Comment by dongvsascript | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dongvsascript | Hacker News Reader

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sounds like you've done research, so i'll jump on the tangent. i've always assumed formula by now is as good as milk from the tap, outside if the mom's antibodies being passed on. and my opinion is after going through digestion they help only a little.

is formula not as good? the wife and i don't have kids yet, but the plan was always to get on formula after like 3 months. simply because not doing that destroys the tits, and a wetnurse is just gross.

serious question, just being blunt.

edit: thanks everyone for your answers. the point about us not knowing everything about the milk is very valid. i do find we would have had ample scientific evidence by now of formula not having everything needed , since formula has been globally used for so long. as far as bad chemicals, we do have lab reports, which i actually use to find vitamin brands. wetnurse being gross is a stupid feeling i have, and maybe antibodies from a genetically dissimular host not being good for you -like attacking the baby's cells since they're foreign.

Breastfeeding "destroys the tits"? It's literally what they are for. If you can train your child to not bite after teeth start coming through, some women breastfeed for years.

Also, you're wildly overestimating what science can do. With many things relating to the human body, it's like we're in the dark ages. For example, tt wasn't that long ago that Chromium was viewed as unnecessary, but now we know that it is essential for regulation of insulin activity.

Also, in term of "breast is best", breastmilk reduces chances of SIDS. Supplementation with formula should probably be used more than it is, but if you want to have the greatest chance that your baby wakes up, use breastmilk if you can.

This is being purposely dense. The entire planet of men disagrees with you that the only purpose of the breasts is for breasfeeding. I guess sex is only for making babies too. Jesus called, he wants his bible back.

We've banned this account. Would you please not create accounts to post flamewar comments to HN? It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Formula is pretty close but the antibodies are a big deal, especially early on. It’s a good idea to breastfeed or pump if at all possible, but it’s not possible for everyone.

My wife would spend hours pumping (baby wouldn’t latch) and only produce a few ounces. We always started with that and then supplemented with formula. The kids seem fine.

On the idea of a wetnurse being “gross”, do you drink cows milk? Because that’s basically like having your own cow wetnurse. Sharing milk obviously isn’t for everyone, but don’t dismiss it offhand.

Ingredients aside, the data is very strong on health outcomes for breast fed versus formula fed babies.

ok, so can you link any data that is from an actual scientific peer-reviewed study, which takes out the cases where babies were fed formula with poison in it? because i gotta tell you, in my 3 years of searching -all the real data for a formula that has been analyzed safe by a lab, says formula is just as good as milk.

Google scholar is your friend.

Breat feeding is associated with a (small) difference in IQ: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/apa.13139

Just search breast vs formula milk systematic review on Google scholar and you should be able to find loads of studies.

so, this tells me that in studies that corrected for the mother's iq, the difference was 2.6 points. My wife is asian, i am jewish, with a lot of phds in the family. This is an increase of less than 2%. Sorry, but there's no way I'm going to believe a study like that has an error/variance of under 2%. The studies also did not correct for the father's iq. The father is not serving the breast milk, but iq of the mother is not "passed on" through food, so if you're correcting for mom's iq, you're correcting for genetics, and the father is half of that. None of the studies corrected for quality of formula.

Dude, you said there was no research, so I found you research.

What you choose to do with that research is entirely up to you.

From want I could tell milk is still better simply because basically only the things we’ve identified as nutritionally significant have been added to to it. Imagine a time before we knew what vitamin B is so we didn’t add it to baby formula. Then it turns out it’s not just a thing but actually important. That’s where our understanding of nutrition.

Another concerning thing with formula is how it’s made. For example, one brand of top shelf organic formula used a chemical known to be a neurotoxin but claim that they remove it all before the manufacturing process is complete, while a competing top brand was using palm oil as one ingredient which is know to be an irritant to newborn’s GI system. So it always felt like choosing the lesser of evils.

Two kids, both on formula from day one. It was probably the right choice for a number of personal factors: we both could easily take turns feeding, it’s easy to know and track how much they’re consuming, and simplified things for eventually going to daycare.

There are certainly people who will discourage you from formula. But you have to make your own choice for yourselves and your baby. But frankly neither choice is “bad”.

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