"cherries the entire process of birth is sugar coated in my opinion. And that does women a terrible disservice. They're told bf is easy, they're told that with good breathing they can push out a baby, then when almost half of first timers have issues they feel like failures. The gap between expectations and reality is too big. It doesn't let women make informed choices"
Completely, wholeheartedly agree with this.
tea
Please, you're not listening to my points at all.
Research has been done and is ongoing and results are showing that when you can remove more and more confounding factors to do with breastfeeding then the statistics between many outcomes for formula fed babies is very very little.
I am not saying at all that breastfeeding has no benefits, not at all. And it's not a fallacy - what I said was in regard to the specific website you posted, regarding UNICEF.
We have to be more discerning and seek out the facts and rationales behind the advice we are given. Our own NHS is a prime example as previously stated. They build up breastfeeding onto this pedestal whilst offering very little real term support, and mothers feel very let down in themselves and guilt ridden when they don't live up to the expectations fed to them from before birth.
All I am trying to do is spread the knowledge of what research tells us, and encourage people to discern for themselves based on the actual evidence provided to us, while symultaneously understanding the limitations studies and statistics provide us - basically the exact opposite of not "looking at the bigger picture, it just how you feel".
Even our large health organisations are based on these guideline's, which are based on information which is not as accurate as it should be.
I'm not saying that breast milk isn't optimum nutriton for babies, no one is.
What I'm saying is that just like the evidence behind BF health benefits, there are myriad other aspects involved in breastfeeding, and due to these the benefits of breast milk is sometimes out weighed by other negative aspects of breastfeeding.
It is important that women are not patronised and are given the realities of breastfeeding and childbirth, rather than select information authorities deem fit to share with us. It is obviously a flawed approach, or else we would have women who want to breastfeed doing so successfully, and women who chose to formula feed for whatever reason doing so without the crippling guilt!
It is wrong to omit and cherry pick certain bits of information to support your agenda.