now this weill set he catamongst the pigeons - WHOS advice is wrong to breastfeed for 6 motnths

[Dogsby]

as is based on developing coutnires

har har har

Message withdrawn

well aitch it's certainly a more relaxed end to labour. it takes more time (say 30-45 mins as opposed to ten or so).
rushing the first hour or so after birth won't help establish bf. an epidural may well make the baby sleepy, yes. but there are lots of factors in any situation.
have you ever debriefed your labour and bf experience? with the hospital or elsewhere?

sdorry that sounded shockingly patronising
I hope you get what I meant

not patronised at all. no, never felt the need to debrief about labour as i rather enjoyed it. wrt bfing, i raised a peer review request amongst the services i used so that they'd be forced to look at how they failed to work together and get their arse more in gear for the future.

maybe i'll ask for that cord thingie next time (if there is a next time) but i sonder if it would just result in the baby getting more epidural, not less. i didn't have the epidural for pain relief (hadn't even put the tens on or started g&a as was being Very Brave and Strong because it was an induction and i thought it was only goiing to Get Worse), it was for my high bp. although when they said 'we're goiing to have to give you it now' i do recall a whimper of relief.

epidural poiint being that i've been told i'll need one again in future probalby because the high bp is a long-standing issue.

Love the generalisation about developing countries. Because of course everyone in a developing country is starving, and underweight, you know, oh yes absolutely.

My cousin Malini's second baby - two Indian parents, born in India - was heavier than my second one - two half-Asian parents, born in London. Malini has lived pretty well her entire life in India. But, oooops, she's a doctor, from a family of doctors. So does she count in the statistics or not?

Exactly MI - well said.

(although the temptation to comment on the sensationalist and wrong quote in the title is extremely hard to quash...thinks along lines of Moondogs famed "junk" thread title and wonders how this is different)

i know vvv it's hysterical... the thread headline is just Utter Shite.

Nighty night I agree with you. Even though my ds is a dinky baby, no way could he last until 6 mths. He was ravenous, feeding 24/7 and losing weight. I think this woman has a point.

tHe original thread was a wind up, but it's still the same tripe churned out by HV s all the time.

Oh she has a point. Its not a very valid or scientifically researched one.

But what the hey. Fuck em all I say.

Can't be ar$ed to read the whole thread but bf-ing exclusively to 6 months was the easy bit!!

I think you'll find that the thread title is deliberately sensationalist BTW.

soupy btw did you see my apology to you on the drwho thread about a week ago?

Hi Dogsby, can you ref your first mention of Gillian Harris re guidelines based on "based on no scientific evidence whatsoever". Thanks!

cod? deliberately sensationalist? no. i won't have it. you've gone Too Far.

No? Really soupy?

MI - I hope your cousin realises that despite their baby having a heavy birthweight, and being born to a family of doctors, because their baby is born in the "Developing" world, their gut wont mature as quickly as a baby in the "developed" world.

Must be the technology we have here. Or perhaps its the fantastic magical formula milk , or jars of baby food? Who (WHO?) knows........

I'm liking your style Cod. I'm really liking it!

well I must say there was no way in hell ds2 was ever going to make it to 6 months on just milk - although I'm talking formula in his case. he screeched constantly through weeks 16 and 17 despite having about 7 x 9 oz bottles of hungry baby milk a day - started him on solids on week 18 and he promptly shut up, smiled, and scoffed everything put in front of him.

I think these "one size fits all" rules are always a bit suspect, we aren't machines, we are humans

oh but we cut the cord a good 2 hours after he was born (phys second stage and that's how long it took) so I guess his iron levels were super duper!

(I know I know, he was formula fed, so his iron would have been trhough the roof anyway)

Hehehehehe

I agree with what MI says about developing countries, but presumably all these studies relate to large samples which don't account for groups of statistical outliers. So, take a country like Cambodia (admittedly a relatively extreme example). Yes, there are wealthy and well-fed Cambodians who may have large babies, but in a country in which one in five children are malnourished and one in twelve don't make it to their fifth birthday, presumably they are in the minority and any nutritional guidelines for infant-feeding have to take account of the majority. Random personal anecdote alert: in the five weeks I spent in Phnom Penh I saw only one fat Cambodian and he was a prince.

There must be different considerations in any country in which malnutrition is a common issue for mothers and infants and the footnote to one of the studies alluded to those e.g. lack of hygiene and clean water increasing the risks of gastro-intestinal infection for non breast-fed babies balanced against the risk of nutritional deficiencies for the mother who breast-feeds for an extended period. Second random personal anecdote: When we adopted DD1 we provided her birthmother with bottles and baby formula to help DD1 get familiar with the bottle that we would use post-adoption. Her birth mother later explained that she hadn't used them as she could neither keep the bottles sterile nor be sure of a supply of clean water, so she'd drunk the baby-milk herself to maintain her strength for breast-feeding. She had also already partially weaned DD1 onto a rice gloop. DD1 was a very plump 4mo and is a perfectly formed 6yo.

In my entirely unstatistical, unrepresentative example of two, I would say that in the long term (I mean life time health) it probably makes little to no difference whether you stop b/f at 4 or 6 months and whether you BLW or use a spoon. What really matters is whether your baby is well-nourished and having adopted a baby diagnosed as 'mildly malnourished', you sure as hell know when it isn't.

Minty - the research on how long babies can 'last' on formula alone is a lot thinner, though the studies we do have don't actually indicate any harm in allowing them milk only to 6 mths. I think the anecdotal stuff shows that babies on formula probably do need something more, though - survey show that ff babies get solids sooner, and while you prob could keep increasing the milk to match the appetite, on the whole mothers don't feel it's right to make up 2x200 ml bottles per feed....and hungry ff babies can take these quite merrily sometimes

It makes sense anyway - breastmilk does change as time goes on, and long-term breastmilk becomes denser (more calories, less volume) as well as changing in taste by taking on flavours. Formula doesn't do this, so we might expect babies to need something else a little sooner.

Cod, haven't read all the posts but my HV said something along the lines of your OP to me several years ago. I mentioned this on a thread ages ago and of course got shot down....