Anyone proposing that infant formula only be available by prescription ought to be required to formula-feed a baby first.
We tried to breast-feed our child, but there wasn’t sufficient bereast milk (we now suspect a hormonal problem which the hospital didn’t catch). We would have loved to have breast-fed, but it wasn’t possible. So we went to formula.
Formula is expensive and inconvenient. I joined a wholesale club just so I could buy the stuff in bulk.
If it were only available through prescription it’s price would go through the roof.
Pardon me, I think those are my breasts you’re attempting to regulate, there.
Formula may be slightly second-best to breast milk (and, like Mangetout and some others, I’m not convinced that the stats are that trustworthy), but do you suppose that breastmilk vs. formula is the biggest factor at work in determining the overall health and well-being of a child?
What about sugared cereals? Mountain Dew? MTV and violent movies? Magazines like Glamour? Hot dogs? We could list, ad nauseum, items that are flat-out unhealthy (or at the very least, non-nutritious), that some kids include as a huge part of their everyday experience. I’d be interested to see, overall, some comparisons of “unhealthiness” of formula vs the unhealthiness of stuff that kids take in after they into the solid foods phase.
Oh, the things I’d like to tell my kids: “Sorry! No Frosted Flakes today, the prescription ran out!” Now that might be worth considering.
I’d like to see the studies. The ones I’ve seen really don’t adjust for variables. The IQ one didn’t adjust for educational level of the mother (although mothers who breastfeed are more likely to be college educated). And it only got 3 IQ points - which is not really a huge difference - some would say not even statistically significant. Not to mention the lenghty debates on whether IQ is a measure of anything anyway.
The colds study I saw: Breastfed babies have an average of three fewer colds their first year (9 vs. 12 if memory serves). However, there was no control for babies fed breastmilk through a bottle (i.e. moms who pump and work) so they really didn’t know if it was the breastmilk, or inadquate sanitation of the bottles accounting for the fewer colds.
(The bonding one is based on “bonding” studies from the 1930s which have been debunked long since, and is not even worth of response).
Autz -
A frequent complaint from the Breast Facists is that the medical establishment doesn’t do enough to support breastfeeding. I know my OB would have written out a formula perscription without question. My family practioner at the time gave me the choice of a SLS, formula (with a SLS), or admiting my daughter to the hospital (my milk took seven days to come in - and she was pretty dehydrated within 48 hours of birth) - he would have been happy right there and then to give me a formula perscription for the full first year. My lactation consultant said “not everyone can breastfeed, no matter how much you want to. The baby has to want to, and your body needs to participate.” Now, all these people are big believers in supporting breastfeeding - just not at the expense of mom or baby’s health or mom’s choices. Do you really think formula perscriptions would be controlled? I think they’d be handed out like Prozac and you are just creating a hurdle that is more likely to put babies with poor access to medical care (rural babies, poor babies, babies with uneducated or unassertive moms) at risk.
Well said, Bodypoet. I didn’t BF. Didn’t even consider it. My son ate healthy foods up until the time he was out of my sight and able to make some not-so-healthy choices on his own. (By the way, his IQ is 140). On the other hand, my sister breastfed and her kid (bright as she is) has a goddamn twinkie stuffed in her face at all times. There are a LOT OF REALLY HEALTHY, SMART PEOPLE WHO WERE FORMULA BABIES.
Autz, Your desire to legislate what people eat is far more dangerous than a parent choosing formula over breastmilk. You might want to consider having more children so you can get that power fix you so crave.
Confession time: for the past 20 years, I have been working on various plans to subvert American government and take over the world.
But none of my plans have worked. The Death Ray kept shorting out, the mind control formula I dropped into America’s water supply just gave everyone the giggles, and I don’t want to even talk about my attempt to block out the sun. :o
Every one of my plans was missing just one crucial element, one thing I just couldn’t figure out. “If only I was a little bit smarter,” I’ve so often cried out in the dark. “Just a little bit, and all these peons would be bowing before me!”
And now I know why I’m not just a bit smarter - I was a BOTTLE BABY!! :eek: Damn my mother, and damn Simulac, for taking those two or three points off my IQ.
Instead of world domination, all I got was a kids’ cartoon modeled after me on the WB. :mad:
The upside is that the larger cans of formula can be used in place of tinfoil as protection against the mind-rays, in fact when properly fitted and earthed, they provide superior shielding, just remember to empty them first (if you’re smart enough).
I was once waiting at the free immunization clinic with my son. A woman was there with a two-year old who was ALMOST surviving solely on breastmilk. I’m sure she thought she was doing the kid a favor, but this child looked like it was going to die. It was pale, no muscle tone, listless.
Some people make breast milk seem like some magic potion that will save the world. Okay, it’s good for you, but it’s not going to part seas or alter the rotation of the Earth, fercrissakes! What her child needed was some real nutrition. A sandwich, a bowl of soup, a banana…something! But no, she just went on and on about how healthy the breastmilk thing was. She should have been jailed.
I don’t remember where I read this, but maybe someone else will find it familiar.
One criticism of the IQ study was that they didn’t consider that you can’t pop a breast in the baby’s mouth and walk away - as can (and sometimes is) done with a bottle. It was suggested that possibly the reason for the higher IQ was that the kids had more contact with their mothers, who had conversations, talked to the baby, etc, while breastfeeding and that interaction didn’t happen for a baby in a crib alone with a bottle.
Personally I’ve had IQ tests range from 147 to 152 that I’ve taken, and I was never breast fed. My mom also didn’t just stick me in my crib with a bottle. I was only fed while being held.
That’s an anecdote. This does not mean that all BF toddlers are malnourished. I know a toddler who was primarily breastfed that long and was fine (although it’s a rare doctor who would be cool with it–this mom’s doctor weighed and measured Jesse and said he couldn’t argue with her health and that she’d eat when she felt like it. At three, she’s normal and fine and eating normally, too).
If you want a different anecdote, my son was borderline malnourished at a year, but it wasn’t breastmilk to blame–he was on formula. His problem is that he didn’t want to give up the bottle and he was drowning his appetite. Stubborn little bugger. It wasn’t formula’s fault, either, incidentally, it was ours for not doing a better job breaking the habit. But an anti-formula person could twist our story around to be pro-breastfeeding, which is why a single anecdote isn’t enough to pass legislation or win court cases.
Okay, the IQ thing. I am 100% behind everyone else when they say a few IQ points are not worth getting in a big toot about. Yes, it’s a nice benefit of breastfeeding but the difference are not so marked that it scared me off of formula. I mean, holy sh*t you should see how much TV my toddler watches. If I were freaked about IQ we wouldn’t even have a TV. So let’s put that one in perspective.
Alas, my main source lets me down–I’d have to hit the library to do better than this because only one study is mentioned in detail. It was a study at the University of Edinburgh where premature infants were followed up with 8 years after birth. After controlling for mother’s social and educational status. Preemies who got breastmilk via feeding tube had a “significantly higher” IQ than preemies who were fed formula via a tube. Lots of limitations to generalization here–these are a special population (preemies) and this study was of only 300 children. This secondary source also neglects to mention what the difference was.
I hope you guys understand that I do not support the OP as a policy. However, I think it raises some interesting questions, and ones that are worthy of debate among a bunch of well-read, thoughtful people such as ourselves.
Cranky, I didn’t mean it as proof that breast milk is dangerous or anything. The point I was making is that people can get so fixated on something that the fanatics have raved on about, that they don’t see the reality of their situation – which this woman obviously didn’t, as she was refusing to look at other feeding options. Someone told her that breast milk was the only way to raise healthy babies, and she was blinded to the fact that her child wasn’t thriving. (It happens with Christian Scientists sometimes, too. Praying and praying, and the kid remaining ill and in need of a doctor’s care.) And I think under-educated people might be the first to fall into the “trap” that there is only one way to properly nourish your kids.
Now don’t everybody get yer bowels in an uproar. Breastfeeding is fine IF THAT’S WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. But it doesn’t make you a bad parent if you choose not to. That’s All’s I’m Sayin’.
This just in! FDA and USDA join together and announce that the following foodstuffs must be prescribed by a medical doctor: Peanuts, bananas, snails, any other food item to which any one person in the entire history of the planet has ever had an adverse reaction. Also prohibited is any food item sold in sufficiently small size so as to cause a choking hazard to any infant, toddler, child, teenager, or adult.
What’s that? Oh, thanks. I just read the wrong report. The correct one is: this completely ridiculous OP was “outed” correctly in the Pit on this very site. Please cruise to that thread. Thanks from your humble correspondent.
I didn’t mean to get on your case about the cites. (I’d never do that to you - you are one of my favorite SDMB posters). Just that when I was doing the research (trying to see if inducing lactation for my adopted son would yeild any benefits), the studies I found were badly controlled, or the results, while indicating more positive results for breastfed babies, did not show significantly more positive results. I decided the research on this topic was a crock, spun by breastfeeding advocates. This was several years ago.
I then went on to go through living hell when my daughter was born to breastfeed her (eventually successfully - see Pit thread for more info) because, despite my research, I still felt it was the “right thing to do.”
You aren’t alone in believing “breastmilk is best.” I believe that as well (or perhaps, I believe “breastmilk is better” and “formula is good enough”). I just haven’t seen any study I feel PROVES it.
Cranky, yes, you are putting actual information into your posts, and thanks. But there still isn’t a debate here. Your info simply reinforces what, looking at the posts in this thread, is not in debate - that in most instances breastfeeding is the better practice.
So there’s no debate there, and there’s no real debate about the OP - the OP is a ludicrous example of government as Big Mother.
My mother only managed to breastfeed on and off for two weeks for health reasons. Despite that, I was a year ahead at school and had an off-the-scale IQ as a youngster. I would say intellectual nurture - in this case my mother teaching me to read when I was two - had a much bigger impact than any physical nurture, in terms of breast over formula.
I haven’t had kids, but I would hate to think this thread is making any new mothers anxious or guilty about their personal breastfeeding choices. MASSES of things affect and enhance a child’s development, and breast-v-formula probably pales into insignificance against most of them.
Besides which - the people who make formula have doubtless done their utmost over the years to make it as nutritious and as good a substitute for breast milk as is scientifically possible. And as others have pointed out - in some cases it’s probably much more healthy for the child. Particularly in cases where the mother is ill, has used drugs (prescribed or illegal), suffers from malnutrition herself, whatever.
This one is by the American Society for Clinical Nutrition:
“This meta-analysis indicated that, after adjustment for appropriate key cofactors, breast-feeding was associated with significantly higher scores for cognitive development than was formula feeding”
