Whats going on, lately there has been a resurge in the old debate of is breastfeeding really the best way to feed your baby.
Come on guys, get over it, why keep this debate going and going. Some people will just never agree to differ. How can breastfeeding be bad for your child (unless doing it drunk or something), but again don’t beat yourself up for not breastfeeding and giving your baby a bottle. Life is too short to waste time on these things, and by that i mean you don;t love your child any less for not breastfeeding , you are not a better mother if you do breastfeed, .
I personally would say try it, see how you and your baby get on with breastfeeding and go from there. Sometimes the massive amount of pressure we can put on ourselves when we have a baby is just way too much, don;t expect to be super mum, don;t push yourself to be super skinny after having your baby and don’t punish yourself for not liking breastfeeding . Don;t let other people push you into something either, go with what you feel best.
Well on-line in the Daily Mail there is an article about breastfeeding etc have a read and make your mind up.
Sorry, but breast IS best: As a leading scientist questions its benefits, a mother-of-four sorts the myths from the facts
ByLUCY CAVENDISH
Last updated at 11:46 PM on 21st July 2009
My first child, Raymond, was born when I was 29. At the time, I was living in Kentish Town in North London. My local health centre was on a housing estate. I used to take Raymond every week to be weighed and then to have his injections and all the other things you need to take a baby to the clinic for.
I’d go in and, at some point, he’d get hungry so I’d pop him up my jumper and breastfeed him – and everyone would look at me. Why? Because I was the only one doing it.
All the other girls – and they were girls, much younger than myself – were bottle-feeding their babies. None of them breastfed. When I asked them why, they came up with a whole host of reasons.
Benefits: Some studies have found breastfed children grow up healthier and are less likely to become obese
‘It hurts,’ said one. ‘My boobs are for my boyfriend,’ said another. ‘It’s unnatural,’ said a third. ‘I’d never get them out in public.’
They then asked me why I was breastfeeding and I told them it was because it had never occurred to me not to.
‘It’s better for the baby,’ I said, somewhat piously. I reeled off a list of reasons why I thought it was beneficial: my breast milk was made specifically for my baby, to help him grow big and strong, to help his brain develop.
He loved it when I fed him. The baby and the mother bond when you look deep into each other’s eyes as the baby feeds. Beside all that, it was so easy, simple and hygienic. It would also help me lose weight quickly.
On I went, convinced I was right – and I’m still convinced that I am.
However, a leading expert, Michael Kramer, a professor of paediatrics at Canada’s McGill University, who has advised the World Health Organisation, has said that much of the evidence used to persuade new mothers to breastfeed is either wrong or obsolete.
‘The public health breastfeeding promotion information is way out of date,’ he said. ‘There is very little evidence that it reduces the risk of leukaemia, lymphoma, bowel disease, heart disease and high blood pressure.’ These are all things the probreastfeeding lobby claims breastfeeding helps prevent.
Regardless of whether he’s right or wrong, his comments will re- open a highly contentious and emotionally charged debate about whether women should breastfeed.
On the one side you have the breast-is-best lobby, which makes any mother who doesn’t breastfeed feel as if she is condemning her child to a life of obesity, stupidity and lovelessness.
Professor Michael Kramer: Revived the debate
On the other side, you have those – targeted by the powerful formula milk industry – who feel bullied and threatened by the breastfeeding lobby, and who determinedly stick a bottle of formula into their baby’s mouth the minute he or she appears in the world.
So where does that leave real women? Well, most of us are somewhere in between these two extremes,
wrestling with the pros and cons and trying to do the best we can while picking our way through what has become a minefield of contradictory pseudo-scientific advice.
Breastfeeding is said to boost the baby’s immune system, protecting it through the mother’s inherited genes, helping with allergies and reducing asthma. Yet there is so much conflicting advice that it all becomes terribly confusing.
So what do we actually know about breastfeeding? Is it true, for example, that it helps prevent obesity in the child later in life?
Michael Kramer thinks some of the evidence about this is false. He believes that the connection between obesity levels is more to do with the healthier lifestyles of the breastfeeding middle classes than it is to do with the act of breastfeeding itself.
However, in 1999, a huge survey published in the British Medical Journal found striking evidence that mothers who breastfeed their babies end up with far fewer overweight and obese children.
It reported that the longer the period in which babies received breast milk, the greater the benefits, with those breastfed for a year or longer more than five times less likely to become obese. If this is the case, why not breastfeed?
The Department of Health advice is to breastfeed exclusively for six months and has set in place support groups to help disadvantaged mothers reach this goal.
I breastfed all my children and, on the whole, enjoyed every minute of it. I got better at it with each baby and, by my fourth, found it so pleasurable I didn’t really want to stop.
There is nothing more wonderful than a small baby suckling away at his mother’s breast, dozing off, then sucking again. For me, it is a vital part of a mother’s emotional and psychological bonding with a baby.
Breastfeeding generally means that – unless you are expressing milk, which is then fed to your baby later if you have to go to work – you must always be close to your child so that you can feed regularly.
Conversely, it also teaches the child that you are the one person in the world on whom they should rely the most, because with a bottle of formula milk, anyone can do the feeding.
I have spent many sleepy, milky hours over the course of the past decade or so, feeding my babies, watching them curled up in the crook of my arm. Their skin is against your skin. Their small hands clutch you to them. It is a very satisfying experience to take time to be with your child.
But this is being done less and less in our quick-fix society. A lot of the new mothers I have met recently are putting their babies on to a bottle of formula as soon as they possibly can.
Higher IQ? Last year, researchers found that breastfed children did better in tests by the age of six
They say they want a bit of ‘ metime’, or that they want their life back after the hard months of pregnancy.
Many new mothers also say they simply find it too embarrassing to breastfeed in public. That’s a great shame. I have breastfed everywhere, but in a subtle fashion, discreetly covered with a cloth, and have never felt uncomfortable about it.
Is it that much of a sacrifice to give up a few months to breastfeed your baby?
The first night I had Raymond, I had no idea how to feed him. I ended up in tears as Raymond wailed. I could have given up then, but a nurse at the hospital came and latched him on for me.
She grabbed his head and just forced him on to my breast.
Once he was there, he sucked like a demon and it was very painful. I was then so terrified of not being able to latch him on again that I sat in that position all night. It was not a good beginning.
Why, then, did I continue to do it? Well, there was something in it for me, too. The suckling of the baby directly after birth helps the uterus contract, something that bottle feeding cannot do.
When the baby latches on, it triggers this necessary internal reaction in the uterus which, in turn, stops the mother from haemorrhaging. A woman’s body is an amazing thing.
Aside from these subtle medical aspects are the more overt physical effects of breastfeeding. Every woman knows – or thinks she knows – she will lose weight more quickly if she breastfeeds, as the baby eats up many of the calories she ingests. It also takes calories to make the milk.
This is what we are told by those who encourage breastfeeding and so, with the aim of fitting into my pre-pregnancy jeans again, I carried on and, over time, Raymond and I got quite good at it – even though I didn’t lose weight quickly.
I could easily have let my cracked nipples and painful, swollen breasts put me off. Of course, it’s understandable that, when faced with this pain, many women just stop trying.
On the go: Many new mothers say they would be too embarrassed to breastfeed in public
But it’s not just the physical trials that drive women to the (milk) bottle. The unspoken truth is that there is a yawning class division when it comes to breastfeeding.
The only women I know who breastfeed exclusively for at least six months are middle class. From there, they go on to make, from scratch, organic baby food that is nutritionally balanced. They make healthy choices for their offspring.
Michael Kramer’s point is precisely this: that many of the supposed benefits of breastfeeding can be explained by differences in lifestyle – which explains why breastfed babies are less likely to be obese.
In short, middle-class women are more likely to pass their healthy eating habits on to their family.
In fact, you have only to look at a copy of any celebrity magazine to see formula-filled bottles everywhere – Jordan, Britney and other members of the celebrity mothers’ club would never get their breasts out in order to feed their babies.
In their eyes, that is not what they are for. They are for their man, or for their sex appeal, or for the public’s consumption, not for nurturing a child. After all, their breasts might sag afterwards.
But many men I know find watching a woman breastfeed their child really rather magical. My friend’s husband told me that when he saw her breastfeeding their youngest, it made him feel especially romantic towards her.
‘I love seeing her do this,’ he said. ‘It brings out a nurturing side in her that I find very sexy. I love the fact she is giving our baby the best start that she can.’
Just another of the complex of physical and emotional issues that surround this most natural of functions. So what about the other arguments which have been reignited once again this week? See panel below.
A BRAINY CHILD? A FLAT STOMACH? WHAT BREASTFEEDING CAN REALLY DO FOR YOU…
Does breastfeeding cut the risk of getting breast cancer?
The answer to this appears to be yes. In 2008, the World Cancer Research Fund analysed 7,000 previous studies and found that, if a woman breastfed for a year, over the course of her life the risk of getting breast cancer was reduced by 4.8 per cent.
More than three-quarters of mothers initiate breastfeeding, but only 22 pc are still continuing when the baby is six months old.
Does it help mothers lose weight?
Slimming? Some women gain weight while lactating because they eat more
Though most women do lose weight gradually during lactation, it was noted in Nutrition During Lactation, by the Institute of Medicine, that one study showed 22 per cent of women actually experienced weight gain during breastfeeding, mainly because they were labouring under the misconception that they had to eat more to provide their baby with good-quality milk.
The authors of this study concluded that breastfeeding alone does not guarantee weight loss (Manning-Dalton & Allen, 1983). In the book Eat Well, Lose Weight While Breastfeeding, author Eileen Behan shares the results of a study of 1,423 women presented at the First European Congress on Obesity (1988).
Behan states: ‘The strongest predictor for weight retention was how much mothers gained while pregnant; women who gained more than the recommended amount – which ranges from anything between 29-40lb – had a harder time getting it off.
‘Older mothers retained more weight than younger ones. The bottom line is that breastfeeding alone does not guarantee weight loss.’
Is breastfeeding good for the baby’s health?
Nursing mothers pass on immunities to their babies in the breast milk, which help fight viruses and illness. A group of researchers have identified a specific kind of protein in breast milk that helps jump-start a baby’s immune system, providing active protection to the baby.
The protein, called soluble CD14, works to develop B cells, which are immune cells that are instrumental in the production of antibodies.
The researchers, led by Dr Michael Julius of the University of Toronto and the Toronto Hospital, published their finding eight years ago in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Is breastfeeding class-related?
Three years ago, a study by University College London concluded that clear social class differences were apparent when it came to rates of breastfeeding.
Those women in higher managerial jobs and professional occupations continued to breastfeed for longer than those in routine jobs with less favourable working conditions.
Conversely, in 2007, a study suggested that babies who are breastfed are more likely to move up the social ladder as adults.
A University of Bristol team looked at 1,400 babies born from 1937 to 1939 and followed their progress for 60 years. Those who were breastfed were 41pc more likely to move up in class than those who were bottle-fed. The longer a child was breastfed, the greater was its chances of upward mobility, the results showed.
Class divide? Professional women tend to breastfeed for longer than mums with more routine work
Does it increase a baby’s IQ?
In 2008, researchers at McGill University found that breastfed babies ended up performing better in IQ tests by the age of six.
Professor Michael Kramer said at the time: ‘Long-term, exclusive breastfeeding appears to improve children’s cognitive development.’ This is something he still believes.
Recent research shows that the fatty acids in human milk may work to increase brain development, but other scientists believe the bond created through breastfeeding stimulates the baby’s mind through the interaction and close contact with the mother.
Does breastfeeding result in saggy breasts?
No, according to research carried out on American women seeking plastic surgery.
However, one of the principal contributors to sagging breasts is getting pregnant in the first place.
American plastic surgeon and author Brian Rinker carried out a study after many of his patients demanded he ‘fix what breastfeeding did to my breasts’. With colleagues from the University of Kentucky, he studied 132 women who had sought breast lifts or augmentation between 1998 and 2006. The majority of them had been pregnant at least once. Nearly 60pc had breastfed at least once.
The research team evaluated the patients’ medical history, height and weight, prepregnancy bra-cup size and whether they smoked. There was no difference in the extent of breast sagginess between those women who had breastfed and those who had not.
Is breastfeeding an effective contraceptive?
Yes and no. The hormone prolactin, that stimulates milk production also prevents eggs being released from the ovaries.
As a result, if you are exclusively breastfeeding your baby at regular intervals, you don’t miss any feeds and your periods haven’t returned after birth, then there is a contraceptive effect.
For the first six months after birth – if you follow all these rules – breastfeeding is comparable to the contraceptive pill – about 99 per cent successful.
The problem is that a few women continue to release eggs despite prolactin, and if you don’t stick to the rules stringently, then you can also release eggs.
Does breastfeeding cause boys to be obsessed with breasts?
Freud believed breastfeeding was central to our adult sexual development. He claimed that sexual desires began in earliest childhood, with the first stage based around the oral stimulation of breast feeding, which in adults is manifested as kissing.
He wrote: ‘No one who has seen a baby sinking back satiated from the breast and falling asleep with flushed cheeks and a blissful smile can escape the reflection that this picture persists as a prototype of the expression of sexual satisfaction in later life.’
While this is now an unfashionable interpretation, it may have influenced Western society’s view that there is something culturally unsettling about breastfeeding.
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