Benefits of bf exadurated?

[socitycourty]

BTW my hospital's extreme BF/baby-friendly policies gave me way too much stress and trauma. my LO lost way too much weight and was lethargic/dry as i had no milk for 5 days due to EMCS and being very ill with fever/infection.

i wanted to BF but I didn't like seeing my LO so poor off. i asked to supplement and they gave me hell. then the pediatrician said she's lost way too much weight, her bilirubin is extremely high we need her to go to NICU and give her formula. i cried with relief and they thought i was crying because i didn't want to supplement her.

their pushiness and rudeness really turned me off of BF. even though we did successfully EBF for 7 weeks after that then stopped on her pediatrician's advice for other reasons. they had absolutely NO RIGHT to ignore me when I knew something was wrong. they ignored me because they are known for pushing BF at all costs for their own agenda.

i don't feel bad saying it because it's 100% true

 

[sg2011]

How about this for a response? Who cares! As long as a baby is healthy, happy and loved what difference does it make how he or she is fed and whether the benefits of breastfeeding are exaggerated. Go take a look at any playground or school yard and report back if you can tell the difference between those breast fed and those formula fed? I bet you can't. People put WAY too much emphasis on this nonsense. How you feed does NOT make you a good mother nor does it make you a bad mother. Judge your parenting skills on how your children turn out when you're done with parenting (not that you are ever totally done) and don't stress about what is inconsequential in the long run.

 

[socitycourty]

How about this for a response? Who cares! As long as a baby is healthy, happy and loved what difference does it make how he or she is fed and whether the benefits of breastfeeding are exaggerated. Go take a look at any playground or school yard and report back if you can tell the difference between those breast fed and those formula fed? I bet you can't. People put WAY too much emphasis on this nonsense. How you feed does NOT make you a good mother nor does it make you a bad mother. Judge your parenting skills on how your children turn out when you're done with parenting (not that you are ever totally done) and don't stress about what is inconsequential in the long run.

love this a million times!

 

[HellBunny]

I agree SG!! Sadly there will still be the odd birdbrained so and so who does think the method of feeding determines how good someone is at parenting, such a shame- for their kids actually, growing up with ignorant parents

 

[Jaylynne]

I've been on both sides. I think we all agree that breast milk is better but breastfeeding may not be. LO was an emcs at 32 weeks. He had to be gavage fed while I pumped. I was encouraged to pump as it is easier for preemie tummies to digest vs formula and I had planned on BFing anyway. At that time it was the best option.

I pumped for seven months, met with the lactation consultant at the NICU and we tried many times but it tired him out and in order for him to be released, he had to eat 24 hours straight without the tube. He would have been in there forever if we kept trying so I pumped and bottle fed. The LC at the pediatricians was never in on our appointment days and it was a 3 hour round trip. Fast forward and LO had a huge growth spurt and I was physically unable to keep up with his demand. I realized my desire to breastfeed was overpowering what my baby needed. We switched to combifeeding but my boobs dried up in 2 weeks after I slowed my frantic pumping. Formula feeding at this time is the best option. LO is thriving and is putting on loads of weight- not because formula is necessarily better but because he was eating enough.

I feel zero guilt about switching. In honesty, I felt relieved. Pumping had become a torture and I dreaded it. I cried when he was hungry. I panicked when I saw not enough coming out. Now, it's so much easier.

In 5 years, no one will give a shit if the kids in his class were bf or ff. No one. It's something we have to make a choice on as to what is the best route for our own family.

 

[midori1999]

Well, I'm not sure you've posted in the best place for an unbiased response... but...

There's not some huge conspiracy of health professionals all exaggerating the 'benefits' of breastfeeding. The benefits do exist, and in some cases can be huge, even in our western world.

If breastfeeding is not for you then there is no need to justify your choices, just feed your baby however you want to.

 

[HellBunny]

Well, I'm not sure you've posted in the best place for an unbiased response... but...

There's not some huge conspiracy of health professionals all exaggerating the 'benefits' of breastfeeding. The benefits do exist, and in some cases can be huge, even in our western world.

If breastfeeding is not for you then there is no need to justify your choices, just feed your baby however you want to.

Pity the same can't be said when somebody starts bashing formula in the breastfeeding section...

 

[midori1999]

Well, I'm not sure you've posted in the best place for an unbiased response... but...

There's not some huge conspiracy of health professionals all exaggerating the 'benefits' of breastfeeding. The benefits do exist, and in some cases can be huge, even in our western world.

If breastfeeding is not for you then there is no need to justify your choices, just feed your baby however you want to.

Pity the same can't be said when somebody starts bashing formula in the breastfeeding section...

I don't think anyone is bashing anything here?

 

[pinklightbulb]

I haven't seen any FF bashing. Usually it's BF bashing all over the place on this forum, not FF. Just my observations after such a long time on here.

 

[socitycourty]

i don't bash BF but i do complain about the way i was treated due to the very hardcore bf promotion here. i think it puts undue pressure on new moms

 

[pinklightbulb]

Everyone has the right to their feelings I don't begrudge you that at all! However these kinds of threads really upset me because they always turn into us-and-them, and as I said BF bashing on here is rife as we are the minority and tend to get the rudest responses to anything we say regarding the benefits of BF/breast milk. It makes me sad that we can't all just find a nice equilibrium and co-exist peacefully.

 

[Kage76]

When I was a SAHM she was fine, but a few weeks at daycare and she's been sick.

its interesting isn't it- i wonder if this was taken into account in the study about illnesses and breastfeeding- i mean a lot of women switch to formula when they put their children into daycare- and this might skew the results.

The other thing i have noticed is since going to day care is not only my daugter catching every bug that is going around- i am certainly catching them from her so even if i was breastfeeding my antibodies may have helped her get over the illnesses quicker or made them less severe but im pretty sure she would have caught them all the same.

 

[Eala]

Everyone has the right to their feelings I don't begrudge you that at all! However these kinds of threads really upset me because they always turn into us-and-them, and as I said BF bashing on here is rife as we are the minority and tend to get the rudest responses to anything we say regarding the benefits of BF/breast milk. It makes me sad that we can't all just find a nice equilibrium and co-exist peacefully.

In reply to the part in bold: The interesting thing which I find (as a Mum who has FF one and BF another) is that both "sides" feel that they are bashed I think the reality is sometimes things are said thoughtlessly on both sides, and also on both sides sometimes meanings are read into comments which were not intended.

What I tend to see though, is that quite often you'll get someone peddling the benefits of BF/breast milk to Mums who are already formula-feeding. And for a lot of Mums, that wasn't an easy choice or even a choice at all. So what's the point in rubbing salt in the wound? At that point it seems more about points-scoring, and I do wonder if the energy put into extolling the virtues of breastfeeding would be better spent supporting Mums who want to breastfeed or who need support in the BF'ing section?

Also, the reason you may find you get responses when you talk about the "benefits of breastfeeding or breastmilk" is that a lot of us know from doing a lot of reading that the evidence for some of these "benefits" is sketchy at best and misrepresented at worst. Fine and fair enough if your opinion is that all these benefits are the absolute truth and you are comfortable with the evidence, but please understand that we have a right to disagree with that.

 

[pinklightbulb]

How can you misrepresent something natural? That isn't meant to be snarky. I'm genuinely stumped how anyone could say the facts are not the truth?

 

[Ktothema]

The point Eala is making is that a lot of these "facts" aren't facts at all. They aren't held up under review. If you want to believe every so called benefit that is of course your choice and right but it doesn't make it fact. That said the lack of evidence doesn't make breastmilk bad either, it just means that there are things that are claimed after sketchy research that don't hold up to scrutiny.

 

[Jaylynne]

I too would like to see a numbers based study such as another poster said. Such as "in this study, x out 1000 breastfed babies had x while x of formula fed had x"

If you post that something is twice as likely, it could mean one child out of 1000 breastfed babies had an ear infection vs 2 out of 1000 formula fed had an ear infection. Not enough to even prove it was the lacking antibodies in formula to even make it more likely.

Results can be so easily skewed and almost impossible to define as each baby is exposed to different factors.

Maybe it's not so much that breast milk benefits have been exaggerated but that formula has been villianized?

 

[pinklightbulb]

At risk of sounding like a FF basher, and sorry if I do, I'll only say that breastmilk is the natural foodstuff for a baby and so how can the benefits be in any way exaggerated over something manmade? I don't need a study to tell me that my milk is meant for my baby or that it's better for him It's a good thing formula exists, and it's saved the lives of many babies, but that doesn't make it what it's trying to imitate all the same.

I don't know. I get that FF mums don't want to feel bad for their choices, or lack of. I can understand that. I just don't get how facts can be twisted to suit these choices.

I know I'm probably going to get into trouble for this post. But I still don't understand how you can exaggerate something natural. Nobody villianized formula. It's a wonderful invention. But that doesn't make the benefits of BF any less.

 

[sandilion]

In my honest personal opinion, i don't feel the benefits of BF are exaggerated... BUT i do feel the supposed 'health risks' related to formula are in fact exaggerated.

*The rest of my post removed as it was just ramble.

 

[skunkpixie]

I too would like to see a numbers based study such as another poster said. Such as "in this study, x out 1000 breastfed babies had x while x of formula fed had x"

If you post that something is twice as likely, it could mean one child out of 1000 breastfed babies had an ear infection vs 2 out of 1000 formula fed had an ear infection. Not enough to even prove it was the lacking antibodies in formula to even make it more likely.

Results can be so easily skewed and almost impossible to define as each baby is exposed to different factors.

Maybe it's not so much that breast milk benefits have been exaggerated but that formula has been villianized?

My point exactly. xx

 

[bubbles123]

I agree with Sandillion. It's that the negatives of formula are massively exaggerated. Honestly, some of the bile said about formula is just mad. In reality it comes a very close second to BM and is an excellent BM substitute. I thank God for it everyday!