8 ms·

not sure how it works with twins quantity wise, but I see "bottle" being mentioned for the 3 mo babies - afaik best to get mother's milk as much as possible in

not sure how it works with twins quantity wise, but I see "bottle" being mentioned for the 3 mo babies - afaik best to get mother's milk as much as possible in the first 6 months

joshgachnang 5y ago
You can pump and get mother's milk from a bottle. He even addresses that one quickly got exhausted on the breast.
asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
Negative. There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. But even if we stipulate that mothers must breastfeed, many working women pump milk during the day if they don't have unlimited paid time off after birth. In such cases bottles must obviously be used. And many women cannot produce enough breastmilk, and must supplement with formula. And many other possible reasons why bottles must be used. Anyway, one thing we can say for sure: if it's not your kid and you weren't specifically asked for advice, don't tell someone they should have been breastfeeding.
- fouc 5y ago
  Historically women that cannot produce enough breastmilk would ask other women to do the breastfeeding.
  - XorNot 5y ago
    Not entirely true: goats milk was the nearest substitute in recent history. My wife's great grandfather was fed with goats milk from an infant age.
- cocothem 5y ago
  Interesting response. Let me just say that in general I would prefer the people around me to mention an alternative way of doing things (related to raising babies or anything really) along with some reasons if available. Not preach, just mention. So that they make sure I am aware of it. Maybe there is that one case where I find out about something I wasn't aware of. And then I wish we could all say "yes I know" or "I wasn't aware of that, will dig" or "that's a myth, here's why" and continue either on that topic or change the subject with no harmed feelings.
  - meepmorp 5y ago
    Have you, or you and a partner, had a child and dealt with people's opinions about breastfeeding? I don't mean this in a hostile way, I just want to know if you're talking from experience or not.
    - cocothem 5y ago
      we had a child, was breastfeed for a long time but also had to supplement with formula very early on. yes we dealt with other people's as well of each of us' differing opinions on every matter under the sun related to how to raise a baby. I still want to know all the information available, so that I can make informed decisions.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    No mother in the United States is unaware that other people would prefer her to breastfeed. In general, what you say is true, but only for alternatives you haven't already considered thoroughly. And it will become annoying to be constantly confronted with a viewpoint about your most intimate choices. Like relatives repeatedly asking an intentionally childless couple when they will have kids.
    - MandieD 5y ago
      Or possibly worse: asking a childless couple who desperately want kids but haven’t had it work out when they will have kids. I’ve had to train a couple of young men to never ask a follow up question to a “no” when they ask if a female colleague has kids (and that actually, that’s a risky question to begin with.) Nothing burns it into their little brains quite like hearing, “don’t ask anything that could be translated as, ‘so what’s your sex life like?’” Worst: when a slightly older new male colleague, within 15 minutes of meeting me, asked if I had kids, then upon a negative answer, replied “why not?!”
- jimbob45 5y ago
  It seems to be the case that some breastfeeding is beneficial. However, I’ve been unable to figure out where the line is drawn after much internet research. Some places say six weeks gets you most of the benefits, others say twelve years minimum. You’re right though that the studies are less conclusive than some would like you to believe.
  - b112 5y ago
    /years/weeks/ right?
    - sgerenser 5y ago
      Maybe it was hyperbole. Some hardcore breastfeeding advocates say it should be done until the kid is 3 or 4 years old.
  - Ovah 5y ago
    Even a single breast feeding session provides some benefits. According to my med school notes a single meal reduces the risk of SIDS by x36 compared to no breast feeding. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-infant-death-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20352800 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-infant...
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      Where on this page is there support for your "reduce risk of SIDS by x36" claim? Or that a single session is enough?
      - Ovah 5y ago
        Sorry for the confusion. The x36 I copied from a lecture given by a senior obstetrician. The link was to provide background info on SIDS.
        jordanpg 5y ago
- donw 5y ago
  > There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. American scientists in the 1950s pushed all manner of highly-processed food products on the public because they had "figured out" nutrition. Except for micronutrients, probiotics, most of what we understand now about biological pathways, etc. Barring overwhelming evidence from replicated experiments -- "peer review" is and has always been garbage -- I bias hard to "what we have evolved to do by instinct is probably the best course of action". That'd be breastfeeding. It's counterproductive to shame mothers that use formula for any number of legitimate reasons, but "prefer breastfeeding if at all possible" is an entirely reasonable statement. It would also help if infant formula in the US wasn't absolute garbage by law, compared to what's commonplace in Germany and Japan.
  - sgerenser 5y ago
    How is infant formula in the U.S. different than in Germany or Japan?
  - MandieD 5y ago
    Quality infant formula is also cheap in Germany compared to the US. I thought it was just having a decade of being a dual engineer couple before baby that made me wonder why on earth there are formula theft rings in the US, but no, a box of the brand-name stuff (Hipp) capable of feeding a baby for 5-7 days is about 12 EUR not on sale.
    - donw 5y ago
      Depends on grade here in Japan. The top-of-market stuff is 17 EUR (2200 JPY) per large can, bottom of the market is maybe half that?
- notshift 5y ago
  Do you have a source for the claim that breastfeeding is no better than formula? I don't have a study to the contrary off hand, but everything I've read/studied has agreed conclusively that breastfeeding is the preferred option and has tangible developmental effects. Multiple books and a couple of college courses on early human development. The conclusion that formula is for sure just as good as breast milk would also be shocking given that breast milk was designed by evolution over millions of years to be exactly what the developing baby needs. The human body does a lot of miraculous things that our technology isn't yet quite capable of matching (or even fully understanding).
  - rtlfe 5y ago
    This article links to some studies. https://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10729946/breastfeeding-truth https://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10729946/breastfeeding-truth Edit: this one somebody else linked is better. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-abo...
    - notshift 5y ago
      The second article you linked cites several studies. I looked at each of them and pretty much all of them conclude that breastfeeding is better than bottle, except the childhood obesity one, which found no effect (I wouldn't expect breastfeeding vs bottle to have an effect on weight or height). The first study cited only looked at height, weight, and blood pressure after breastfeeding, which are not the variables I would expect to see gaps in for breast fed vs bottle fed (other metrics are much more important, in my opinion) The second study cited concluded that breastfeeding "had a significant reduction in the risk of 1 or more gastrointestinal tract infections (9.1% vs 13.2%; adjusted OR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.40-0.91) and of atopic eczema (3.3% vs 6.3%; adjusted OR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.31-0.95), but no significant reduction in respiratory tract infection (intervention group, 39.2%; control group, 39.4%; adjusted OR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.59-1.28).". The third study had similar results: "Our experimental intervention increased the duration and degree (exclusivity) of breastfeeding and decreased the risk of gastrointestinal tract infection and atopic eczema in the first year of life." The fourth linked study on IQ concludes: "These results, based on the largest randomized trial ever conducted in the area of human lactation, provide strong evidence that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding improves children's cognitive development." If these are the best studies that an article whose goal is to debunk the breastfeeding narrative can find, it looks like a clear win for breastfeeding to me.
- Ovah 5y ago
  > There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. I wish you would back up such a strong statement. In medical school we were taught the complete opposite. From my notes: - there's a x36 decreased risk of Sudden infant death syndrome if the child has been breast fed a single(!) time compared to no breast feeding. - no breast feeding vs only breast feeding: x15 risk of pneumonia, x11 risk of diarrhea - x14 lower risk of premature death compared to no breast feeding Other pros include: optimal composition of nutrients, doesn't constipate, creates a connection between the mother and child. While formula may be nutritionally complete, it does not include immune component. Breast milk literally contains antibodies that a new born is able to pick up and use.
  - sgerenser 5y ago
    I’m not a doctor, but these stats sound completely ridiculous. Would love to see the source material.
    - Ovah 5y ago
      Which of the stats do you think sounds ridiculous? SIDS for example is pretty rare to begin with (33.3 deaths per 100,000 per Google). At the end of the day I'm guessing the advice maybe saves a few lives on a population level, but only gives a slight statistical advantage to a proactive parent. I wish I had links to actual publications. I copied the numbers from a lecture given by a senior obstetrician.
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
        The effect sizes are implausibly large. Breastfeeding would not be a live debate if the causal effect was that large. For example, a 36x risk of SIDS is really just too much to believe. This lit review: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/apa.13124 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/apa.13... Doesn't mention any studies with effect sizes larger than 4x. And it is concerning habitual breastfeeding or other feeding treatments. If breastfeeding a single time provided a 36x safety factor, these kinds of results would be impossible. A 14x reduction in infant mortality is similar far beyond the reasonable belief. Personally I wouldn't toss out a claim like that without strong evidence to cite.
- retrac 5y ago
  https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/about-breastfeeding/why-it-matters.html https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/about-breastfeeding/why-it... There's quite a lot of evidence that breastfeeding improves health outcomes for newborns. Reduces the rate of gastrointestinal infections, etc. Regarding the probable mechanism of action for that, breast milk provides an ongoing source of antibodies from the mother to baby. You won't find that in formula. That said, evidence about the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding, is much weaker. And a fixation on breastfeeding exclusively can easily result in underfeeding if formula isn't used when all signs suggest it should be. A hungry baby is the worst outcome here, of course.
  - jimmygrapes 5y ago
    Kinda weird place and context to ask, but... OK look I'm not an academic. I have my degrees but for the most part it was "use APA/MLA/etc. for full points". Nothing published, plenty researched enough to publish if the circumstances were better. That said, I don't know enough about how much weight is given to biological history. Breastfeeding was not an option for the vast majority of mammalian history, as far as I understand. Wet nurses or surrogate mothers notwithstanding, babies of all kinds have needed and thrived on a mother's milk. Just because we cleverly figured out alternatives in the last 0.0001% of human history doesn't mean it's better, to me. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.
    - jimmygrapes 5y ago
      Can't edit to clarify but I meant to say that breastfeeding was not an option in the sense that there were no other choices. In case anyone cares.
- jordanpg 5y ago
  - ghostpepper 5y ago
    It can be both simultaneously true that breast milk is better than formula, but that formula is also fine. This is obviously traumatic to hear if you are a woman who cannot breastfeed, but that doesn't make it less true.
    - jordanpg 5y ago
      My point is that folks should consider their tone and words carefully on this topic. There are a great many women out there who would like to be breastfeeding, but can't, for various reasons. And the amount of guilt and shame experienced by many in this group, because of the glib culture surrounding breastfeeding, is doing severe and lasting damage to many parents' mental health. While not optimal, formula is a healthy and viable alternative. That's really all that needs to be said about this.
      - elzbardico 5y ago
        People should grow and care less about what others think
        MandieD 5y ago
        When you’re at your most emotionally vulnerable due to a seething mixture of hormones AND having primary responsibility for a tiny, helpless human, it’s a bit harder to do that. Oh, and everyone feeling entitled to, nay, obliged to tell you how to do your job.
      - ghostpepper 5y ago
        I agree with all of this. Luckily I have observed that there is a growing pushback against "breast is best" militarism and shaming of mothers who cannot (solely) breastfeed. The new slogan I have heard is "fed is best".
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- fipar 5y ago
  I’m only replying on the Internet, I’ve never given anyone baby advice (or any other, for that matter) I wasn’t asked for. That said, breastfeeding is the only way babies were fed for almost all of our species time here. IMHO, if anything needs scientific evidence in its favor before I believe it’s good are alternatives to breastfeeding.
  - MandieD 5y ago
    To be fair, high infant mortality was a sad fact of life before modernity, and it wasn’t all diseases. “Failure to thrive” was a common cause of death. My aunt, born in 1941, was switched to formula after failing to nurse well. Despite those infant formulas being nowhere nearly as good as modern ones, she still grew up to be academically bright and athletic, and her younger sister, my mother, was witty and socially gifted. If my grandmother hadn’t had that option, maybe my aunt would have eventually gotten the hang of it before my grandmother’s milk dried up, but being undernourished for however long that took might not have led to a woman who could get a geology degree - or any child who survived to adulthood.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  > There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. So you're saying the WHO and UNICEF are basing their recommendations[1] on very weak evidence? Even when they think the benefits outweigh the risks[2] of nasty pollutants in the breast milk? [1]: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/infant-and-young-child-feeding https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/infant-and-... [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569122/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569122/
- martingoodson 5y ago
  There is good evidence that breastfeeding is protective against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. There is a dose-response relationship, which is good evidence for causality. The risk is cut by about half, depending on how long breastfeeding continued for. This effect is not explained by socioeconomic factors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29084835/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29084835/
  - bitshiftfaced 5y ago
    > There is good evidence Is there? How were the controls selected in that study? Were they from people who were called on the phone, meaning the controls were from a group of people willing to talk to strangers about something as as deeply personal as having a child die of SIDS? In this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2351639/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2351639/ The controls were visited by the same home-visiting nurse, and it found no correlation.
MandieD 5y ago
I had to give up on direct breastfeeding and switch to the pump with mine when at five weeks, he wasn’t gaining weight. Exclusive pumping for a week showed that I wasn’t producing nearly enough, so we supplemented with formula to get him back gaining weight. With a strict pumping routine, I was able to get him off formula after a few weeks. I ended up mostly pumping until he was about four months, then completely - he was never that great at nursing. Yes, I tried lactation consultants. Helped a bit, but thank god for modern pumps and formula. And Baby Buddy (made sure he was getting enough in - he would go eight hours without complaint at one month, which is obviously a problem) As to twins, breastfeeding one infant is a full time job requiring both hands - I can’t imagine having to feed two at once only from breast! Some supplementation is probably necessary for most of them.

not sure how it works with twins quantity wise, but I see "bottle" being mentioned for the 3 mo babies - afaik best to get mother's milk as much as possible in the first 6 months

joshgachnang 5y ago

You can pump and get mother's milk from a bottle. He even addresses that one quickly got exhausted on the breast.

asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago

Negative. There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. But even if we stipulate that mothers must breastfeed, many working women pump milk during the day if they don't have unlimited paid time off after birth. In such cases bottles must obviously be used. And many women cannot produce enough breastmilk, and must supplement with formula. And many other possible reasons why bottles must be used. Anyway, one thing we can say for sure: if it's not your kid and you weren't specifically asked for advice, don't tell someone they should have been breastfeeding.

fouc 5y ago
Historically women that cannot produce enough breastmilk would ask other women to do the breastfeeding.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Not entirely true: goats milk was the nearest substitute in recent history. My wife's great grandfather was fed with goats milk from an infant age.
cocothem 5y ago
Interesting response. Let me just say that in general I would prefer the people around me to mention an alternative way of doing things (related to raising babies or anything really) along with some reasons if available. Not preach, just mention. So that they make sure I am aware of it. Maybe there is that one case where I find out about something I wasn't aware of. And then I wish we could all say "yes I know" or "I wasn't aware of that, will dig" or "that's a myth, here's why" and continue either on that topic or change the subject with no harmed feelings.
- meepmorp 5y ago
  Have you, or you and a partner, had a child and dealt with people's opinions about breastfeeding? I don't mean this in a hostile way, I just want to know if you're talking from experience or not.
  - cocothem 5y ago
    we had a child, was breastfeed for a long time but also had to supplement with formula very early on. yes we dealt with other people's as well of each of us' differing opinions on every matter under the sun related to how to raise a baby. I still want to know all the information available, so that I can make informed decisions.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
  No mother in the United States is unaware that other people would prefer her to breastfeed. In general, what you say is true, but only for alternatives you haven't already considered thoroughly. And it will become annoying to be constantly confronted with a viewpoint about your most intimate choices. Like relatives repeatedly asking an intentionally childless couple when they will have kids.
  - MandieD 5y ago
    Or possibly worse: asking a childless couple who desperately want kids but haven’t had it work out when they will have kids. I’ve had to train a couple of young men to never ask a follow up question to a “no” when they ask if a female colleague has kids (and that actually, that’s a risky question to begin with.) Nothing burns it into their little brains quite like hearing, “don’t ask anything that could be translated as, ‘so what’s your sex life like?’” Worst: when a slightly older new male colleague, within 15 minutes of meeting me, asked if I had kids, then upon a negative answer, replied “why not?!”
jimbob45 5y ago
It seems to be the case that some breastfeeding is beneficial. However, I’ve been unable to figure out where the line is drawn after much internet research. Some places say six weeks gets you most of the benefits, others say twelve years minimum. You’re right though that the studies are less conclusive than some would like you to believe.
- b112 5y ago
  /years/weeks/ right?
  - sgerenser 5y ago
    Maybe it was hyperbole. Some hardcore breastfeeding advocates say it should be done until the kid is 3 or 4 years old.
- Ovah 5y ago
  Even a single breast feeding session provides some benefits. According to my med school notes a single meal reduces the risk of SIDS by x36 compared to no breast feeding. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-infant-death-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20352800 https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/sudden-infant...
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
    Where on this page is there support for your "reduce risk of SIDS by x36" claim? Or that a single session is enough?
    - Ovah 5y ago
      Sorry for the confusion. The x36 I copied from a lecture given by a senior obstetrician. The link was to provide background info on SIDS.
      - jordanpg 5y ago
donw 5y ago
> There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. American scientists in the 1950s pushed all manner of highly-processed food products on the public because they had "figured out" nutrition. Except for micronutrients, probiotics, most of what we understand now about biological pathways, etc. Barring overwhelming evidence from replicated experiments -- "peer review" is and has always been garbage -- I bias hard to "what we have evolved to do by instinct is probably the best course of action". That'd be breastfeeding. It's counterproductive to shame mothers that use formula for any number of legitimate reasons, but "prefer breastfeeding if at all possible" is an entirely reasonable statement. It would also help if infant formula in the US wasn't absolute garbage by law, compared to what's commonplace in Germany and Japan.
- sgerenser 5y ago
  How is infant formula in the U.S. different than in Germany or Japan?
- MandieD 5y ago
  Quality infant formula is also cheap in Germany compared to the US. I thought it was just having a decade of being a dual engineer couple before baby that made me wonder why on earth there are formula theft rings in the US, but no, a box of the brand-name stuff (Hipp) capable of feeding a baby for 5-7 days is about 12 EUR not on sale.
  - donw 5y ago
    Depends on grade here in Japan. The top-of-market stuff is 17 EUR (2200 JPY) per large can, bottom of the market is maybe half that?
notshift 5y ago
Do you have a source for the claim that breastfeeding is no better than formula? I don't have a study to the contrary off hand, but everything I've read/studied has agreed conclusively that breastfeeding is the preferred option and has tangible developmental effects. Multiple books and a couple of college courses on early human development. The conclusion that formula is for sure just as good as breast milk would also be shocking given that breast milk was designed by evolution over millions of years to be exactly what the developing baby needs. The human body does a lot of miraculous things that our technology isn't yet quite capable of matching (or even fully understanding).
- rtlfe 5y ago
  This article links to some studies. https://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10729946/breastfeeding-truth https://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10729946/breastfeeding-truth Edit: this one somebody else linked is better. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-about-breastfeeding/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-abo...
  - notshift 5y ago
    The second article you linked cites several studies. I looked at each of them and pretty much all of them conclude that breastfeeding is better than bottle, except the childhood obesity one, which found no effect (I wouldn't expect breastfeeding vs bottle to have an effect on weight or height). The first study cited only looked at height, weight, and blood pressure after breastfeeding, which are not the variables I would expect to see gaps in for breast fed vs bottle fed (other metrics are much more important, in my opinion) The second study cited concluded that breastfeeding "had a significant reduction in the risk of 1 or more gastrointestinal tract infections (9.1% vs 13.2%; adjusted OR, 0.60; 95% CI, 0.40-0.91) and of atopic eczema (3.3% vs 6.3%; adjusted OR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.31-0.95), but no significant reduction in respiratory tract infection (intervention group, 39.2%; control group, 39.4%; adjusted OR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.59-1.28).". The third study had similar results: "Our experimental intervention increased the duration and degree (exclusivity) of breastfeeding and decreased the risk of gastrointestinal tract infection and atopic eczema in the first year of life." The fourth linked study on IQ concludes: "These results, based on the largest randomized trial ever conducted in the area of human lactation, provide strong evidence that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding improves children's cognitive development." If these are the best studies that an article whose goal is to debunk the breastfeeding narrative can find, it looks like a clear win for breastfeeding to me.
Ovah 5y ago
> There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. I wish you would back up such a strong statement. In medical school we were taught the complete opposite. From my notes: - there's a x36 decreased risk of Sudden infant death syndrome if the child has been breast fed a single(!) time compared to no breast feeding. - no breast feeding vs only breast feeding: x15 risk of pneumonia, x11 risk of diarrhea - x14 lower risk of premature death compared to no breast feeding Other pros include: optimal composition of nutrients, doesn't constipate, creates a connection between the mother and child. While formula may be nutritionally complete, it does not include immune component. Breast milk literally contains antibodies that a new born is able to pick up and use.
- sgerenser 5y ago
  I’m not a doctor, but these stats sound completely ridiculous. Would love to see the source material.
  - Ovah 5y ago
    Which of the stats do you think sounds ridiculous? SIDS for example is pretty rare to begin with (33.3 deaths per 100,000 per Google). At the end of the day I'm guessing the advice maybe saves a few lives on a population level, but only gives a slight statistical advantage to a proactive parent. I wish I had links to actual publications. I copied the numbers from a lecture given by a senior obstetrician.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago
      The effect sizes are implausibly large. Breastfeeding would not be a live debate if the causal effect was that large. For example, a 36x risk of SIDS is really just too much to believe. This lit review: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/apa.13124 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/apa.13... Doesn't mention any studies with effect sizes larger than 4x. And it is concerning habitual breastfeeding or other feeding treatments. If breastfeeding a single time provided a 36x safety factor, these kinds of results would be impossible. A 14x reduction in infant mortality is similar far beyond the reasonable belief. Personally I wouldn't toss out a claim like that without strong evidence to cite.
retrac 5y ago
https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/about-breastfeeding/why-it-matters.html https://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/about-breastfeeding/why-it... There's quite a lot of evidence that breastfeeding improves health outcomes for newborns. Reduces the rate of gastrointestinal infections, etc. Regarding the probable mechanism of action for that, breast milk provides an ongoing source of antibodies from the mother to baby. You won't find that in formula. That said, evidence about the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding, is much weaker. And a fixation on breastfeeding exclusively can easily result in underfeeding if formula isn't used when all signs suggest it should be. A hungry baby is the worst outcome here, of course.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  Kinda weird place and context to ask, but... OK look I'm not an academic. I have my degrees but for the most part it was "use APA/MLA/etc. for full points". Nothing published, plenty researched enough to publish if the circumstances were better. That said, I don't know enough about how much weight is given to biological history. Breastfeeding was not an option for the vast majority of mammalian history, as far as I understand. Wet nurses or surrogate mothers notwithstanding, babies of all kinds have needed and thrived on a mother's milk. Just because we cleverly figured out alternatives in the last 0.0001% of human history doesn't mean it's better, to me. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.
  - jimmygrapes 5y ago
    Can't edit to clarify but I meant to say that breastfeeding was not an option in the sense that there were no other choices. In case anyone cares.
jordanpg 5y ago
- ghostpepper 5y ago
  It can be both simultaneously true that breast milk is better than formula, but that formula is also fine. This is obviously traumatic to hear if you are a woman who cannot breastfeed, but that doesn't make it less true.
  - jordanpg 5y ago
    My point is that folks should consider their tone and words carefully on this topic. There are a great many women out there who would like to be breastfeeding, but can't, for various reasons. And the amount of guilt and shame experienced by many in this group, because of the glib culture surrounding breastfeeding, is doing severe and lasting damage to many parents' mental health. While not optimal, formula is a healthy and viable alternative. That's really all that needs to be said about this.
    - elzbardico 5y ago
      People should grow and care less about what others think
      - MandieD 5y ago
        When you’re at your most emotionally vulnerable due to a seething mixture of hormones AND having primary responsibility for a tiny, helpless human, it’s a bit harder to do that. Oh, and everyone feeling entitled to, nay, obliged to tell you how to do your job.
    - ghostpepper 5y ago
      I agree with all of this. Luckily I have observed that there is a growing pushback against "breast is best" militarism and shaming of mothers who cannot (solely) breastfeed. The new slogan I have heard is "fed is best".
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
fipar 5y ago
I’m only replying on the Internet, I’ve never given anyone baby advice (or any other, for that matter) I wasn’t asked for. That said, breastfeeding is the only way babies were fed for almost all of our species time here. IMHO, if anything needs scientific evidence in its favor before I believe it’s good are alternatives to breastfeeding.
- MandieD 5y ago
  To be fair, high infant mortality was a sad fact of life before modernity, and it wasn’t all diseases. “Failure to thrive” was a common cause of death. My aunt, born in 1941, was switched to formula after failing to nurse well. Despite those infant formulas being nowhere nearly as good as modern ones, she still grew up to be academically bright and athletic, and her younger sister, my mother, was witty and socially gifted. If my grandmother hadn’t had that option, maybe my aunt would have eventually gotten the hang of it before my grandmother’s milk dried up, but being undernourished for however long that took might not have led to a woman who could get a geology degree - or any child who survived to adulthood.
magicalhippo 5y ago
> There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. So you're saying the WHO and UNICEF are basing their recommendations[1] on very weak evidence? Even when they think the benefits outweigh the risks[2] of nasty pollutants in the breast milk? [1]: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/infant-and-young-child-feeding https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/infant-and-... [2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569122/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2569122/
martingoodson 5y ago
There is good evidence that breastfeeding is protective against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. There is a dose-response relationship, which is good evidence for causality. The risk is cut by about half, depending on how long breastfeeding continued for. This effect is not explained by socioeconomic factors. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29084835/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29084835/
- bitshiftfaced 5y ago
  > There is good evidence Is there? How were the controls selected in that study? Were they from people who were called on the phone, meaning the controls were from a group of people willing to talk to strangers about something as as deeply personal as having a child die of SIDS? In this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2351639/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2351639/ The controls were visited by the same home-visiting nurse, and it found no correlation.

MandieD 5y ago

I had to give up on direct breastfeeding and switch to the pump with mine when at five weeks, he wasn’t gaining weight. Exclusive pumping for a week showed that I wasn’t producing nearly enough, so we supplemented with formula to get him back gaining weight. With a strict pumping routine, I was able to get him off formula after a few weeks. I ended up mostly pumping until he was about four months, then completely - he was never that great at nursing. Yes, I tried lactation consultants. Helped a bit, but thank god for modern pumps and formula. And Baby Buddy (made sure he was getting enough in - he would go eight hours without complaint at one month, which is obviously a problem) As to twins, breastfeeding one infant is a full time job requiring both hands - I can’t imagine having to feed two at once only from breast! Some supplementation is probably necessary for most of them.