Dear Free-Range Kids: I had a friend whose wife went into labor sixteen weeks early due to all kinds of complications. She was in the ICU for nearly a month, massive blood loss, several major surgeries, medically induced coma, you name it. Then she developed a serious infection. They weren’t going to put her on the antibiotic the disease specialist recommended because, get this, it’s not safe for breastfeeding..My friend (normally the most mild-mannered guy you could hope to meet) pitched, bar none, the best fit I have ever witnessed in my life and eventually sanity reigned. Let’s just say their daughter was not breasted and yet somehow she’s alive and doing well 18 years later. Talk about a pendulum that has swung too far.
Researchers studied 8,000 children in Ireland. At ages 3 and 5, the kids took standardized tests to measure cognitive abilities. Overall, the breast-fed kids scored a tad higher.
“But [the difference] wasn’t big enough to show statistical significance,” says study author Lisa-Christine Girard, a child-development researcher at University College Dublin.
In other words, the differences in scores were so small that researchers consider it a statistical wash. “We weren’t able to find a direct causal link between breast-feeding and children’s cognitive outcomes,” Girard says.
The link they did find was a small bump in hyperactive behavior at age 3 among the bottle-fed, which disappeared by age 5. That sounds pretty insignificant to me.
All of which is to say: Do what works best for you, and do not feel you are hurting OR creating a super baby by virtue of the way you feed your child. There are so many, many, many influences on kids — their parents, their siblings, their genes, their food, the air they breathe, the microbes in their guts — let’s stop focusing on breastfeeding as if it is the be all and end all of child development.
Perfection (or what is believed to be perfect at a given moment in history) has never been required for a child to grow up just fine. No need to play the perfect way, or utter the perfect number of words, or find the perfect class, etc. etc. etc. Such pressure! Give our species some credit for resilience, and give decent parents a break. – L
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78 Comments
Um, hello, pump and dump a few weeks during treatment and then can breastfeed once it’s over. Usually you aren’t on antibiotics more than 10-14 days. She could keep her supply up and then actually use it for food once she was better. Geez, people have no creativity or problem solving. I give up.
This is the type of article that the Lactonazi Mom’s all hate. How dare anyone try to tell them that you actually CAN give a bottle of formula and your child will grow up to be perfectly bright and normal. They’ll tell you no, it’s basically ‘dangerous’ and formula companies are out to indoctrinate you into their fold. And another thing. This stupid stat that breastfed kids do better in school/cognitive development BS has been out there since I had my son in 1990. Sorry to break this to you but how well your child does in school is an environmental factor; how stimulated educationally they’ve been raised; read to, etc. It has bugger all to do with being breasted. By the way, my son won the English award for his grade when he was 13 years old. Beat out 100 other kids and I’m sure a good deal of them were breastfed. He wasn’t. Yes, we are aware that preferably breastmilk is more nutritionally suited. Even those of us who didn’t breastfeed know that (my child wouldn’t and I couldn’t take it so I gave up and bottle fed) Isn’t the new current opinion that fed is best? Please dump the preachy, sanctimonious crap that breast feeding is the bee all and end all of your child’s life. smh.
@Suze
“… Lactonazi …”
Well, I learned a new word today.
@BL
They deserve the term. I have no issue that they breastfeed. That’s all good but the attitude towards bottle feeding is it’s equal to feeding them absolute liquid garbage and the smug superiority they have towards their own breastfeeding. I don’t remember my generation being like this in the least. You either could or couldn’t. No one maligned your choice.
This, this, this! After my first son was born, I asked my doc to prescribe me Zyrtec because my allergies and eczema were flaring up and it had helped in the past. His reason for not prescribing it? Because I was breastfeeding, and the jury was out whether it actually passed into breast milk, but the doc said just in case, as in, it’s okay if I suffer as long as it’s for the sake of my baby. So I bought it OTC and never had an issue. Really, though, don’t you want the mom to be happy and healthy so she can care for the child? Breast isn’t best – FED is best.
SUZE–My parents never read to me and I ended up being a great reader (until they screwed it up), so I think educational “stimulation” by parents has bugger all to do with how smart kids end up being. In fact, reading to children, etc., wasn’t done much at all until pretty recently, and it seems fair to say that previous generations blow the current and last one out of the water in terms of being well-read (and God knows in terms of writing). While applauding the idea that the decision about what to feed baby is trivial, let’s not perpetuate the silly idea that kids whose parents have their fingerprints all over their kids’ every new thought and skill end up smarter. I happen to believe, after working in public schools for 16 years, that they stink not because they neglect kids’ learning, but because they hijack it. (In other words, while you’re dismissing the significance of bottle-feeing your boy, don’t go taking credit for creating his intelligence by other means. It kinda sounds preachy and sanctimonious.)
Whether or not formula feeding is safe depends highly on whether or not the local water supply is safe.
Gigi, um, hello, she was in a medically induced coma following major surgeries and massive blood loss. Do you really think breastfeeding was high on her priority list? How about if she’s allowed to recover so she can, I dunno, actually be a mom???
My wife couldn’t breastfeed our first son. She just didn’t produce enough. Plus, he was allergic to lots of stuff that she ate regularly.
My second son was breastfed. In fact, her body made up for the lack of milk during her first pregnancy, and we gave away milk to other family members.
Both are fine.
Sometimes, people are stupid. And that includes people who you’d think would know better.
Huzzah for the story.
(In other words, while you’re dismissing the significance of bottle-feeing your boy, don’t go taking credit for creating his intelligence by other means. It kinda sounds preachy and sanctimonious.)
@Megan …. I wasn’t taking all the credit for my son’s intelligence because he was bottle fed. I was relating it to the article as per there are other factors that play into children’s intelligence levels. That was all. I appreciate the fact that there are different scenarios in everyone’s lives that lead them to become the people the are. Glad to hear your side of it.
@Megan …
I would like to know where you seem to think that children being read to is something recent? I was born in 1963 and my father read to me all the time. Now, he was in radio and knew the value of good English and speech skills so maybe that’s why. By the way, he was born in 1920. I have many friends my age who have parent’s that read to them. Even my husband’s mother read to him. I’d like to know where you came up with this? Just another blip in the scenario. 😉
@Jess, I’m always surprised (not really!) by the range of experiences. My doc was was the one who prescribed Zyrtec (then only available as a prescription) when I was bf’ing.
Fed is Best.
These examples are specific, but one needs to remember we are reading them here because they address the broad issue of shame and stigma creating an environment where citizens lose rights to make individualized decisions.
Lactonazis are a product of the same mentality that had doctors shaming mothers for breastfeeding their babies in the mid 20th Century. How could breastmilk be ideal when it was so difficult to measure intake and had natural variations in color, etc…? They are a product of predatory formula companies who have been found guilt of price fixing and irresponsible advertising practices in nations lacking clean water.
The New Despotism of Paternalistic Government/Thinking where we deny our own critical thinking, civic duty and personal liberties will allow those who desire to manipulate the room to flourish.
Judging each other and attempting to force our value system is highly unproductive. Yet, who doesn’t find the time to give the side eye?
I agree parents should be free to choose, but as for the research referenced above, I wasn’t aware people are under the impression that breast feeding makes their babies smarter. Better immune system, yes, but better cognition?
I was born in 1968. My mom’s in-laws were so mean to her about breast-feeding my brothers, which only really lasted a couple months for each of them, because the feeding was hard on her, and the in-laws were so negative that she was fighting multiple uphill battles to keep it up… When I came along a few years later, she just decided to bottle feed me – Carnation Instant Milk! I’ve always been one of the healthiest of my friends – barely missed any school as a child, no broken bones, athletic and happy. She wishes she had breast-fed me, for the bonding benefits, but we made up for that in other ways. She was a good friend by the time she died.
There are lots of “good” ways to raise kids. They/We are pretty resilient.
People can judge my breastfeeding preference or parenting style all they want, but I refuse to get offended until someone calls the cops on me for them.
Yet Another example of making the Perfect the enemy of the Good. Nobody argues that breastfeeding is the better way… for most women in most circumstances but not for all women in all circumstances, and it is truly wonderful how much progress has been made just in my children’ lifetimes in making formula that is “good enough” to use whenever breast milk for whatever reason isn’t available. With so much progress to celebrate more people should be thankful not angry.
Back when I was born, breastfeeding was a “don’t,” and my mom was a rebel for trying to do it. Her neonatal nurses actually did things that led to failed breastfeeding. Crazy, huh?
I do think breast is best, all other things being equal. Of course all other things are never equal.
My kids were adopted, and breast was not an option for them, period. Well I could have drugged myself to force my body to produce a little bit after they were old enough to be weaned, but … yeah. No. It doesn’t matter that much.
It’s great to educate moms on the benefits of breastfeeding as a choice among multpile valid choices. I don’t know why people must go beyond that and make it a shamefest.
Even though I think breast should be the first choice it shouldn’t be the only choice. If you can’t do it for some reason then take formula just be sure of clean water. What might not bug you might wreck havoc on the baby.
I heard that NPR story yesterday, and I can’t say I was surprised. When I was looking into breastfeeding around 6 years ago, it was noted that in the studies to date the breastfeeding moms tended to be better educated than the formula feeding moms. Thus it was noted that the results could be more about who was breastfeeding at the time (and genetics) than about the milk itself. I figured as the popularity spread we would get a direct comparison and it wouldn’t be so rosy. I became a dedicated breastfeeding mom anyhow.
Doctors supporting breastfeeding was new and trendy in my area, but was plagued by a lack of training, resources, and information. Lots of moms came to the nursing mom’s group with unfilled prescriptions to find out if they were safe because their general practitioners wouldn’t look it up or didn’t know how to interpret designations. By the sound of it, the current efforts to correct the deficiencies of the past, have resulted in a harmful orthodoxy in the other direction. I suspect the error was that the efforts weren’t about learning, and resources, and supporting the patients, but about establishing protocols.
There have always been doctors who won’t see past their clipboard, and they are the worst. For me it was a neonatologist who was convinced that every breastfed baby was dehydrated. She specifically refused to so look at my baby. She actually turned her head away when I tried to present my child for examination. She ordered that I not feed my baby, and that if my daughter didn’t then produce a wet diaper inside of an hour (while not being fed) that she was to be put on formula, and taken from me should I refuse. Apparently this neonatologist was infamous for this sort of thing, but by protocol the pediatricians on staff couldn’t overrule her, even in the face of complaints and clearly erroneous diagnosis. A nurse got me out of the pickle by going through the trash and correcting the erroneous logs, thus incrementing the diaper count and voiding the order. The next neonatologist on shift not only turned on the lights but did a physical without being asked and declared my girl perfectly health! He said she was “clearly not dehydrated” and sent her home!
Whoever refused this woman her antibiotics was no more looking at the patient and listening than the neonatologist who declared my daughter ‘dehydrated’.
@CK, spot on! Whoever doesn’t like the Mommy/Daddy Wars is free not to participate. It’s our own insecurities that turn us into foot soldiers in the first place.
I do take issue with a couple of things. First, most mainstream, breastfeeding moms are not out to condemn formula feeders, nor is the the La Leche League. For 5-10% of mothers, formula feeding is indisputably medically necessary. I will continue to criticize formula companies for some of their marketing practices, but mothers who struggle with breastfeeding and resort to formula are outside of my realm of judgment.
Second, as much as I dread getting into a who’s-the-greater-victim contest, I will say that within this past decade I’ve had to fight for my right to nurse discreetly in public, struggle with thrush and mastitis, and face an employer who allowed me only 5 minutes between clients . . . hardly enough time for pumping! Breastfeeding moms don’t have an easy ride, either, and also struggle with an unsupportive culture.
Finally, enough with the “fed is best” canard, already! It creates a false dichotomy–feed your baby vs. infant death–that simply does not apply to the sweeping majority of parents. Every major medical organization will tell you that the science is behind breastfeeding as first choice. But you’re not a negligent baby-killer if you don’t do it.
When I was pregnant with my first I was so sick that I lost a ton of weight, I left the hospital after having her more than 30lbs down from my original weight. They didn’t treat the “morning sickness” because they thought I was exaggerating how sick I was because I was young. Once I had her I had eclampsia so was flat on my back on meds and wasn’t able to nurse much. .
Being malnourished and off to a shakey start I didn’t produce nearly enough to feed my baby. She screamed all the time. I went to LLL asking for help, my peds office, my peds office lactation consultant and finally fed her formula where, for the first time in 6 weeks she didn’t scream and actually slept and finally started putting on weight.. When we went back a couple weeks later to the ped lactation consultant(also LLL) they told me how I was harming my baby by formula feeding and how “if you really loved your baby, your body would have produced enough milk”.
That’s right. A 19 year old woman who was still recovering from a traumatic labor, a difficult baby, crushed she couldn’t nurse, suffering from malnourishment and new high blood pressure(it never was normal again, I have to be on meds for life), and a heaping dose of missed PPD was told that her inability to breastfeed was because she didn’t love her baby.
When I had my second child and the LLL lady came in to “help” establish good feeding I threw her out. She initially refused to leave and started grabbing my breasts without permission. and my husband had to all but bodily force her out.
I will NEVER support LLL. I will NEVER recommend LLL. And every time some smug ass sanctimommy says something about formula feeding being the devil I have to resist slapping the crap out of her.
It’s gone too far. Breastmilk is ideal IF YOU CAN.But the most important thing is baby is fed and loved. Who cares how its fed as long as it’s healthy.
I was born in 1962 and was a bottle baby. My sister was two years older and had been breast fed. She is a disaster and I’m perfectly fine. I BFed my boy for six weeks and then he totally rejected me. He would take expressed milk from a bottle, but not from me. After 2 months he was a formula boy. There is nothing wrong with either.
Yeah, people need to be educated and confident enough in their abilities about their parenting. My first was a c-section so she only got formula until we took her home after 3 days (’cause, you know, I just wasn’t up to it at first). She was then mostly breastfed except for one supplemental daily bottle (9 pounders are HUNGRY!) until my production ramped up at 6 weeks post birth. And yes, my nipples were raw and bloody for a few weeks (I just kept telling myself I’d take it a day at a time). I think a great disservice is done by not letting women know that SOME women do find it hurts at first (even a bit the second time!). There’s some BS about if it hurts you’re not doing it right.
By the time I had my second (also c-section) I knew what I was doing and nearly threw the lactation consultant out of the room when she tried to tell me I was doing it all wrong (told her I’d nursed my daughter for 18 months, thank you). We also checked ourselves out early and got the hell out of there (amazing what some experience, and one spinal painkiller will do!).
I will say that I do believe that breastfeeding is ideal. However, in certain circumstances, what is ideal can’t always happen. There are many options. The baby can have a wet nurse, donor milk in a bottle, Weston A. Price homemade formula, organic commercial formula, or even standard formula. In the end, though I believe mother’s milk to be healthiest, it is not up to some doctor to make that decision for a mother. I wish more mothers would choose to breastfeed, but at the same time I’m not okay with anyone telling them they must.
Jessica …
I wouldn’t recommend LLL even back in my day. It was ran by what I thought were a bunch of hippie woman that didn’t figure out they needed to conform from the 60’s.(my experience with them was in early 1990) Their attitude was that the only thing you do with your day is eat, drink, sleep and think breastfeeding. You don’t have a life, a husband or other children. You immerse yourself in breastfeeding. To me, it was breastfeeding gone horribly overboard. I went to one meeting when I was pregnant then swore off of that group albeit they looked like their support was good generally with ideas and help. I went to my pre-natal class and shared my story to find out that the health nurse that ran our class didn’t like them either nor would the local Health Unit promote them. I want to think that this still isn’t the case with them in 2017, but at the same time wasn’t the least surprised to hear your experience with them.
I am an IBCLC and I see women’s goals of breastfeeding undermined day in and day out by ignorant hospital practices, ignorant pediatricians, unsupportive families and friends, ridiculous parental leave policies and a culture that devalues care taking, particularly if it is unpaid.
We need to stop confusing the micro with the macro. On a micro level everyone needs to do what is right and possible for themselves and their family. On a macro level we need to institute some MASSIVE changes to increase the rates of human milk feeding among our infants. On a population level it is absolutely related in increases in morbidity and mortality among both infants who don’t receive human milk, as well as women who don’t lactate.
that does not at all to mean that anyone was “wrong” for choosing not to, or being unable to breastfeed. It also means about zero ability to imply causality for any individual child, but the plural of antidote is not data… and real data does exist.
It does mean that it is wrong if women who want to don’t really have a real opportunity to provide that milk for their infant because they have to be back at work at 2 weeks postpartum, they have uneducated nurses pushing formula because the baby “acts hungry”, they have pretentious pediatricians who won’t educate themselves on the newest information on breastfeeding support (and refuse to refer out), other health care providers who are ignorant on how to medically care for a lactating person, or they have family that belittles them for working hard at their goals.
We don’t have to diminish the importance of species specific milk in order to acknowledge that our culture (on a variety of levels) makes it f$%^!&g hard to provide, either with mom’s own milk, or as the World Health Organization (among others) lists as the next best thing, the milk of another lactating woman.
BTW – human milk has a rather important role in the gut microbiome.
YES– I breastfed easily and loved it. But the attitude that says mothers basically just exist to be vessels for their children is unbelievably pervasive and sad. I was still nursing my 8-month-old when I got a cold and asked the pharmacist what to take. His answer amounted to “Well, nothing, since anything could POSSIBLY pass into breast milk, we will never know for SURE, so you shouldn’t take anything.” Now, it was just a cold, so not that big a deal. But I was so mad that I was no longer considered a patient or a person with symptoms, but rather, a nursing mother and nothing more.
CK
Amen
Gigi, um hello, the whole point is that formula feeding is FINE, and each family should do what works for them. Your judgemental first comment was not needed nor on-topic.
I agree that nobody should ever have to feel that kind of pressure to breastfeed, but on the other hand, I don’t really like breastfeeding being described has having only one dubious advantage. Breastfeeding has many advantages even if you don’t count the IQ one.
I was a child of the 1970s and my mother still rants about how obnoxious Le Leche League was about breastfeeding even back then. She had already planned to breastfeed, but if she hadn’t she would have felt completely persecuted.
Bottom line is I just can’t imagine caring what someone else decides to do either way. What is it to me or to anyone?
It’s funny that even in the fact of research demonstrating the negligible benefits of breastfeeding, there are STILL people commenting here that “On a macro level we need to institute some MASSIVE changes to increase the rates of human milk feeding among our infants. On a population level it is absolutely related in increases in morbidity and mortality among both infants who don’t receive human milk, as well as women who don’t lactate.” Guess what. That research is FAR from proven. And — we’re talking about individual, human women here, and what they do with their bodies (their breasts!) “Population level” does not really matter.
There are many things that women could do to incrementally make their children and themselves healthier, on an individual and probably population level. And yet, it’s only breastfeeding, where the mother must literally use her own body in a very time and labor intensive way, that inspires such quasi-religious public health promotion.
@Megan ” In fact, reading to children, etc., wasn’t done much at all until pretty recently,”
What do you mean by recently? Everyone I knew when I was a small child in the 1970s had parents who read to them. My father read to my half-brother when he was a child in the early 1960s. My parents’ parents read to them in the 1930s (every night for my mother.) By “recent” do you mean post-1900?
“It’s funny that even in the fact of research demonstrating the negligible benefits of breastfeeding”
Eh… no. You’re mischaracterizing the research.
The research wasn’t asking “are there benefits to breastfeeding?” and doesn’t claim to settle that question.
Rather, this particular research asks “are there measurable cognitive differences between children who were breastfed and children who weren’t.”
There are many benefits of breastfeeding, which have been well-documented by other research.
Generalizing from a single study is dumb for a couple of reasons… first, because scientific research is carefully designed to answer one, and only one, question. Second, even with the carefully designed studies, you want to wait to see if the same conclusions are reached when the experimental procedure is repeated. Allow me to illustrate. I’m going to conduct a quick scientific study by looking out my window. I observe rain. From this observation, I can state that it is raining in the vicinity of my house. I can’t say “it never snows outside my window”, my study wasn’t designed to test that theory. Before I say “today is a rainy day”, I might want to conduct a few more observations at different times of day. And even if I do THAT, it still doesn’t tell us what the weather is like near YOUR house.
Dang it, I meant to continue rather than submit. So here is part 2:
“There are many things that women could do to incrementally make their children and themselves healthier, on an individual and probably population level. And yet, it’s only breastfeeding, where the mother must literally use her own body in a very time and labor intensive way, that inspires such quasi-religious public health promotion.”
Really? How about putting your kids in a seat belt, or properly-fitted car seat? Nobody cares about that? Try telling people you’ve decided not to vaccinate your kids because a former Playboy Playmate told you not to, for a (justified) dose of righteous indignation. Helmets for bike-riding and skateboarding. Pool safety (for those that have one, of course). Or, just for fun, offer some peanut-butter to a kid after the parents tell you about the kid’s allergy.
I’m a dude, and because of that, I don’t really expect most women to give a damn one way or another what my opinion on their decision to breastfeed or not. But I still think I AM allowed to have, and express, opinions about the relative “goodness” of the rationale for making the choice… “I’m not breastfeeding because I’m finally getting the chemotherapy I put off while my baby was in utero” is NOT the same as “I’m not breastfeeding because I like meth”, and “I AM breastfeeding, even though I like meth” is not OK at all. That’s just a bad choice.
Families need to drive this decision and not be shamed. Child 1 i breastfed and enjoyed the quick bonding , Child 2 was a premie, c-section, Nicu baby that was formula feed and my husband was able to bond with and feel more involved while I took the time I needed to to heal. Child 3 we both breastfed and formula fed as needed. I agree that there are healthy benefits for the baby to be breastfed but they should be balanced with both the physical and emotional well being of the entire family- mom, dad and siblings.
I have four kids. When I had my twins, I could only nurse one because the other was allergic to milk protein. Technically, I could have breastfed him, but I would have had to give up all dairy products (even things like bread because of whey). I had a 15 month old and premature (by 2 months) twins to care for. I could barely find time to eat, let alone prepare a special diet. So, I nursed one twin and bottle fed the other (a super expensive formula with no milk protein in it). It really stressed me out at the time. I had read all the stuff about breast being best. I wish I had been more relaxed about it. The twins are now 16. I’m sure it is just chance, but the one who was bottle fed is healthier. The one pumped full of breast milk has had a variety of health issues, including asthma. I make sure now to make new moms feel good about whatever they decide to do. No need to spend the early months of your baby’s life stressed out. I was able to nurse my fourth kid for over 2.5 years. I am all for breastfeeding; I just don’t think anyone should spend time needlessly worrying if it doesn’t work out.
James Pollock “There are many benefits of breastfeeding, which have been well-documented by other research.”
No, actually there are not. The sibling concordance and PROBIT study show that there are very few benefits if any.
And the fact that you would compare breastfeeding to putting your child in a carseat is just laughable. ONE of these things requires a huge investment in time, money, and labor by the mother, as well as the utilization of her body in a particular way; provides little benifit; AND there is an equally effective substitute that does not require any of this female labor.
The other is something anyone can buy at Walmart and can be used by any gender, and greatly reduces the risk of actual death. Hmmm.
Also I think you’re missing part of the thread in the Fed is Best campaign, which is that current breastfeeding promotion practices result in unacknowledged risks to the baby — including dehydration, jaundice, falls, SIDS (because of the lack of hospital nurseries).
“a huge investment in time, money, and labor by the mother”
What am I missing here?
I’ve exclusively breastfed four children, and there wasn’t more “investment in time, money, and labor” than I would have made just by parenting them in the first place. Maybe for the first couple of weeks when my youngest were in the NICU, but I think I would’ve been just as exhausted if I was trying to bottle feed them.
I’m a stay at home mom. I’ve chosen to spend the bulk of my time with my children. For working moms I’m sure it’s different, but this seems like a blanket statement meant to cover everyone. (If you don’t want to breastfeed, or can’t, then don’t. But don’t tell everyone else that it’s impossible/impractical for them, too.)
We can’t even have a civil conversation here without getting the digs in, can we?
“I’ve chosen to spend the bulk of my time with my children.” Oh, those horrible mothers who choose to be away from their child(ren) working at a *gasp* job!
Maybe YOU could understand and respect that while you have that choice, others don’t. And it’s not so they can live in big fancy houses and drive big fancy cars.
“”There are many benefits of breastfeeding, which have been well-documented by other research.”
No, actually there are not.”
I see. You do science like a Republican. Never mind then.
“And the fact that you would compare breastfeeding to putting your child in a carseat is just laughable.”
Sure is. Of course, the fact that I didn’t compare breastfeeding to putting your child in a carseat complicates your rebuttal.
What I did do is point out that your claim (” it’s only breastfeeding, where the mother must literally use her own body in a very time and labor intensive way, that inspires such quasi-religious public health promotion.”) is ludicrously wrong. If you choose not to breastfeed, people might think bad thoughts about you. If you don’t put your kids in carseats, the government might take your kids away from you. If you’d like to address what I actually said, instead of a strawman, please go ahead, if not, I’ll just assume it’s because you can’t and move on to something else.
” current breastfeeding promotion practices result in unacknowledged risks to the baby — including dehydration, jaundice, falls, SIDS”
Risk of SIDS is lower in breastfed babies. That’s one of those health benefits I mentioned before.
Breastmilk is only as good as what mom consumes. And sometimes, as I’ve learned, even that isn’t enough to make a baby healthy and strong. I fell off the breastfeeding high horse at about that time :/
Do what works for you and your family. My mom nursed my older brother and I, for my younger brother and sister she didn’t produce enough. I have a family member with mental illness who sure needed to be on her meds to be a good mom. I have a sister who had a c-section and the drugs interfered with nursing at first. Another friend whose ducts were too far back for a newborn: she pumped and did formula for 5 kids.
And my oldest…after 3 months if we were out and about…she wanted to be seeing what was going on, not looking at Mom’s chest. Hungry unhappy baby…give her a bottle so she could see. (I was hiking, bringing the pump is not easy to do.) Middle had a weak suck (sign for forthcoming speech issues,) and stopped nursing much earlier than I wanted. Oh, and a rough start because he was born with two teeth! Ouch! Youngest nursed only until he was over 3….
And that myth…”nursing if done right does not hurt, is a blissful state….” No, it is not. I KNEW how to get my kids to latch correctly….it hurt the first few weeks with EACH of them. Despite the lactation consultants and all of that. Yes, with my second and the teeth….that WAS different…they had never seen that before. The teeth were not formed properly (kids aren’t supposed to come out with teeth,) and we ended up having them pulled as everyone was worried they would come out (they were very wobbly) and he would end up with one in a lung. “Baby” teeth came in at the right time….and fell out….again, malformed and not right. Adult teeth, thankfully, are just fine.
Babies are a season in life. Being a baby is not so memorable. When they are a teen, they will not be saying that all of their problems are because you didn’t breast feed. They find other things, that they remember, to blame on you. Breast feeding as an issue for the baby…isn’t. It might be for the mom, some regrets either way….but it is up to the mom.
All that said….I LOVED that it put me to sleep at night. I don’t think I could have survived infant hood without cosleeping and nursing. I really need my sleep. None of my kids slept through the night until they were two. But cosleeping…oh my, there is another thing to judge parents about too! Bring it on! I will defend my sleep to the bitter end! (I stopped at a green light and tried to go when it was red because I was sleep deprived. With my newborn. Made me aware of the need to get others to drive me to appointments until sleep returned.)
Lawyer Jane. Are you 1000% serious when you say there is little to no health benifits to breastfeeding.
Breast milk is a live food that actually contains antibodies that help babies fight off bacteria and viruses. A mothers milk can pick up a virus in her babies saliva and have already produced antibodies by the next feeding to help the baby fight it off. I had been sick many times in my 2 yr breastfeeding journey and my daughter was sick all of 2 times. Even now that’s she’s weaned me and my bf were just sick and she didn’t catch it at all. That’s just one of the many benefits.
I am in no way against anyone else’s choice to formula feed their children but let’s not belittle breastfeeding moms while we are at it. I didn’t choose to breastfeed my child because it would make her smarter or healthier or better than any other kid help I was bottle fed. That’s doesn’t make my mom or anybody else a bad mom. I chose to do it because it’s the biological norm. Also this study was funded by a formula company so it’s absolutely biased in its findings…..
Wow, I didn’t realize that there were so many seemingly intelligent people so worried and opinionated about something that has absolutely no impact on them whatsoever – how someone else feeds their baby. Make the choice that is right for you and put thoughts of anyone else’s decision where they belong – out of your mind.
I particularly like the many comments listing the reasons it is okay from strangers to not breastfeed as if someone else needs to justify their choice to you. Formula is not arsenic and will be far from the only slightly suboptimal meal you feed your child. In fact, most meals, if not all, will be suboptimal as very few of us are planning our meals so that they encompass the scientifically ideal amount of nutrients. Few, if any, of us know the scientifically ideal amount of nutrients food should contain.
I breastfed. It was something I wanted to do and I had the luxury of not working until my daughter was over a year old. I would have switched to formula in a second if I had had to work for no reason other than my convenience. A couple of my friends formula fed for nor other reason than they had no interest in breastfeeding. Who cares.
“Perfection (or what is believed to be perfect at a given moment in history) has never been required for a child to grow up just fine.”
So important!! – especially the part about “what is believed to be perfect at a given moment” – My parents put me to sleep on my tummy because their doctor said it was safer if I spit up. I put my son on his back because my doctor said it prevented SIDS. Knowledge changes all the time, and what happens to be the highest risk for one baby might be different than the highest risk for another. There needs to be sense, not absolutes.
Neither my daughter or I were blissful during the 3 weeks we attempted breastfeeding (I quit when I got mastitis, and I’m sure we hated each other by then). It *was* blissful the first time I gave her a bottle, and I could actually enjoy my baby.
“I’ve chosen to spend the bulk of my time with my children.” Oh, those horrible mothers who choose to be away from their child(ren) working at a *gasp* job!
Did I say anyone was horrible? My point was that, if you’re with the baby all the time anyway, and there’s nothing going on with supply/medication/medical conditions/etc. breastfeeding is not the huge investment of time and effort and money that someone else said it was.
Wow, I am disappointed in the lack of skepticism in the Free Range Parent community. I expected better!
Ok, for the record:
The benefits of breastfeeding (in an industrialized country with safe water, etc) are MASSIVELY exaggerated. The studies out there purporting to show benefits fail to correct for the most important factors, such as maternal education, socio-economic status, etc. The best studies, which compared siblings who had and had not been breastfed, and the PROBIT study that was (somewhat) randomized, show that there is slim-to-no benefit. As research continues to improve, we’re going to continue to see better studies like the one in this post that show little to no benefit. More information: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/
On the other hand, the COSTS of breastfeeding can be quite significant. And of course, this is very personal to the mother and child. You have plenty of milk, a great latch, and like it? Fine. But many mothers don’t like it, don’t make enough, have to take medicine, have to return to work, etc. It’s a very personal choice; sort of the essence of the “free range” ethos.
And finally, there are indeed very significant COSTS to breastfeeding promotion. The “baby friendly hospital” initiative (which takes promoting breastfeeding as its #1 goal) is resulting in some serious increases in dehydration, jaundice, and SIDS.
See:http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/08/23/baby_friendly_hospital_initiative_criticized_as_unsafe_in_new_jama_paper.html
I see this as 100% a matter of parental choice and government overreach. If you like breastfeeding, or if you hate it but judge the small health benefits to be important, then do it. But don’t assemble an entirely public health bureaucracy to lecture women about what they need to do with their bodies, time, and labor, all for an exceedingly small health benefit.
James Pollock “If you’d like to address what I actually said, instead of a strawman, please go ahead, if not, I’ll just assume it’s because you can’t and move on to something else.”
How about YOU addressing the fact that breastfeeding is very costly and invasive of a woman’s body? Or does a woman’s choice about her body, her labor, and her time, not matter at all to you? Talk about strawmen.
“How about YOU addressing the fact that breastfeeding is very costly and invasive of a woman’s body?”
It’s hard work and time-consuming. Are you imagining that anyone thinks otherwise?
“Or does a woman’s choice about her body, her labor, and her time, not matter at all to you? Talk about strawmen”
Yes. That is indeed a strawman. .
I think one thing easy to forget here, given the admittedly overheated rhetoric of the “lactivist” types, is that part of why people go so overboard promoting breastfeeding is that not so very long ago, women were discouraged and even demonized for breastfeeding.
For instance, my mother, being a first-generation European immigrant, breastfed more or less as a matter of course, but her Wasp in-laws were horrified. They thought it was a dirty habit that only “Eye-talians” and other such backwards foreigners still did, since science had now come up with a better, more hygienic way. (My mother’s family being from Northern Europe found it confusing how often people here seemed to think they were Italians, or close enough anyway.) My grandmother was seriously convinced we would be malnourished, and she regularly brought bottles of formula to our house and tried to slip them to the baby any chance she got, saying, “Oh look, she’s still hungry! Don’t you think she’d sleep better if you let her have this?”
Even my mother’s doctors were almost uniformly against breastfeeding, just forty and fifty years ago. One refused to treat a raging breast infection so that she’d be forced to ween me early, even though she didn’t want to yet. So at least for women my mother’s age who breastfed, they’re used to having to fight for it and might not quite have realized how far the pendulum has swung by now.
‘@Megan ” In fact, reading to children, etc., wasn’t done much at all until pretty recently,”
What do you mean by recently? Everyone I knew when I was a small child in the 1970s had parents who read to them. My father read to my half-brother when he was a child in the early 1960s. My parents’ parents read to them in the 1930s (every night for my mother.) By “recent” do you mean post-1900?’
That was an odd one. Maybe she just assumed because parenting magazines and such weren’t telling everybody to read aloud for educational reasons that nobody did? Anybody who knows classic children’s literature knows this ain’t so: if there was no reading aloud, who was the market for “Winnie the Pooh,” “The Wind in the Willows,” “Alice in Wonderland,” “Just So Stories,” and pretty much anything by Beatrix Potter? All of these are far beyond the reading ability of kids the age the stories are targeted at. (And I know reading levels were higher back then, but not THAT much higher – there’s no way even an Edwardian 5-year-old could read “Winnie the Pooh,” but that’s the age the story is just right for.)
Also, I believe the practice of the whole family listening together to one person read aloud was more common in times past. E.g., whenever they get new reading material in the “Little House on the Prairie” books that’s what they do – for pleasure, not for education.
hey lawyer jane why don’t we agree to disagree?you sound like you feel breastfeeding is bovine and anti-woman. time and energy and expense? it takes time to prepare and clean bottles, it’s an expense to buy them and formula and if going out you need to plan to bring and cool the bottles. if that’s your choice bravo for you. if others choice to use their bodies in a very personal way and nurse, that’s their choice and bravo for them. I don’t know you and have only read your posts but it sound [to me at least] as if you feel if a woman chooses to breastfeed their partners have no chance to bond. not true..i was nursing but it was my partner who got up, changed the baby and put them back down. breastfeeding has no benefits? if nothing else it gives those who choose a close contact experience bond. can bottlefeeders get that? yes. so stop trying to make it seem like .women shouldn’t waste their time and bodies caring for their kids,because I’m sure that’s not what you meant/
and by the way, I work on a farm and was back at work 2-3 weeks after each birth. didn’t miss a beat. took the first in a front carrier then a backback. if I had to fix bottles for me that would have been a pain and expense. and yes we live in a great country with clean water…doesn’t mean everyone has access to it nor can everyone afford formula. my daughters work in a corporate setting, both breastfeed and pump and yes give a relief bottle when needed, they don’t consider it an invasion of their bodies but an expression of how they are parenting. again agree to disagree.
@Michelle, I feel your word choice of “I’ve chosen” was very telling. Not “I don’t work outside the home, so…..”, or “I’m a stay at home mom, so…..”. Nope. You had to say “I’ve chosen” which denigrates everyone who could not make that choice.
I mainly chose breastfeeding because I am lazy and hate doing the dishes. I am also forgetful so not having to bring the food with me when leaving the house was another benefit. I had some problems with breastfeeding with my first (white spots for example) but still did OK. I had sore nipples for a while but that sorted itself out too. With my second I had no issues at all, he just started sucking and I started producing milk more or less. I breastfed my daughter for 4 years and I have been breastfeeding for 8 months with my son so I will see where I end up with him. While I love breastfeeding I can admit I hope for slightly shorter nursing than last time, 2,5 years would be ideal…
I must say though that I hate the “Fed is best” thing. No, fed is not best, fed is he absolute minimum expected from a parent. Whether you breastfeed or formulafeed, the only thing I really expect you will do with regards to feeding is to feed your baby.
Since a few people mentioned the time investment of breastfeeding vs bottle feeding, I wanted to add my 2 cents. Having nursed one twin and bottle fed the other, I can say that breastfeeding (assuming no major complications) is way easier. No bottles to be made. Just wake up (or barely wake up) and let the baby snuggle next to you and nurse. Time to go out of the house? Grab the nursing baby and go. But the bottle fed twin – got to get the bottle stuff ready. I know this is different for women who are back at work, but for those of us at home, it is hard to beat the ease of nursing a baby. Still, I stand by my earlier post – everyone should do what they want and not feel bad about it. I hate that I spent a single minute worried about the effect that nursing one twin and not the other would have. Silly waste of time. They both turned out fine (age 16 now). Bonded with them equally. Health is better for the bottle fed twin.
I think the time and labor comment is meant to compare one person being solely responsible for feeding v. the ability to have two parents split feeding duty and not comparing the actual work that goes into different forms of feeding. The mother is responsible for every single meal consumed by a breastfed baby. Even if a bottle is fed by the partner, mother labor went into expressing that milk to put into the bottle. Theoretically, parents who bottle feed can split the feeding duties in half, making bottle feeding less labor intensive for each partner, although probably more labor intensive as a whole. Heck, once baby can hold his own bottle, there are actually now 3 people who can feasibly feed baby a meal.
I’m a lucky mom who has been able to BF both children with only some relatively normal growing pains. If we really want to increase breastfeeding rates, how about paid maternity leave? Breastfeeding, once established, is pretty easy, pumping is a colossal pain.
I once had a sinus infection while BFing, it was pretty easy for the doc to choose an antibiotic that would be okay for some to pass through the milk. But a woman who came perilously close to death? My God, why is BFing even a consideration? If she’s deceased, she certainly can’t BF.
Formula was literally a lifesaver when first invented. I’m so glad it’s an option. My oldest sibling and I were BF, middle sibling was formula fed. No difference in any of us! In fact, I’m probably the dumb one of the bunch. 😉
There are many reasons why breastfeeding is incredibly important, for one it protects your child or tiny clone being from the mind control chemicals put in the water by the government, I found myself questioning if this was actually posted by a mother or a vile being trying to promote mind control by leaving out the fact that formula will most likely contain the mind altering chemicals found in city water,
WHY DO YOU THINK TRUMP WON THE ELECTION!
@LizardCupid_47
“There are many reasons why breastfeeding is incredibly important, for one it protects your child or tiny clone being from the mind control chemicals put in the water by the government, I found myself questioning if this was actually posted by a mother or a vile being trying to promote mind control by leaving out the fact that formula will most likely contain the mind altering chemicals found in city water,
WHY DO YOU THINK TRUMP WON THE ELECTION!”
I really don’t recall breast- vs bottle-feeding being an issue in the recent presidential election.
I’ll pay more attention in 2020.
There are hundred, if not thousands, of ‘best paths’ to take when raising children. It is the sum of choices you make as parent, not a singular choice, that dictate the outcome of your child’s well-being.
However, almost none of those decisions come under the scrutiny of other parents quite like breastfeeding. Which is interesting to say the least. For one, the benefits are marginal. What benefit does breastfeeding have on IQ levels compared to a home that nurtures learning? Where children are read to and allowed to explore their interests?
What are the health benefits of breastfeeding compared to a lifetime of good nutrition, love of physical activity and hygiene?
Furthermore, you’ll find healthy, bottle fed geniuses who eat McDonald’s and average breastfed kids who eat and pronounce quinoa correctly with asthma. Some of it is genetics, some of it is enviorment. Most of the time, it is out of your immediate control.
Chill out with this nonsense, a well fed baby, child, adult is the end goal. Not evisterating other parents for their choices.
Which was the point of Lenora’s article. What benefits breastfeeding could have provided this baby are far outweighed by the benefits of living mother.
“hey lawyer jane why don’t we agree to disagree?you sound like you feel breastfeeding is bovine and anti-woman. time and energy and expense? it takes time to prepare and clean bottles, it’s an expense to buy them and formula and if going out you need to plan to bring and cool the bottles. if that’s your choice bravo for you. if others choice to use their bodies in a very personal way and nurse, that’s their choice and bravo for them. ”
I don’t have anything against a woman choosing to breastfeed! But I do HUGELY object to the people who discount the woman’s choice in the matter, and the fact that breastfeeding is immensely harder for some women than other women. Particularly if they are ignoring the woman’s bodily integrity and labor, while grossly inflating the benefits of breastfeeding.
None of what I said has anything to do with women who enjoy breastfeeding and find it easy. Totally their choice to breastfeed. I breastfed my child, in fact.
Yup… I could not make breastfeeding work with my daughter… after 3 months of mixed feeding, I gave up as the breastfeeding was so slow and so apparently unsatisfying for us both. We were both so much happier when we switched to formula and I could finally bond with her properly! I seem to be fortunate in that I was never crushed by guilt or felt a failure – I feel so angry that so many mums feel they must be (or maybe at least that they have to publicly declare themselves to be) a ‘bad mum’ or a failure if it doesn’t work for them. It’s so bloody hard (for some people at least), I’m kind of amazed we’ve survived as a species.
I tried again with my son, and after 3 weeks of *agony* it started to work, it was great, and I breastfed, occasionally expressing for nearly 10 months and that was a wonderful experience.
As such I will always support whatever a mother chooses – yes, even if she plain doesn’t want to, even if she finds it ‘gross’, she is entitled to make that choice as it will support her being the best mum she can be.
@LizardCupid47 – I tried to think of some way of refuting your ‘interesting’ take on things, but those pesky mind control chemicals kept getting. ..in…t…he. ..w–
I would be interested in a link to the actual research paper. To be honest, I’m surprised they could find a few thousand kids who had actually been breastfed in Ireland. Apparently only 1 in 450 children are breastfed until 6 months.
Here’s the paper.http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/139/4/e20161848
This graph show that less than 10% of the children were breastfed at > 6 months.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/pediatrics/139/4/e20161848/F1.large.jpg
“Finally, for children who were fully breastfed for ≥6, statistically significant differences were found postmatching for only 2 outcomes, problem solving and hyperactivity at age 3 years.”
It would be interesting to run the same types of data from some of the Scandinavian countries where breast feeding rates are higher and duration is longer. Of course, it would probably be difficult to find a significantly large non-breastfed group there.
Ooops. I missed this in the final discussion section:
“After adjustment for multiple testing, the initial support found for breastfeeding and better problem solving at age 3 years if the child was breastfed for a minimum of 6 months was no longer statistically significant.”
I think it’s good to at least give the mom the information, “This medication isn’t safe for breastfeeding. If that matters to you, there is this alternative, although here are the reasons we think the original medication is better.” Let her choose.
Why do doctors feel like they need to make this decisions FOR women?
My experience was the opposite of this story. I had a blood clot while pregnant with my daughter. The doctor I saw in the ER, before I was diagnosed, had told me that if it turned out to be a blood clot there were two medications. One was standard but not safe for pregnancy, the other was safe and just as good. Once I was admitted, the new doctor prescribed the standard medication, and absolutely REFUSED to discuss with me whether it was safe for pregnancy, or discuss alternatives. Instead, he treated me as though I was being completely irrational for caring about the life of my unborn child (he literally said, “The baby is not my patient. You are.”) and gave me a massive guilt trip about having to do what he said or I would die and leave my other children motherless.
The worst part about this story is that I later found out that the standard medication IS safe for pregnancy. If anyone had been willing to discuss it with me, and explain the different ways medications are classified in regard to safety for pregnancy, I could have taken it and not worried. Instead, I took about half what I was supposed to, and spent my whole pregnancy equally terrified that I would either die or lose my child.
This is yet another issue where outsiders feel like they have a right to make decisions for you. Not just “this is what’s medically best,” but “what should be my priorities when deciding what to do.”
“Even my mother’s doctors were almost uniformly against breastfeeding, just forty and fifty years ago. One refused to treat a raging breast infection so that she’d be forced to ween me early, even though she didn’t want to yet. So at least for women my mother’s age who breastfed, they’re used to having to fight for it and might not quite have realized how far the pendulum has swung by now.”
And, although it has swung far, it has not swung THAT far. Breastfeeding moms still have to deal with people who think we shouldn’t nurse in public or shouldn’t receive basic accommodations to pump at work, post-delivery hospital nurses who pressure moms into doing things that interfere with breastfeeding, and well-meaning relatives of an older generation who see a mom struggling in the first few weeks of breastfeeding and tell them that their efforts are wasted. When my first was born, nurses told me to give him formula because he was large and therefore might have gestational diabetes, and one night nurse gave me Demerol when I asked for Motrin. When my second was hours old and happily breastfeeding, nurses suggested that she was using me as a pacifier and recommended I give her a plastic pacifier, which can interfere with latch in the very early days. Educational efforts and advocacy are still needed. And studies have suggested that women who breastfeed have lower rates of early onset breast cancer, which is important information for women to have.
That said, it’s always important to use common sense. Give women options and education, and let them make their own choices, about whether to breastfeed and whether to receive specific antibiotics or other medicines while breastfeeding. (I assume from the story that the problem was the particular type of antibiotic that had been recommended. Women take antibiotics while nursing all the time.)
“Why do doctors feel like they need to make this decisions FOR women?”
Technically, they’re making it FOR the infant.
You see it as an issue of parental choice, but most people do not. If Doc gives Mom something that poisons the baby, people will be howling for Doc’s head. Doc knows that Recycline is contra-indicated for nursing babies. It says right on the label that Falderall shouldn’t be taken by nursing mothers.
When your decisions affect only you, you will largely be left alone to make them. When they affect other people, that gives other people a stake in your decisions, and, occasionally, the right to overrule them. So, for example, if you are diagnosed with epilepsy, the nice folks at the DMV may override your decision to keep driving and take your license. Since infants are unable to speak for themselves unless their message is “I am very unhappy right now and I want someone to come deal with it”, other people have to stand in for them.
There’s a reason that many drugs require a prescription, and can’t just be purchased by anyone who thinks they might need it.
James, if you read the rest of my post, you’ll see it’s not even that. My doctor decided for me that my life was worth more than my baby’s life. (It was completely a false dichotomy, but he refused to even discuss the possibility of protecting BOTH our lives.) Quite often it’s simply a matter of thinking that women can’t make healthcare decisions for themselves.
Actually, James, maybe it’s because I haven’t read all of the comments, but I don’t even see what your response to me has to do with anything.
The original story is about a mom wanting to take a life saving medication that isn’t safe for breastfeeding, and give her child formula. How does that hurt her baby? How does refusing to give her the medication help her baby?
My comment was about wanting to discuss medications that would save my life and NOT potentially kill my child. How does refusing to discuss that help my child?
What are you even talking about? Where in either of those stories is a doctor saving a child from the mother’s decisions? That’s a complete strawman.
Bottle feed or breastfeed. There are a lot of different factors of which is best. (this type is better, therefore, that type is harmful)
This ‘harmful’ effect is a drop in the ocean compared to the training that we are giving to our children that you must condemn others that have a different opinion than yours.
I still see judging going on here, as if the only reason you’d choose not to breastfeed is because you can’t. I have six children and I chose not to breastfeed any of them. No medical reason, I just didn’t want to. I think it’s inconvenient, sometimes painful, and time consuming. I’m very close with all my kids (they all still live at home. 24 all the way down to 10), so the bonding thing isn’t a … thing. Whether you feed a baby from a breast or a bottle you’re holding them and bonding. Bottle feeding also gives the other parent time time to bond and mom to get other things done. No one should feel bad for not breastfeeding for whatever reason. As long as your kid is being fed it shouldn’t matter how.
“paid maternity leave”
Hey, what’s this elephant doing in here?