Breast or Bottle? Not this tired old question anymore!
Dear Mama,
So, you know how I ask that you keep your eyes peeled for breastfeeding and birth articles and I want you to tell me about them? I dropped the ball! THIS was in my own hometown newspaper a few weeks ago, and I never saw it! (it was casually mentioned to me by an aquaintance who had no idea that I’m a cartoonist!) Breast or Bottle? No Final Answer Yet
Um, so much to say, but I’ll let the comic speak for me, ’cause it’s Christmas and I have to bake cookies, make gifts, wrap and go to a party!
ho ho ho!
Love,
Heather
uberhausfrau said,
December 21, 2007 @ 7:51 pm
this is the quote that hits the nail on the head
Dr. Wendy Slusser, a pediatrician and director of the UCLA Breastfeeding Resource Program, said she didn’t understand the need for a 400-page report on breast-feeding and health. “Breast-feeding is better than formula . . . isn’t that enough?” she asked. She questioned whether it really mattered that breast-feeding “does prevent this or doesn’t prevent that.”
you’d think, right?
fibercrazed said,
December 22, 2007 @ 5:55 am
Do you sometimes feel like we’re trying to convince people that the earth is round? I mean, really? “Breatmilk is best” is something EVERYONE has at least heard. So WHY do we need to keep proving it????
birchwood said,
December 22, 2007 @ 7:00 am
Oh but it’s even better than that. The last sentence should actually say “the increases were as high as 257 percent!”
Bear with me here…
When you need to figure out how to change a decrease to an increase you divide the percentage (72) by the difference from 100 (28) and then multiply by 100. So 72 divided by 28 is 2.57. Multiply that by 100 and you get the new percentage = 257 percent increase.
If you do it with an easier example that you can try out it makes it easier to understand:
If you have a dollar, and I have 50 cents, I have 50 percent less money then you. But you have 100 percent more money than me, right? (50 divided by 50 is 1. Mulitply times 100 and you get 100 percent increase).
This is often done incorrectly but if you do it right it makes formula feeding downright terrifying.
I didn’t read the study, so I’m not sure which issue was decreased 72 percent, but let’s pretend it was SIDS… Saying “SIDS is decreased by 72 percent in breastfed babies” sounds really good. Saying “SIDS was increased by 257 percent in formula fed babies” is more of a run-around-screaming sort of statistic.
Hugs
Gillian (a midwife with a math teacher for a husband)
sylvia said,
December 22, 2007 @ 8:01 am
Finally! A use for some of the high school math they forced into me!
and yea, an increase of 257 percent is a more frightening statistic.
Sylvia
wiffersnapper said,
December 22, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
Here’s proof, as if anyone needs it… two teachers with whom I work recently gave birth. Both had C-sections, (both were legitimate, too- pre-eclampsia with one, and only half a uterus (long story!) with the other) both had boys. (So most of the “variables” are at least similar. ) OK- Teacher Erin is breastfeeding, and she says that her little boy is “wonderful”. He sleeps well, eats well, and is generally pleasant to be around. She’s tired, like all new moms, but not crazily so. Teacher Jen, who is bottle-feeding, wrote a note to the whole school the other day complaining about how fussy her little boy is and how she can’t get any sleep. It took every fiber of my being not to say, “See what happens when you don’t breast-feed?” Now, I realize that every baby is different, and some are just naturally more fussy than others. But this certainly does show an interesting contrast.
sheepdoc said,
December 22, 2007 @ 4:48 pm
Lead or no lead? No easy answer!
We all know lead has the potential to be dangerous, but it makes such bright reds and soft vinyls. Sure toys without lead are less likely to hurt your child, but they aren’t available at the mega mart. You might have to order them from Germany or go to a thrift store. Then you might buy less and have healthier families. (Which means less money on medication and doctor visits.) You aren’t adding as much to the economy and you won’t look like every other mom on the block. Are the benefits really worth the risk?
amyphilo said,
December 22, 2007 @ 6:04 pm
I was going to say the same thing as birchwood. When they put it in terms of breastfeeding reduces this and that, even though the numbers are large, they are not as large as when you turn it around the other way.
Way higher incidences in the formula fed population.
Hathor said,
December 23, 2007 @ 7:43 am
Hi All, and Especially Gillian,
I was going to do a whole comic about Hathor’s math being corrected, but I’m WAY WAY behind on Christmas stuff SO, I corrected it on the comic. (the night that I was making the original comic I thought “hmmmm? isn’t there a groovy way to figure out the percentages going the other way? hmmmmm? what is that? I used to know how to do that? Maybe I should go look that up….Oh! look at the time! gotta (insert christmas stuff here)!” and promptly forgot to look that up. And alas, I’m married to a surfing sculptor (bless his heart!) not a math teacher - but in his defense I didn’t even ask him to look at that one before I posted. hmmmmm….I wonder if he would have noticed?
Love, and Merry Christmas (as always thanks for the editing!)
Heather
tanya said,
December 23, 2007 @ 9:07 pm
This article quoted the one doctor in the U.S. who always gets interviewed when they’re looking for a quote that questions the importance of breastfeeding. I can’t believe that this guy is permitted to do so much to undermine the thousands of studies over years and years showing the importance of breastfeeding. I wrote a post about his quote in Parenting earlier this year: http://breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com/2007/08/i-knew-there-wa.html Drive me absolutely crazy.
typeogirl999 said,
December 23, 2007 @ 10:19 pm
That headline was so misleading. The article makes it pretty clear that the best choice is breastfeeding. And the “doctor” at the end who said that breastfeeding research is inconsistent and poorly done, well, that’s just not true! Has he even read any of the research??? I’m willing to bet he’s paid off by formula companies.
wiffersnapper said,
December 24, 2007 @ 6:43 pm
I say that we Mommas just ignore the “experts”, do what we KNOW is best, and support the daylights out of anyone who’s trying it for the first time. I know I wouldn’t have made it without the support of my sister-in-laws; I’m sure others are the same. Even ignoring all the medical evidence- isn’t the look of love on your child’s face while you nurse them, and that feeling of closeness, worth it?
In the immortal words of Patrick Swayze- “Watch your backs, watch each other’s backs, and take out the trash.” Articles like that are just trash.
sheepdoc said,
December 25, 2007 @ 5:18 pm
No, the look on my children’s face isn’t worth it! Ignoring the medical experts isn’t okay!
My number 1 reason for breast feeding is my husbands grandmother died of breast cancer, my MIL has had breast cancer twice now. And read below about a childhood friend of mine.
It is not okay to have parents canceling a 4 year olds birthday party so he can be treated for LEUKEMIA instead! It isn’t okay that 800 infants (1600 parents) will celebrate their child’s first birthday party with them in a COFFIN! How do you ignore 800 tiny coffins in the US alone, every year, because someone says, “The research isn’t real.”
-Lori
wiffersnapper said,
December 25, 2007 @ 5:29 pm
Sheepdoc- I’m not ignoring all the benefits of breastfeeding! Goodness, you really read my post wrong. I LOVED nursing my daughter, and I’m looking forward to nursing the next one in May. What I was trying to say is that even if my doctor told me that breastfeeding and bottlefeeding were totally equal, I’d still breastfeed. And I will continue to support any nursing mother I know, and even random ones I see on the street, with smiles and encouraging words. THAT’S what I was trying to say- not the other way around!
The research that says that breastfeeding has minimal benefit is hogwash. Pure and simple. Breastfeeding IS the best, and it will always be the BEST.
I buried a student this October- she was 13 years old. Her death had nothing to do with breast vs. bottle, but it was the worst thing I’ve ever been through. Even one child’s death is far too many.