Breast feeding and bad science (BT)

My friend was made to feel like utter shite by an evil nurse when she'd had her baby because she was having difficulty breast-feeding. It was unbelievably bullying, guilt-tripping behaviour; almost like "Why bother even having a child when you're not willing to give it the best start in life?". ?

She said that if she hadn't been so physically exhausted from the birth, she would have smacked her in the face.

95% of women can physically breast feed with ease, considerably less babies can though. But as the woman is an adult they blame themselves/get blamed when they struggle with breastfeeding rather than acknowledging that it is their baby that is struggling.

It is a topic I feel rather passionately about.

And breastfed babies performing better in verbal IQ tests? I think that would be more to do with how long breastfed babies feed for and therefore how long they are held for and then how much they are witnessing their mother verbalising and having a model. Not sure if that makes a lot of sense or not?

I think it is because mothers who breastfeed for a longish period of time are more likely to be middle-class (for want of a better word) and more education focussed.

I had an absolute b**er of a job feeding my first, but persisted. It really isn't as easy as it should be in all cases. (I am very pro breast feeding though.)

There was a report recently that said babies who are breast fed for at least 3 months are less likely to have ADHD. Just putting that one out there.

What's the science bit behind that?

There might not be - they might have just noticed that babies that were bfed longer than 3 months are less likely to have ADHD - doesn't necessarily mean they are connected. Just like the decrease of pirates and climate change.

I don't think there is much doubt that breastfed babies do 'better' in a variety of ways (they are ill less often, for example). However if a mother doesn't want to breastfeed, or BFing is very difficult for her, I don't think you can objectively say breastfeeding would be "best" for that child/family.

A lot of women do give up because it is too difficult. I say that with no quotation marks. It is bloody hard work, in a way I could never have imagined before trying it.

I am pro-breastfeeding, I think when it works it is absolutely fantastic. Having got through the early weeks/months I am now really glad we were able to do it. It's much easier especially at night, I just roll over and stick a boob in... although many people do say their FF baby sleeps through!

I am NOT anti-formula, however. It's clear that formula also works fantastically for many families, especially in Western countries with clean drinking water.

Not to forget there are also many women who successfully mix-feed their children.

Ok I'm not a parent but I do believe a lot of woman do feel guilt tripped about not breast feeding which I think is totally wrong. I'm a firm believer in happy mum = happy baby and if that means the baby is formula fed because its best for them then that should be the end of it

My thoughts exactly. I think every Mum / family should do what is best for them rather than what everyone else things. Suppose the baby doesn't like breast feeding? I am not that convinced by the whole IQ / less allergies arguments. My brother was not breast fed and l was, he has a PhD and has a lot less allergies than me!

I'm not a parent either and things like this are one of the reasons why I don't think I ever will be. I don't think I could cope with people guilt-tripping me all over the show- I'm insecure enough as it is- not just about breast feeding but pretty much everything to do with parenting. People seem to think they can weigh in and offer (often contradictory) advice, welcome or not (not talking about this thread, but about reported experiences of friends / family / colleagues, etc). It seems like you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't!

I'm just going to stay out of the whole hornet's nest, be selfish and save up loads of dosh for my luxurious retirement instead! ?

Speaking as a friend of two women who have had babies in the last year or so, both of whom really struggled to breastfeed - I would say there is a lot of pressure on new mums.

I don't know if you remember my friend who had the 40-odd hour labour in January but the hospital wouldn't even give her any support whatsoever for formula feeding - apparently they could only give breastfeeding advice, not formula. For a girl who had a baby that wouldn't latch, had just been through a pretty awful labour and was extremely fragile - I think basically saying 'you're on your own if you don't want to persevere with breastfeeding' is disgusting.

Maybe like Pittabre said, the link is indirect.

Several of you have said how hard breast feeding can be, but persevered. Maybe your stubbornness and drive rubs off on your child. Maybe the closeness, comfort and communication between mother and child during breast feeding (as opposed to an older bottle fed child who can hold their own bottle) helps develop emotional intelligence and communication skills.

And finally, that old chestnut, that long-term breast-feeding mothers tend to be of a certain class, highly educated and with a stable home life, those factors could all influence how happy and bright a child is.

I didn't BF my first son, as he was tube fed. My milk dried up quickly, so he had a donors milk. So, he had the goodness of breast milk, but not the contact. Shame on me, not feeding my own child. He has learning difficulties. My fault???

I only managed to feed my youngest for around 5 weeks. I was never made to feel bad about stopping BF. I was however, made to feel bad for feeding him in public. That had nothing to do with why I stopped though. He was far too hungry, and my milk just wasn't enough, so we mix fed, until it tailed off, into purely being FF. Again, shame on me. Sitting for 4 hours straight, trying to feed a baby, when you have another child wanting your attention, is fricking hard.

Yet something else to make mothers feel shite!

That wasn't directed at you footlong, I mean te new study or whatever it is

I didn't persevere Ducky. My H refused to go and buy me formula, it was January and snowing, we have no car so I couldn't go myself. He would promise he'd go and get some "tomorrow", "in the morning" and never did, until I started to get the hang of it more and stopped asking. So If I hadn't continued to BF, A would have starved. I'm glad of it now, but the choice wasn't so much mine really. I still cry thinking of those early days (I'm crying now). That is why I will never judge a woman who wants to FF.

Mind you maybe HIS perseverance will rub off on A... ?

I think its terrible that some mothers are made to feel guilty about choosing not to BF whether its because they / the baby cant or simply because they don't want to. Surely its the mother's choice?

When/if I am ever lucky enough to have child I will make a choice to BF or FF or mix feed and it will be MY choice and noone will make me feel like a bad mother if I chose not to BF. Noone.

That's what I thought rod, you underestimate the midwives and surprisingly the guilt from yourself which I really wasn't expecting!

Aye Saisi my post was a huge generalisation, there will always be exceptions to these types of studies. I am sure at least one Nobel Prize winner of the future will have been formula fed.

I just don't think it can all be down to milk from a boob vs milk from a tin, it must be more to do with their environment and type of parents that influences their IQ.

Don't statisticians/economists etc correct for things like that (home life, parental level of education etc) when trying to determine if breastmilk/formula makes a difference? Sorry if I am spouting crap, I read Freakonomics which seems to be saying that it's possible to single out influences?

Not always and not if it is a small study...

Oh I don't know much about statistics, just the bare minimum to get by.

They need a set of identical twins. Feed one formula and one from the breast, then test their IQ. Ideally they need a large group of identical twins fed this way so they can perform statistics.

That will never get ethical approval!

She wasn't wrong about how many women stop because they hit a hurdle and don't have the appropriate support to overcome it. I don't have the figures to hand but I believe something like 78% of UK mothers start out breastfeeding but by 6 months that has declined to 0.03% (this is exclusive breastfeeding so doesn't include mothers who are using a mix of breast and bottle). Anecdotally, almost every account of a woman ceasing breastfeeding during this time is down to having had a problem and finding that the healthcare profession are worse than useless at helping to overcome it. GPs are woefully ill informed about breastfeeding, many health visitors have outdated information and (with all the best will in the world) inadvertently give out damaging advice. Employers often aren't as accommodating as needs be about a woman returning to work but needing breaks to express, and so on, so forth.

We put a lot of time and money into encouraging the uptake of breastfeeding among new mothers, but lack the support network to help them sustain it once they get going. I'm not surprised that so many women feel angry and betrayed.

Imagine how fecked off I am then that mine are ever ill and have allergies etc?

Completely agree with this. If it wasn't for my H and the support of the Mumdrum girls, I wouldn't be in that 0.03% (is that really right?!) There were breastfeeding clinics available but again, it was January and SNOWING and we don't have a car, no way was I taking my precious newborn baby out on the bus unless really necessary. I almost got to the point of paying a lactation specialist privately but why can't we have some NHS provision for midwives/lactation specialists to come out to you and offer help and support with BFing? Better information and guidance on what dads can do to help would be good too - we worked it out but sometimes someone TELLING you "change the baby's nappy for your wife and bring her a drink while she's feeding" is really helpful when it's 3am.

My fully breast fed son slept through 12-6 from very early on. My daughter who became fully FF from 12 weeks has just start sleeping through at nearly 3? She used to wake for feeding every 1-2 hours.

The no wheat diet...<sigh> B is using it as an excuse to live off carrot and coriander soup... "I can't eat that mummy it has wheat in it" Nope wouldn't feed you something with wheat. Lunches are the difficult bit but I'm getting the hang of it. But B isn't.

I can't find in the major scientific database, nor in the current issue of the journal, nor link to it from any news report of it.....

Ah ha, found it, will get it to you....

Edit: Nope, can't access it, don't have a subscription to the journal...

But FF, these studies do not say "all formula fed/premature babies will be less intelligent than all breastfed/full-term babies". It is a generalisation. They generalise. If you have 1000 breastfed babies and 1000 formula fed babies, more of the FF ones will be ill more often. More of the breastfed babies will have higher IQs. That doesn't mean all formula fed babies will be stupid and all BF babies will be intelligent. Some FF babies will have higher IQs than some of the breastfed babies, for definite. So one (or two, or three or four) examples of the opposite doesn't disprove the data.

It does NOT, however, allow anyone to shame mothers for how they choose (or are forced) to feed their children. THAT is what we should be fighting for. I welcome research in this area as it supports mothers to make an informed CHOICE. It's not really an informed choice if we don't have any information about the benefits and disadvantages. So studies are necessary, but they need to be done properly, reported on responsibly (I'm looking at you, Daily Mail) and we all should be given the tools to understand the statistics, data and conclusions for ourselves (perhaps taught in schools).

I've started doing this as a starter activity - I put a headline up and then ask what is the article about and then what was the original research about. The students are often amazed at how the headline rarely represents the article and bares little relation to the research.

Good for you, P. I only encountered any teaching in this area when I got to studying undergraduate-level philosophy. Which is both rather late and rather specialist.

I think media studies should be a part of the agreed curriculum rather than a mocked subject. I think it is really important for students to notice how things are phrased to convince them of things and push an agenda, alas I can't my school to agree to this, let alone the government...

Agreed. My research methods teacher at university loved using Metro news stories to get us critically analysing research, but it should be taught at school.