Fed is Best!!!!!!

[HotDawg123]

If you choose to breast feed - good for you
If you choose to bottle feed - good for you
But if you choose to be a breast feeding warrior and look at those who choose to bottle feed as scum then I hope you slip in dog shit tomorrow.

The amount of horrible women I've come across who are like this is too many now. And as I am heavily pregnant and have hormone rage it is really pissing me off.

Thank you for listening.

I'd also suggest that it's really common for mums who are struggling to breastfeed, or who are conflicted about it/have strong feelings of ambivalence about it, to see judgement where none exists. It's like a weird sort of guilt egotism - you think everyone is looking at you and thinking about you, but actually if you're mixing with new mums the likelihood is that they haven't thought for 10 seconds about anyone other than themselves and their baby and are so knackered that their 'accusing stare' is probably just them being glazed with exhaustion.

A lot of people here accept the assertion that Breastmilk really is best...as Nannyogg has said, there isn't any real evidence that it is in developed countries with safe water supplies.

I think support should be better to help women to breastfeed, clearly it is better in at least one sense - it's cheaper! And easier, if done right (no bottle cleaning, making up feeds).

But like the stupid WHO ideal Caesarian figure, there's no reason the govt. should involve itself so heavily in promoting breastfeeding when so many people are never going to take to it.

Surely by not providing information on Formula, you actually risk the health of babies as people don't know how to correctly make a bottle/clean it easily (i.e. in the dishwasher as they do in the USA vs, the insistence on sterilisation in this country).

Is there any evidence for the UK that stripping out parental background, BF is actually better than FF?

On the rhetoric harming babies front, the Fed is Best group has a very upsetting story about a baby dying: fedisbest.org/2017/02/given-just-one-bottle-still-alive/

And there we go with the dismissal and minimising mini just because you don't agree with someone's feelings doesn't make them wrong.

That fed is best story has really upset me and made me wonder if my baby is damaged by being breastfed as he lost 9% of his weight at day 5.

Sorry mini I didnt see your post! No, both full term, induced first time and elective section second time. 6 pound 2 ounces and 7 pounds 9 ounces respectively. I was never told about donor milk. Do all hospitals do it? What is the protocol with it?

Flipper The fed is best story is a tragic case but it is, thankfully, an extremely rare example. Weight loss wasn't the only indicator that things weren't right in this case so, for example, if your baby was producing wet nappies then he will have been getting milk. Up to about 10% loss isn't normally a worry if there are other signs that the baby is getting milk.

It's hard not to worry about everything as a parent but if your baby is doing well now and there were no other signs at the time, then you shouldn't need to worry.

For me mini, and it's looking back in hindsight, if I had breastfed ds1 there's a good chance (I know people can Get pregnant while bfing) ds2 wouldn't exist. And he, like ds1, is the most amazing little baby. So yes, in hindsight, what with it being such a wonderful thing, I'm glad it didn't work out for me.

That fed is best story has really upset me and made me wonder if my baby is damaged by being breastfed as he lost 9% of his weight at day 5

% weightloss should be discounted if the mother had IV fluids in labour, as babies in those circumstances can be born "overloaded".

Unfortunately, not all HCPs cross reference the labour notes before using % weight loss as a measurement.

Thank you tea and Tinsel. I am anxious about his health ( he was born at 35+6 due to pre eclampsia and I blame myself for him being early and small, even though it's not rational). I did have iv fluids during labour, and he did have a couple of formula top ups in the early days due to low blood sugar.

in that case the true weightloss will have been masked as the 9% will have included offloading the excess x

Is there any evidence for the UK that stripping out parental background, BF is actually better than FF?

Not a great deal, there's a lot of propaganda and FF mum's are made to feel like their kids will be obese with low IQs which is nonsense.
It is proven that BFing reduces breast cancer risk in the mother. It's not proven that their babies will have higher IQs, be slimmer and many other things that have been exaggerated.
I come from a personal point of view that I love BFing and fed mine till 3 years old. But I'm also a scientist and the media has misinterpreted the research I'm afraid.

Red It's my understanding that it's also near enough impossible for them to do a valid study on this as there as so few exclusively BF babies by 6 months? E.g. DD wouldn't have made the cut because I started weaning at 24 weeks. It's also difficult to find babies who have been exclusively FF and who haven't been given anything other than formula until 6 months.

Not a great deal, there's a lot of propaganda and FF mum's are made to feel like their kids will be obese with low IQs which is nonsense

But that is a massive leap in logic, its understandable to make over-sensitive leaps postnatally (we all do), but it's still a leap

"a higher/reduced risk of"
doesn't mean
"you will definitely get/not get"

Most people know this in the cold light of day.

For me, this article puts it perfectly. I get no judgement from the writer at all, just common sense - so often these threads seem to lose that!

time.com/99746/its-time-to-end-the-breast-is-best-myth/

Exactly... do breastfeed, it's lovely. But don't do it for medical reasons as they are generally overstated. So if breastfeeding doesn't work out, or if you don't think it's 'lovely' and you dont want to do it then it's no big deal.

OohNo That's an interesting article. She links to the article I posted earlier. Pretty on the nose really. People need to be more supportive to each other about their choices.

"Is there any evidence for the UK that stripping out parental background, BF is actually better than FF?

This is the information on NHS Choices about the benefits of breastfeeding, based on studies done in the UK:

"Breastfeeding reduces your baby's risk of:

infections, with fewer visits to hospital as a result

diarrhoea and vomiting, with fewer visits to hospital as a result

sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS)

childhood leukaemia

type 2 diabetes

obesity

cardiovascular disease in adulthood"

You would have to have a look at the research these recommendations are based on and see how significant you think the benefits are. Everyone has their own comfort zones around risk taking behaviours when it comes to their babies. Some people are comfortable tolerating rare risks, other people not. What some people perceive as a small risk other people will see as a large risk. For example with the SIDS issue - the Lullaby Trust has done several meta analysis. This is from their review of the evidence:
"The most recent meta-analysis published in 2011 supports the findings that
breastfeeding is associated with lower rates of SIDS.
143 An adjusted analysis that
compared any duration of breastfeeding against formula feeding reported an odds
ratio of 0.55 for breastfeeding (CI 0.44-0.69) (Figure 4A). Exclusive breastfeeding (no
intake of formula milk) was associated with the lowest risk, with an adjusted odds
ratio of 0.27 (0.24-0.31) (Figure 4B). "

"Not a great deal, there's a lot of propaganda and FF mum's are made to feel like their kids will be obese with low IQs which is nonsense."

No - that's how you have chosen to interpret what is being said in order to discredit those who are promoting breastfeeding.

You have an anti-breastfeeding promotion agenda.

Nobody is saying that if you formula feed your children will have 'low IQ's' or be obese. Nobody.

What people are saying is just this: breastfeeding may have a protective effect against obesity and appears to be supportive of improved cognitive development. That's all. Everyone who knows anything about the research knows that it's complex and that the benefits are not quantifiable at an individual level.

But those of you with an interest in trying to discredit those involved in breastfeeding promotion and education, and rubbish the evidence on the benefits of breastfeeding deliberately misrepresent the evidence, and misrepresent what is being said about it in order to make mothers who don't breastfeeding feel awful and under attack. It's shaming - why do you want to polarise opinion and make women feel rotten about their choices and about how they're seen by others?

Love the way people will pounce on an article in TIME magazine, but ignore meta-analysis showing breastfeeding to have important benefits, published by UNICEF and in The Lancet, The BMJ, the NHS and by the American Academy of Paediatrics.

Cherry picking much?

FYI - the sibling study in the Time used a population with very low rates of exclusive breastfeeding, and a very short duration of breastfeeding. It also ignored all differences in health outcomes below the age of 4.

this is a thoughtful response to it and raises some very interesting questions about the nature of breastfeeding.

I accept the research!

But the risk is low enough that it really doesn't even register on my radar.

I will look at the research.

I think rates of SIDS are higher in areas with more poverty, where women are less likely to breastfeed.

I also think that children are more likely to be admitted to hospital in situations of extreme poverty.

It would be interesting to see if any of the studies you quoted strip out parental background.

The reason many of us are sceptical over the benefits of BF (and there are some) in a developed country with good access to clean water, is that it is well known that in this country BF is associated with a middle class, well educated population. So any child EBF for 6 months is overwhelmingly likely to come from the most privileged population. How can we strip that out of the data?

Of course the UK FF babies have much better outcomes than EBF babies in lots of countries, like Senegal.

I worry that by not talking about formula we disadvantage people who are , frankly, never going to be keen on breastfeeding, and make it more likely their kids will pick up infections as they don't know how to FF most safely & easily.

WHO is right that BF should be promoted as most of the world is not as lucky as we are to have access to clean water and good formula.

But I think your efforts would be better focused on those countries, rather than ours.

The marginal gains from everyone breastfeeding for 6 months in the UK are small.

You're all so passionate one way or another, instead of arguing can someone PLEASE help me!!!!! I'm a breastfeeder who has had to stop and I'm so stuck and confused...

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/a2867634-How-the-hell-do-you-bottle-feed?msgid=67321872#67321872

Also minifingers, what could a hospital do differently in that recent case from fed is best? And still be in line with your values of promoting only BF?

"You have an anti-breastfeeding promotion agenda"

I really don't have an anti breastfeeding agenda. I breastfed all my children and loved it and I helped others to breastfeed where I could. I think its great and there are loads of nice things about it.

My point is that to breastfeed for medical reasons is a bit misguided. Non of the research can factor against all the confounding factors that come into choosing to breastfeeding, for example being middle class, affluent, having social support, havinbetter health education, not smoking, not drinking, having a better prenatal diet and many other things that happen to be more common in breastfeeding families in the UK. Those are all things that do contribute to better health outcomes in the baby, fewer admissions, lower risk of obesity etc.
Again, I think BFing is great for many reasons but saying 'breastfeeding is associated with a lower risk of SIDS/obesity' etc is not the full story.

Between formula fed and not fed at all, yes, fed is best. No sane person would disagree.

Between formula and breast milk, it looks as though breast milk has more benefits.

This discussion is so sodding boring!

We women are bloody awful to each other.