perfectly respectable number for a study of this kind - you say it isn't, but what can I say....it is :) Maybe ask a researcher, or someone who knows what they're talking about, and check it out?

LPM - I asked you before about negative studies about co-sleeping, and negative studies about bf, being disparaged. I know studies into co-sleeping which do not differentiate between sofa-sharing and bed-sharing are criticised ( for example, here www.bmj.com/content/350/bmj.h563) but that seems to me important, to enable parents to make an informed choice. I don't know of any negative studies to show breastfeeding is harmful or risky, unless you are referring to the ones a couple of decades ago about HIV?

I don't think I treat any study as the 'gospel truth' - all studies, even well-conducted ones - can only ever give part of the story.
You can't mean me when you say this.

Who expects parents to conduct their parenting from study to study? Who treats studies as 'gospel truth'?

Who are these people??!