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?

The fact that the lead clinician said this made me think it's no more conclusive than any other study, really.

"Horta acknowledged he could not completely rule out the possibility mothers who breastfed helped their babies’ development in other ways. “Some people say it is not the effect of breastfeeding but it is the mothers who breastfeed who are different in their motivation or their ability to stimulate the kids,” he told the Guardian."

I have skimmed through the report and they have found the the positive impact for low income mothers of African heritage is less. This suggests that social economic factors play a very large role, as you would expect, and that breast feeding along does not mean you will have a higher IQ or earn more.

Today I am six weeks post natal having had a baby at 30 weeks. For three weeks I expressed and my baby was fed my milk in hospital but I was not producing enough. In the past two days I have had this "news" that bf children will grow up more successful and the "news" that preterm infants tend to have lower IQs than term ones.

How I am not deep in the depths of PND right now is a mystery! Oh no, it's because I refuse to believe that there is any real value to these studies and I am aware that there are many more factors to consider. Studies like this are detrimental to the health of parents who are only trying to do the best for their children.

To follow on from the pp - correlation not causation.

Also it doesn't mean every child who is bf will have higher IQ points, it's statistics.

I bf my DS for over 10 months but I really dislike articles like this, another stick to beat mothers with.

These studies can make people feel bad. Even the researchers say there are so many other factors that contribute to success. I personally feel that everyone who can should, but never feel guilty if you don't/can't.

As someone pointed out this is in Brasil not the UK. I live in Brasil, have done on and off for years. I can shed a bit of light on the differences regarding formula here. Only recently have I noticed formula of the quality of Europe/UK as Brasil is now western. This wasn't the case even 10 years ago. When my son was a baby infants that were not given breast were often put onto cows milk earlier than a year. Formula was very expensive, so if used it could be either watered down or, I kid you not, mixed with chocolate powder. No way of knowing if this was done in this study but it's food for thought. Now Brasil has good quality and afordable infant formula like aptimil it would be interesting to see if the same results would apply.

Interesting point tomandizzy.

It's only a "stick to beat parents with" if we insist on viewing very single decision we make (or are forced to make) with regards to our children as being vitally important. It is one tiny factor in determining IQ and "income" etc. I think we need to stop thinking that unless we parent to perfection our children are going to fail. That is what causes this guilt and upset.

I think there are lots of people disputing it. Still, in my head, I dispute it!

I just don't like this idea that we suppress or fail to look further into things that we might not like the results of.

My BF ship sailed about 13 years ago. I hope that people that are having babies right now can be helped to BF if that's what they want.

Why would anyone not like the results? They are what they are whether you can BF or not.

I think we are all in agreement that mothers who can and want to bf need much more support than the NHS is currently providing.

Why is there not a huge campaign on this? Is this something mumsnet could do a campaign on? It seems like a universally popular idea.

Meh, there's people here and all over the internet who are saying, this latest research makes them feel terrible.

I am sure there are.

I BF DD1 for 4 weeks until she was so malnourished she was put in intensive care. The support was non-existent, I was left for 5 days when I left hospital without a visit. The MWs knew about as much as me about BF, or so it seemed.

I BF DD2 for two years and it was easy with her so fortunately I didn't need any help.

I do think BF is important but I don't feel (anymore) that I failed DD1 or that she is anyway less intelligent or inferior to DD2 in anyway.

But the study is great but you can't just put the information out there and do nothing to help mothers BF. If the health professionals and government believe in the benefits then they need to invest in supporting mothers more. Not just beating them up with studies like this when it is too late.

I haven't suggested for a moment that such research shouldnt be conducted, but I make no apologies at all for saying that the report on the morning news made me feel terrible.

Thinking it through more coolly now, I think what made me feel bad is that 'BF= High IQ' was being announced in measured male news-reading tones, and I wanted to grab him by the tie and say 'Yes, we know that, but tell me, have you ever tried every midwife, every helpline, every peer supporter, every HV, every £150 a pop 'lactation consultant', and begged your GP for increasingly abstruse blood tests because, despite having a big, hungry baby with a perfect latch, and pumping round the clock for eight weeks after birth, no milk is coming out?'

But I'm a statistical anomaly. I had enough education and confidence to ask for/pay for help, and nothing did any good. But no way should anyone have had to fight as hard as I did for that help. That's what I'm taking from the publicity for this study - we grasp the benefits of BF, now implement the help.

That's very interesting tomandizzy.

I was wondering what you thought of this comment from the head researcher?

"Horta says it is free of the major complication of most breastfeeding studies because, when it began in 1982, it was not just the more affluent and educated mothers who breastfed in Brazil. Breastfeeding was not limited to one socio-economic group. It was, he says, evenly distributed across the social classes. So the higher achievers at the age of 30 did not come from better-off homes."

I am :hmm: at this for two reasons. One is that I've lived in several different countries and trained as a historian and I don't know of any society in which breastfeeding was not linked to class. So I'm a bit suspicious of a claim that Brasil 30 years ago was somehow unique in this respect.

And I'm also concerned because does the above mean that the study made no allowances for class difference so? Does anyone have a link to the study itself?

I get the impression that's what the purpose of the study was. With actual results its easier to implement and provide help regarding feeding for new mothers.

Breastfeeding is defiantly not linked to social class here. Everyone does it, and does it when they need to. I've seen homeless mothers on the streets of Rio and people in top class restaurants breastfeeding. Brasil is a class dominated society, you can usually tell social class by talking to or looking at people. Sad but true.

Jubles There is this study:
time.com/9917/sibling-study-shows-little-difference-between-breast-and-bottle-feeding/

I am another statistical anomaly, Tapwater - apparently only the second case a BF counsellor had seen in 20 odd years where no one could extract even a drop of milk out of me in 48 hours, and this happened with both DCs. First time round I sought lots of help but second time round when it was clearly Groundhog Day I didn't bother. As far as anyone can tell neither of them had even a drop of breast milk. Both completely normal in terms of health and development.

DP and I are both highly educated and thus far DC1 is at the very top of her class academically. If she had an IQ 3 points higher it wouldn't make the blindest bit of difference, I am sure.

Yet despite all this I still found my blood boiling when I heard this study on the radio this morning. I am sure lack of support is a massive factor in many cases but to me that still implies everyone could do it if they wanted to enough got the right help and that's not entirely true. I know my case is unusual and I wish I could just ignore stories like this in the news, but they always upset me, as I'm sure they do others who were unable to breastfeed.

I'm really not sure why you think it implied that, as the ability of mothers to breastfeed or otherwise was not the focus of the study. I would be surprised if it was mentioned at all, seeing as it looked at the children of mothers who were able to BF.

Hi MissMidden. Nice to meet another anomaly, but very sorry your experience was as grim as mine.

BookofRuth, I don't think MissMidden was suggesting the actual study in Brazil implied that only lack of interest or effort hampers BF rates - as you say, by definition this is a study of those who successfully BF - but I think that will be the take on it in this country. That we should try harder for longer because there are measurable IQ benefits for the baby.

And tbh, it's hard not to take the way it's being reported personally. You said yourself that the study made you feel 'triumphant', which is lovely, but spare a thought for those of us who tried and tried and dud all the right things and still didn't succeed in getting more than two drops of colostrum into our babies. Speaking for myself, I'm just jealous of anyone who was able to do extended BF. My son is about to turn three and is giving up his dummy, and I feel that around now is when, left to myself, I'd be considering stopping BF.

Instead I'm just a statistic that the NHS doesn't like. In my son's red book, there's just a 'no' next to the question about whether he was BF at six weeks. And that stings because it doesn't show how I tried.

I've only skimed the thread so sorry if I've missed it, but will a potential extra 4 IQ points really make any difference either to the child or the mums decision?

Personally I know mine and my siblings IQ's range from 158 to 168 and we have never noticed any major differences between us. The lowest isn't the lowest educated or the lowest earner and the highest isn't the highest educated or the highest earner.

"Just another way to make mothers feel bad."

My first thoughts on hearing this on the news were:

• there will be the usual bleating on mumsnet along the lines of 'they're just trying to make mums who can't/don't breastfeed feel awful' because it's all about meeee dontcha know!

• there will be loads of protestations along the lines of 'well I wasn't breastfed and I've got a PHD, along with lots of stealth boasts about people's non-breastfed children being utter geniuses

• instant and total skepticism that there could be any validity to this research anyway. There are masses of people on mumsnet who seem completely convinced that there isn't one bit of worthwhile research showing breastfeeding to have any benefits and all breastfeeding promotion is stupid and pointless with only one purpose, which is to make mothers who can't breastfeed feel awful because it's all about meeee dontcha know!

I see you haven't disappointed.

Let them say it-
1- I think that in the poorest countries breastfeeding is still the norm- yet they do not all boast a very high IQ.
2- I dare say that in Europe and in the USA rich families used to delegate the nursing and infant-raising to their 'maids' - and this up to WW2. Quite often the weaning would be at a quite early age. Maids' natural kids and mistress's kids would be BF roughly the same period. And yet guess who made the most revolutionary discovers up to the end of the 19th century? Yeah the ones from the upper class families who got the monies to get a better education when they passed the BF age. I think that the social mobility phenomenon in the West took off seriously around/after WW2- I am not sure it survived the 21st century- when most mothers started using the bottle and when school became compulsory and the welfare system tried to build a fairer society.
3- they also say that even a drop of alcohol during pregnancy is harmful to your baby's development and IQ. Well I am sure that most of the mums of all the Jihadists and Talibans never drunk a drop of alcohol in their life and breastfed duly their babies who turned out to be of low IQ's (intellectual and emotional and moral IQ)- and no the blame is not in their mums' behavior.
I don't say let us drink ourselves to oblivion when pregnant and let us feed the kids a bottle as soon as they are born- regardless of their needs (some babies are tolerant to their mum's milk only)- but hey the alarmist must spend our hard earned monies on better causes than this kind of research (for instance: on improving the education of our progenitors when they reach the school age).

Agree with comments made by missmidden dancestomyowntune lightgreenglass

I am sick to the back teeth of hearing these reports. We get it!

Raising a child into adulthood, to the age of 30 in the study, takes more than breastmilk and there will be:

a) so many twists and turns on their path to adulthood
b) different factors in their lives that will influence their outcomes

It is impossible to genuinely identify breastfeeding as single factor that will guarantee a high IQ and higher earnings.

Not every mother can breastfeed. It does not make them a bad mother. Genetics, parental support, siblings, childcare arrangements, health and wellbeing, being a carer, stimulation, play, downtime, postcode, friendships and peer group, educational attainment, schooling, careers advice, interests/abilities et cetera... all come into play.

Article in the Guardian today "Bright pupils more likely to fall behind if from poor background, study finds". One of the key points made is that students from poorer backgrounds were less likely to choose "facilitating subjects" than wealthier peers.

Besides, higher IQ and higher earnings doesn't automatically equal happiness. I've seen many friends, high performing ones in well paid jobs have stress meltdowns. I also know someone who can barely write, but he'll have more money in the bank than I ever will. So what.

But what really pees me off , is seeing things like this happen to kids: www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/horror-pictures-reveal-filthy-home-5346598

It doesn't matter whether a baby is bf or ff. What matters is they are loved and cared for, to be happy and the best that they can be.