Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

I can imagine that merely the act of measuring IQ has significant effect on the population. I can not imagine a population that exists without it, but I imagine it would also have a huge effect on society, as you similarly hypothesize about the 1-3 point increase across the population globally.

Of course until becoming a parent, I had my strong and largely invalid opinions (i.e breast feeding in public is inappropriate, etc) I'm happy to say I've got past those short sighted and ill conceived views and won't judge anyone for anything they do for their child, probably there's a damned good reason why they're doing it, lack of sleep, exhaustion, and a baby crying are pretty powerful motivators to step outside of one's own personal comfort zone.

Other hot topics (especially as a Brit living in Germany, seeing the cultural differences) are sharing a bed with an infant, bathing with them, skin-on-skin contact, etc, etc.

That is absolutely horrible, sorry you had that experience.

My wife was in the same situation with our first, basically she anatomically did not have enough tissue to generate the volume of milk required. Luckily we were able to get donor milk and rely on this technology: http://www.lact-aid.com/. Amazingly she was able to build enough tissue so that by our 3rd kid we have not used any donor milk at all.

Regardless of anything else,6 days without sleep in any form is dangerous and encouraging that behaviour could really tear families apart. Even though it's disgraceful, with this type of pressure, it's no wonder we see shaken-baby syndrome.

It's been said that the NHS is wrongly focused on curative medicine as opposed to preventative medicine. If there was ever a case for it, I'm sure this would be one.

> More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk.

I'd guess this would be vanishingly rare, just due to evolutionary pressures over a long period of time, and there are other factors that just make nursing really difficult for many mothers. But I don't know for sure, and nowadays babies that would have simply died, or have killed the mother as well as died, can survive as a matter of course; so that changes the equation as well.

Breastfeeding (the first time around, especially) is quite a bit harder than most people realize -- it's partly a process of teaching the newborn what to do. They may be eager but default to a bad latch, they may be convinced their hand also needs to be in their mouth while they feed, or they may quickly pick up the habit of feeding for 20 seconds then taking a 2 minute nap, or they may decide they can only sleep while latched on. And those are just the problems we saw with our own two daughters!

But it is worth some serious effort (even if just for convenience, once it's working, among other benefits) -- it's just not worth destructive effort, and if it doesn't work out it's not worth remorse.

> She's also on the gifted and talented programme at her school now, so I don't think Formula did her any harm.

Right -- it's just so hard to predict. She might have been breastfed and yet be having difficulty in school as well; there are so very many factors involved, but many parents fix on a few (and torment themselves with guilt, or pride themselves on a choice well-made...).

But there are so many paths to a happy & healthy child who grows up to be a happy & healthy adult, and so many that go elsewhere, and many factors are totally out of our control.

Honestly that opinion seems more colored by her political views (i.e. breast feeding good, formula evil) than any scientific or medical evidence.

I've met lactation consultants just like that, and they often go into diatribes about how hospitals/doctors are evil and push formula on new mothers (which wasn't true at all, in fact the hospital we used had a nurse specifically to help mothers breastfeed and offered heavily subsidised classes).

While getting started with breastfeeding is hard and mothers should be encouraged to keep at it. Some mothers simply never produce, even after trying that hard, or that long. At a point you're putting your child's life in danger if you keep trying without results (and, no, I do not mean after just a few hours -- that's normal, I mean days).

Honestly I'm pro breastfeeding but I find a lot of other pro breastfeeding people insufferable. No, sorry, but people are in fact good mothers or fathers if they use formula. No, sorry, they aren't automatically ignorant if they use formula. No, sorry, you or your child aren't superior because you breastfeed. No, sorry, it really isn't appropriate to approach random people in the street and lecture them on why they're raising their child wrong.

Bullshit (not you; her). The only way to prove that, given that humans are messy biologicals and not a mathematical equation, is to line up every woman who ever gave birth and demonstrate that each of them produces enough milk to feed said child. A single counter-example (of which there are many) demonstrates that she's talking rot.

Take the CDC's data for example: http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/pdf/2014breastfeedingreport...

When you see breastfeeding at 6 months rates by state that vary from lows in the 30's to highs in the 60's, biology can't explain it away.

And from the Surgeon General's report on Barriers to Breastfeeding ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK52688/ ):

"Concern about insufficient milk supply is another frequently cited reason for early weaning of the infant.90,113–116 One national study on feeding practices found that about 50 percent of mothers cited insufficient milk supply as their reason for stopping breastfeeding.112 Having a poor milk supply can result from infrequent feeding or poor breastfeeding techniques,115,117–119 but lack of confidence in breastfeeding or not understanding the normal physiology of lactation can lead to the perception of an insufficient milk supply when in fact the quantity is enough to nurture the baby.120,121"

That was enough for me to make a decision that breastfeeding my second daughter was impractical.

EDIT: I do say "produce" but it may not be as simple as that, again it's complicated. Production may not be impaired, but perhaps the ability to dispense might be. There may be some matrilineal genetic factor present that prevents a baby from latching properly or taking enough milk. I'm not an expert but there are a few stages in the process where things can and do go wrong.

And what's even worse, all the people pushing this nonsense do a lot of damage to all the women who cannot produce enough milk, since all it does is make them feel like failures as mothers. Which is not a good state of mind to be in when someone just dumped a new born baby in your lap and basically says "here you go, this human being lives or dies based solely on your actions".

That's a fallacious, appeal to nature argument. People should raise their kids how they want, and should feel free to make their parenting choices rationally. What's "natural" or what women are "made to do" shouldn't enter into the equation. "Naturally" something like 1 in 25 women died of childbirth.

There are good reasons to breastfeed. But there are also good reasons not to breastfeed. My wife and I bottle-fed from early on. I did all the night feedings, because I handle interrupted sleep better than she does. At the same time, I have little patience for after-work playtime, and am happy to let my wife handle that. It's an arrangement that takes advantages of our relative strengths that would not be practical without infant formula.