There are few topics on which I wrote that are more inflammatory than breastfeeding. This provokes a constant – and fierce – debate not only about whether or not and for how long, but also where and when it is appropriate.
As a general practitioner, I ask mothers to do a checkup on how they feed their baby. If a woman chose "the bottle", I rarely have a simple answer. I receive justifications, reasonings, excuses, and guilty stories accompanied by tears and tusks.
If I ever deluded myself about how emotionally charged this subject is, it has been reported for a few years. When I wrote that a child's breastfeeding for years was not medically necessary, think Tamara Ecclestone, who said last week that she would continue to breastfeed her daughter four years old, Fifi, even after graduation. 19659002] A group of breastfeeding activists, whom I nicknamed the Breastapo in half joke, tried to get me off the medical register while others betrayed me on social networks, sharing the same. address events I was talking to and calling a b *** h *** who needed a kick.
Kate Quilton believes women should come together to support each other rather than criticize each other
Nothing happened, of course.
On, my weekly appointments continue with new moms next to themselves with the anxiety that they are doing somehow badly by their baby not to breastfeed. For the record, they are not. I was so curiously intrigued when I was offered a taste of Breastfeeding Uncovered, a documentary on television tomorrow night that examines why breastfeeding rates in the UK are so low – 80 % of British moms want to breastfeed but only 30% do so According to the program, our breastfeeding rates after 12 months are the lowest in the world – but should we care?
The Channel 4 Dispatches episode is presented by Kate Quilton, host of the Food Unwrapped series and the mother of an 11-week-old son
I spoke to Kate, 34, who cared for her son throughout our conversation, to find out what she thought.
She is a passionate advocate of breastfeeding who believes that many women do not do it because they do not realize the benefits to their health and that of their baby.
She also claims that the lack of support from health professionals, the prudish attitudes and the marketing of infant formula have also contributed to Kate being subjected to ugly criticism from disapproving viewers, which is shocking.
She says, "A few weeks ago, I was in a park and I had just finished feeding my son. under a muslin when two women came to see me and said "it was a fun way to breastfeed" and that "women should feed themselves at home and in the indoors ". I was shocked.
For the film, Kate went and breastfed in many places, including the London Underground, in public parks and on a busy street in Chelmsford, Essex. The reactions of the city's buyers were unpleasant, with one commenting: "This is not a spectator sport."
As a mother who breastfed my two children, I am upset by this – although I must admit, ironically, in my own experience, the greatest number of prejudices I hear about breastfeeding women bottle, other women telling them that they are hurting their babies. I've recently been confronted with a single mother in tears who has been warned by a so-called friend that her child would eventually become obese because of the formula that she was nursing to her child.
Breastmilk is not a miracle cure- In the film, Kate calls formula a "processed food," while breast milk is a "miracle elixir," and Sue Ashmore's Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative – a charity campaign to help mothers breastfeed – claims our low breastfeeding is a "public health crisis". She also suggests that there are higher rates of cancer and obesity.
I was baffled by what that meant, but the producers clarified it: she was talking about increased rates of breast cancer in women who were not breastfeeding and Kate Quilton was nursing in the London Underground during his documentary ” class=”blkBorder img-share” />
Kate Quilton breastfeeds in the London Underground during her documentary
In the film, researchers from the Imperial College of London explain that there are thousands of nutrients in breast milk that nourish the infant's immune system, protecting it from infection and disease for the rest of its life.
But is this really the case? ? Studies show that five percent of breast cancer rates are attributable to the lack of breastfeeding. So there is an effect – but it is small and I do not think it poses enough risk to worry my patients who are not breastfeeding.
High quality data from 2013 concerning more than 17,000 children found no reduction in childhood obesity at age 11 in breastfed children, and other studies did not occur. found no effect on asthma rates. As a health professional, I agree that breast milk is the best thing to feed a baby: it costs nothing, has the right nutritional ingredients and – as the imperial researchers say – antibodies that fight infections.
is small. The data analysis reveals that for six children breastfed exclusively for six months, one child less will suffer from an ear infection compared to a formula fed group. It's great, but it's not a miracle.
If you were trying to make this kind of claim about a product, you would not abide by the law – there is simply no evidence to support it. so bad?
Just because the formula is made – yes, treated – that does not mean that it's unhealthy. Transformation simply means that the ingredients have undergone a process (chopping a tomato is a process, like warming the soup).
In fact, formula is more than a healthy choice and recent additions to ingredients mean that it contains more essential fatty acids and pre and probiotics – all essential for infant health and in the long run.
A study by pediatric researchers at the University of Brussels showed that when a prebiotic is added to infant formula, the health benefits of infants can be almost identical.
Another study published in the Journal of Paediatrics found that formula-added breast milk was more effective than exclusive breast milk in raising the weight of dangerously small babies, and that infants who were less likely to have To be readmitted to the hospital.
Just as there is no doubt that breast milk is full of health enhancing properties, it is indisputable that the milk formula is healthy too. Scientific evidence of the health benefits of breastfeeding is low: when we study the benefits of breastfeeding, we observe breastfeeding populations, but we are not able to examine people bottle-fed equivalents – in the UK, breastfeeding mothers are more educated. , less likely to smoke, better eaters and more frequent sportsmen – factors that strongly influence the health of their offspring.
What I want women to know is that if their child gets sick, it is not their fault. Are breastfeeding support groups the answer?
Kate told me that she felt very lucky to live in a part of London where she has access to a breastfeeding support team – nurses, midwives and assistants medical. They helped her when she was having trouble with her son, who was born with a common ailment called a tongue tie – the strip of skin connecting the baby's tongue to the floor of their mouth. It's shorter than you'd think. Habit, which makes it difficult to feed.
The program calls for the government to further fund these services, with the goal of improving breastfeeding rates in the UK. But a review of the British Medical Journal published in 2015 has shown that these services do little to improve breastfeeding rates in the UK.
In my clinical experience, women do not breastfeed for a variety of reasons: some find it difficult or painful. Do not want to plow like Kate, others do not produce enough milk, or find reassuring that with the formula, you can be sure that you are providing the right amount.
Some women want to recover their bodies after nine months of pregnancy and a birth. Some people want to share parental leave with a partner and so must be able to give the baby. Some women do not like that. All these reasons are valid
And as a general practitioner, I would talk to new mothers every day, and I would say that there are bigger problems to solve. Postnatal mental health is largely underfunded and a crisis in this area is worsening. Last year's surveys revealed that postnatal depression is often overlooked by health professionals – although mandatory health checks are made on babies, the well-being of their mothers may go unnoticed. It's a protocol to ask if a baby is breastfed, but not if a mother is happy.
This is a serious problem affecting half of the future mothers in the UK, according to the NCT charity. Let us not forget that suicide was the leading cause of death for pregnant women and new mothers last year. For infants, studies involving more than 11,000 children concluded that maternal depression was more harmful to children's mental health than poverty. Children of mothers who suffer from postnatal depression are up to ten percent more likely to develop psychiatric illnesses and are at higher risk for speech, learning and attachment problems.
At the end of our conversation, Kate told me that she strongly felt that women should come together to support each other rather than criticize each other. I could not agree more. But we must ask ourselves why women feel so guilty about bottle-feeding – what I find can have a huge impact on mental health.
I would say that the reason is the rhetoric that exaggerates both the benefits of breastfeeding and opting for formula. Not breastfeeding does not put your child at risk for health problems. The choice of bottle feeding is more expensive, yes, perhaps less convenient too. But this is no less healthy – and we have hard evidence to prove it.
News: Breastfeeding discovered will be broadcast on Channel 4 tomorrow at 20h.
