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Comment by rastignack | Hacker News Reader

Breastfed children tend to have less stomachaches. When your baby cries because he cannot digest the formula, you arguably lose a big part of the benefits.

Also breastfeeding is much more convenient when traveling.

I think using formula was heavily promoted as a way to establish equality, and many people turned a blind eye on the drawbacks for the sake of progress.

It’s a good thing that we are now prioritizing babies’ health.

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> Breastfed children tend to have less stomachaches.

Maybe on average, but specific cases can vary wildly. Some foods that the breastfeeding mother consumes can cause issues. Milk, soy, and caffeine are known troublemakers - but good luck finding out which one is the source of stomach issues for your baby!

It’s not that hard. Breastfeeding mother should no drink more than a cup of coffee per day.

Regarding milk, avoiding it for a few days and checking for improvements is enough to see if it’s the culprit.

I worried about things like this when I found out that we would have to formula feed our baby. But then I dug into the literature and found that the effect in most cases, while statistically significant, were very minor. Usually just a few percentage points different. And that's not to be interpreted as "kids who were formula fed were 2% sicker or scored 1% lower on tests". It's more like, out of the group of kids we studied, some formula fed kids scored higher and others scored lower. But it averaged out to a few points lower.

There are so many other, much more important factors in raising a healthy kid. The breastfeeding vs formula is hardly worth the brainpower.

I think we’re both on the same page. I’m all for breastfeeding and it’s what we’re currently doing and plan on continuing for atleast two years (along with other food of course).

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