A rambling OP about discussing risk and why risk is not destiny. And a couple of rude comments about Irish weather.

[welliemum]

OK. If I go out today without my umbrella, I?ve increased my risk of getting wet in the rain. But risk is not destiny. Umbrella or not, if it doesn?t rain, I won?t get wet.

Why is this important? Because if research suggests that doing X increases the risk of Y, the researchers aren't in their wildest dreams suggesting that X always causes Y, any more than I?m suggesting that going out without an umbrella always causes you to get wet (unless you live in Ireland, in which case, fair enough ).

So?.

?.If I point out to another mother that going out without an umbrella increases the risk of getting wet I'm NOT saying ?you will cause water damage to your child you evil mother?, I?m saying, well, that has been shown to increase the risk of getting wet. It's a fact about risk, not a prediction for the future of that child.

?If I read the research about umbrellas and rain and decide to disregard it, fair enough, my choice. But I need to think about why I?m disregarding it. The research was probably conducted on people just like me. Do I truly believe it won?t apply to me? Am I somehow different from the rest of the human race in having special protection from the rain? Or am I using that well known (but sadly useless) protective mechanism of ?it could never happen to me??

... The risk of getting wet is related to a physical law of nature, it wasn't made up by a politician. It doesn't make the blindest bit of difference whether or not the government advises me to carry an umbrella. The underlying risk is whatever it is.

?. If I went out yesterday without an umbrella and didn?t get wet, this is not really rock solid proof that the research is all rubbish. Maybe it just didn?t rain. Because after all, most of us don?t live in a climate with a 100% daily risk of rain. Except you lot in Ireland.

Seriously, I think there are some big mistakes being made in the way risk is discussed here, and it's not just academic, it's causing a lot of bad feeling.

The research on weaning is mostly pretty rubbish - not because the researchers are rubbish, but because it's a very very difficult topic to research. A lot of the findings are fairly tentative. That doesn't make them wrong. A lot of the risks mentioned are rare. That doesn't make them irrelevant. But most of all, risk is not destiny, and I'm uncomfortable about the way the "weaning debate" is polarising on here into some rather dogmatic camps.

It's not a simple issue, any more than predicting the weather is a simple issue.

The nice side-effect of having premature babes is that there is no research into when you should wean them. So I had to let the babies tell me (about 8 months, both times).

I spent time on the antenatal ward with ds2, trying to get consultants to quantify risk. After they worked out that I had a brain, and decided to talk with me and not at me, they admitted that they didn't know. They said it might happen or it might not, lets be prepared. Which I thought was rather sensible. (and then I signed myself out of hospital and ran away ).

bad enough the general public not understanding risk but health professionals should really be trained enough to have a grasp of it - my midwife has an astonishingly poor understanding of the concept, or how statistics work for that matter.

lol fruitful, I've just had the opposite. I've already said what the obstetrition said, the paediatrition was a lot more politer but he didn't mince words either. 50% chance of survival and of that 50% chance that there would be something wrong with her (lungs, brain, other organs not developed properly, specifically that those two may not cope well with the support they put her on, asthma - like Tink - from being intubated...) so basically my daughter had a 25% chance of being OK. Rather yikes! I wish I had blogged during the time in hospital in a few days I have quite a few stories but because I didn't write them down I can't remember them all till I get prompts.

LOL littlelapin, what are you doing here anyway when you're supposed to be working

That sounds terrifying, TBM.

What you're saying has reminded me of a point made by Hell earlier on in the thread, about the difference between population risk and individual risk.

They're very different and you have to be careful about extrapolating from one to another.

But even more than that, there's a huge mismatch between what we want to know as parents, and the info available.

The risks for a prem baby are one example of this, and antenatal screening is another. You don't really really want to know that your baby has a one in 125 or 542 or 1083 risk of Down Syndrome. What you want to know is, "Does MY baby have Down Syndrome, yes or no?"

And with weaning, while quite a few of us here have a general interest in weaning as an issue, ultimately as parents we want to know, "What's the best way to wean MY child, this one sitting here in front of me?"

And frustratingly, there's no answer to that one.

So are we saying on this thread that it is OK for some babies to be weaned before six months? And that some babies even NEED to be weaned before six months? Or are we just saying that lots of babies weaned before six months will not get allergies, but some will?

Reading the rest of the threads on this board you'd think no babies need food before six months and that all babies have holes in their gut till six months and not the proper enzymes to digest food. I weaned at 22 weeks.

Neenztwinz, I think those are very good questions and in a way, the point of the thread is that we don't have the answers and so we're forced to make tricky decisions about risk.

There seems to be pretty strong evidence that breastmilk is good nutrition to 6 months. There will always be exceptions to that kind of rule of course. However, no research so far has uncovered a specific group of babies who definitely need food before 6 months.

The other side of the coin is potential harm from weaning. That's MUCH more controversial. There's clear harm before about 4 months, but after that - the jury is still out, it's anyone's guess how quickly the risk decreases.

So, on that basis the "least risk" option would be to bf exclusively and then wean at 6 months. Yet only about 1% of babies in the UK actually do this.

That has 2 implications at the population level:

1. A lot of babies are being weaned before they really need to be.
2. A lot of babies are being weaned for unproven reasons eg because they're big, small, hungry, not sleeping well - none of which are known indications of a need for solid food.

When you put that together with the fact that possibly some babies are at risk of health problems from being weaned too early, the implication is that sometimes, babies are being weaned for the wrong reason at a time when they will get no benefit and possibly some harm.

But which babies? No-one knows. So while I think it's quite reasonable to say, on the basis of the evidence we have, that I think 6 months is a good time to start weaning, I would rather have my head nailed to the floor than say to another mother "you're doing the wrong thing by weaning at 4.5 months" because there's absolutely no justification for making that judgement on an individual child.

Does that make sense?

It snowed where I live in Ireland today - I didn't have an umbrella

Whereabouts are you Miranda? I live in Meath but am visiting my Mum in Wexford at the moment. It's very cold here but at least we avoided snow!

I'm in Cabinteely, but it's quite high up and close to the Wicklow mountains. It was quite heavy for a while but no chance of it sticking thanks to the soggy ground... Wouldn't be surprised if we had more again today!

Fab last post, wellie. Am thinking of nominating you for ruler of the world atm...

LOL, habbibu, I'm not sure what the democratic process is for becoming ruler of the world, will check on that and get back to you

Thanks Welliemum, yes I thought that was the jist of it. Have you name-changed? Never come across you before (though am pretty new on weaning threads as my twins are just under six months). Sorry if you are dead well known!!

I am terrified I have done my twins some harm (weaned on fruit, veg and babyrice at 22 weeks, have not had any wheat, meat, gluten etc). DD woke with a rash on her chin the other day and I was convinced I had poisoned her, but I think it was cos she was salivating all over her chin through teething. I weaned cos they started cluster feeding in the evenings, like 45-60 minutes between feeds. This went on for a week and with two to BF that was hard work! I did see that as a reason to wean.

Sorry I have gone off tangent a little. I am not looking for reassurance that I have done the right thing, I did what I felt was right for them and no one can tell me whether I have done them harm, and that is the point of this thread I suppose.

Fantastic thread
However I think the chance is quite high that someone will come on to say "Well I was weaned at 2 months and it never did me any harm" in the next few hours

SharpMolarBear, absolutely, it's only a matter of time...

neenztwinz, I've been around for a few years but I'm not really a prolific poster and I tend to drift away and drift back. Not by any means "dead well known"!

Nothing I've read would suggest any worry about your twins. And I can't even imagine how much hard work it must be with 2 growing babies to BF!

Have you seen Aitch's BLW blog by the way? The idea is that you let the baby take the lead with food by self feeding.

I think it's a reasonable assumption that babies who're self feeding will eat what they need, and that if food is bothering them (by giving them a tummy ache, for example), they'll hold off a bit. Babies seem to have good instincts about this kind of thing.

So in the absence of precise info about what a baby ought to be eating, it seems to me that BLW is a very good way to let babies follow their instincts - and what's more, it takes a huge amount of pressure off you as a parent because you're not trying to guess it all from minimal and conflicting info.

neenz, if you've got twins cluster feeding then i'm not surprised you gave the rice a try! must be exhausting, well done for holding out that long.

obv i think BLW answers a lot of these questions indirectly (by avoiding the issue) but as far as i'm aware, no-one's saying that babies have a hole in their gut until six months. that's the whole point... at some point between four and six that hole closes. it makes sense to me that babies will start showing classic 'signs of weaning' when their gut is ready, but as i say i left it up to dd in the end and she grabbed food at nearly 6 mos. good luck with the twins, the weaning thing takes no time at all in the scheme of things, i hope you enjoy it.

OOOOOOOH WELLIE! a present from NZ has arrived!

LOLOOLLOLOLOLOLOLLOL.

'it's a little weenie lamb', declared dd2, and waltzed off with it. she, of course, is dressed as a monkey in preparation for her hallowe'en party some four hours hence.

THANK YOU!

OMG have just opened card and second package, didn't realise it was there. thanks so much, they are absolutely gorgeous and in fact dd2's feet so substantial that i think she'll be wearing them right now. fuel bills up 40% here so anything warm is HUGELY appreciated. cute and warm even better.

Oh, good, glad the parcel got there OK! Just sorry it took me so long to get to the post office. I was seriously worried dd2 would be at school if I left it any longer...

Really interesting thread, wellie, have you read any Nassim Taleb?

What infuriates me is when there is a story on the news about the latest research showing that if you do blah blah then it increases your risk of getting something nasty by 40 per cent. But they don't say what the risk actually was to begin with. So if the risk was miniscule, then increasing a miniscule risk by 40 per cent means it's still miniscule. It's not saying that you have a 40 per cent chance of getting the something nasty.

The weaning thing is so fraught I think because feeding our babies is such a primal thing, and we often show our love for someone by cooking for them. And then there's all the fear about what's really in food. Nothing is simple any more!

Agree totally with '40% increase' being misleading... if the risk is 1 in 1000, then a 40% increase is 1.4 in 1000!

I am totally into the idea of BLW, but unfortunately my twins have not gone for anything I have put in front of them yet. So I have had to resort to purees - I am too scared that if they eat nothing we will be back to square one with the cluster feeding. But I will keep trying them with bits of banana, pear, sweet potato etc and see how they get on. The fear for me with BLW is that they just will not physically get enough food into themselves.

I haven't read Nassim Taleb, sounds as if I should!

I agree about the 40% risk. I always say that by not buying lottery tickets, I've saved myself a lot of money and have only slightly decreased my chances of a win...

Neenz, I think the thing about BLW is that you can't really "make" them eat. Some people do find that lack of control too unsettling. And I think flimflammum is absoutely right - feeding babies is a primal thing - it's easy to panic if they won't eat.

But it's worth remembering that weaning at 4-6 months is a cultural idea. If you'd been raising your babies in Canada in the 1920s or in some parts of Asia right now you'd not be expecting them to eat anything at all for some time yet - quite a different expectation of what babies need.