Mumsnet undermining breastfeeding again.

[Redebs]

Just read the Mumsnet article on caring for newborn babies. It's sponsored by a bottle manufacturer.

Much of it is misinformation that will seriously interfere with mothers' success with breastfeeding. For example trying to get a feeding routine for a two month old baby. This is totally against normal practice for on demand breastfeeding.

Anyone aiming for regular naps will be seriously frustrated and will think there is something wrong with them and their baby. Night feeding is treated as if it's a massive burden that should be shared by using a bottle.The massively negative impact of inaccurate information and expectations is aimed at discouraging breastfeeding.

There's a 'helpful' link to another article on 'combination feeding' aka introducing formula, along with references to a whole lot of bottle feeding products you should buy.

The WHO condemns companies that use misinformation and pressure on mothers not to breastfeed. While it may be subtly disguised, that is exactly what articles like this are doing.

And for money.

30 mins

I actually laughed out loud at that, who on Earth do you think you are to demand people ‘do research to your standard’ before making a feeding choice about their own child? You people are something else!

The really interesting thing when I had mine, who was made so very ill by EBFing, was talking to some very elderly acquaintances about our experience. They'd had their babies in the 1930s and 1940s, in a poor area without access to money for formula, which wasn't widely available anyway.

They knew how dangerous BFing could be for babies, the dangers of insufficient supply and babies failing to thrive. And that was in the days when everyone BF and was surrounded by others BFing.

We've lost this knowledge in the crazy pursuit of all babies being EBF, which has never been possible in the history of the human race. There's infant feeding vessels in museums that are thousands of years old.

I have demanded nothing.

you are reading something clearly that isn’t there to suit your own view point.

again. Leave me alone.

There are medical reasons involved too. Thank you for you concern

leave me alone.

What do you think babies were being fed from vessels thousands of years ago? Ye olde cow and gate? 😂

No, more like ye olde cow or goat.

They fed babies animal milk in the hope it would sustain them.

Wet nursing has always been far more common throughout history than artificial feeding. Let's not kid ourselves that BFing hasn't been the norm.

Yes my mum and her brother were both fed straight from the cow from day dot in the 1940’s……both still alive! I think my kids got off lightly by comparison!

Ridiculing extended BFing just makes you sound ridiculous. BFing a 3yo is biologically normal and if we used being able to walk and eat solids as a benchmark for when to stop, nobody would ever make it to the WHO's recommendation of 2 years.

As for your glass of wine and 9 hours of sleep, plenty of BFing mothers will be enjoying that too. I did.

The angriest person on this thread by a county mile is you OP.

Formula feeding is ‘proper infant feeding’. It may not be optimal but it does the job fine, and for multiple reasons it works well for many mothers and babies.

If you feel the article is crossing into advertising - fair enough. What is odd though is your palpable anger about the choice to bottle feed. As you surely know people are, in the main, perfectly well aware that breastfeeding is the best option for optimal health. But for various reasons it doesn’t work for many, so they prefer bottles. That’s not to say formula companies don’t do the best they can to flog their products, but it is to say that bottle feeding is often largely a matter of personal preference. It’s not that people don’t care about their babies health, it just that, like many things in life, there are a large number of factors at play.

Actually it hasn’t.

would you like me to recommend some history books to you?

And did it?

I would LOVE you to recommend me a history book that documents a society or period in history where only a minority of women breastfed and it wasn't the norm.

And so were sky high rates of infant mortality.

I remember having a massive penny drop moment while bfing through tears of pain that this was one of the reasons so many babies died back in the day. That it wasn’t just infection, it was the fact that evolution dropped an almighty bollock with breastfeeding, when we evolved a system that doesn’t work well in such a significant % of women and babies.

It's curious isn't it how the human is body is so amazing, and can do so many wonderful things, yet the area in which evolution has failed is the one money can be made out of

Have a word with yourself 🤣

Exactly but the crusade must continue! “Bitty” anyone 🤢

@Caviarandgelatine It's curious isn't it how the human is body is so amazing, and can do so many wonderful things, yet the area in which evolution has failed is the one money can be made out of

Yes much better if we followed evolution and let babies die rather than give our money to formula companies.

Mental aren’t they

Fruit loopy

2 years not 3 years -on no sleep- That poor child needs better nutrition and a solid 12hrs sleep like a normal nursery child (he’s not a baby!) oh and why are you drinking alcohol breastfeeding? That’s very bad. On those days ‘formula is best’.

’Evolution’ has failed in lots of areas, why do you think we need treatments for type 1 diabetes, cystic fibrosis, thyroid issues, cleft palates, hip dysplasia, birth syndromes… I mean I could go on. Are the big pharmas milking us for those, as well?

God this debate is nuts, not to mention illogical.