There's clear evidence of health benefits for breast feeding to 6 months. Not 'if you don't breastfeed, your child will die!' - but still, benefits to the kids immune system. And there are certainly places in the world (like africa) where formula manufacturers have engaged in horrendously unethical and outright harmful practices. But if you live in the western first world, have good hygeine, have your kid immunized and keep them around other kids who follow immunization recommendations - it's not a massive/epic difference. It's still 'better' to breastfeed - but the cultists who advocate for it are fucking excessive. It's not that big a difference. For kids older than 6 months? The evidence about breastfeeding gets pretty controversial. But I've never seen credible researchers/health practitioners advocating it as being clearly beneficial. Everyone who pushes the breastfed until they graduate kind of agenda seems to be a whack job basing their rationale on the guidance of the earth spirit and the movement of their chakra. And the mother who let her kid be photographed and put on the picture of time sucking mum's tit at that age should be charged with child abuse. No way that kid graduates highschool without a suicide attempt
This guy has something to say about it. http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2012/05/are_you_mom_enough.html Apologies if someone already posted it.
I gave birth 2 weeks ago. Breastfeeding REALLY fucking hurts. Combined with poor supply, a screaming, starving baby and my anxiety peaking over the thought of her latching onto my nipples again, we lasted all of 5 days before we switched to formula. I'm happy, she is happier and my husband is happy that he can play with my boobs without me leaking milk everywhere. But damn it, if I wasn't made to feel guilty about swapping to formula. Bitchy hospital nurses. Snide remarks from acquaintances "Oh, you're not breast feeding?" No I'm not...fuck off. However, extended breast feeding is part of attachment parenting...where you literally live with the baby attached to you. They advocate baby wearing, that is, wearing the baby everywhere. Not popping the kid in a baby bjorn when you go down to the supermarket, it is wearing the kid around the house while you do the housework, when you go to the toilet...they also advocate co-sleeping. Now I love my baby, but I don't want to be attached to her constantly. I also don't want her sleeping in my bed, because a) I'm terrified I will squash her, and b) she is a really noisy sleeper (grunts, farts, makes sucking noises). Also, how do kids learn independence if they are attached to your back like a baby sloth? I'm cool with breastfeeding. World Health Organisation recommends until 2 years old. That's great in developing countries where breast milk is probably the only thing that isn't full of diseases and germs. But in Western countries where we have an abundance of healthy and nutritious food, good hygiene practices and medications to treat illnesses, extended breast feeding is more for the mother then for the child.
Jesus who did you give birth too? John Candy? And its odd that people judge women on whether or not they breastfeed, though not at all surprising. Aside from nutritional benefits in the first few months, I wonder if there have been any studies on the long-term effects of it one way or another aside from anecdotal accounts.
He really had nothing to say about it. What he had to say had zero relevance to breast feeding or parenting. That link could have been posted in any thread that had even a vague tie to any type of media. His only point was that the media tries to slant your opinion by grouping multiple polarizing topics together. And since there is almost no discussion of the actual article going on, and more of the general topic at hand, his whole point kinda becomes moot...
Yes, Cracked is a comedy website, but check out #3, Extreme Breastfeeding, on this list of retarded progressive parenting 'techniques'. Watch the video they link you to, and tell me there's nothing wrong with that. http://www.cracked.com/article_19721_the-5-creepiest-progressive-parenting-fads.html
His point was that the article itself had zero relevance to breast feeding or parenting, but masqueraded as such while accomplishing something completely different.
That picture is just creepy. The look in her eyes and the boy being that old. It's just wrong. Maybe there is nothing wrong with breastfeeding for so many years. I don't know. My wife only did 6 weeks due to production problems. She didn't produce enough so we needed to supplement with formula and then just went to formula. Well, she's happy and healthy and charts right where we want her if not higher in some areas. And we're lucky. Maybe the kids being breastfed so long will be even healthier and better off. Again, who knows. They could just pump it and give it to them in a cup. It just feels like the kid is going to be messed up. Worse than this is the idiots who don't vaccinate their kids. Mother fucking SCIENCE has proven that vaccines a good god damned idea. Diseases have been eradicated this way. Vaccinate your kids, they don't get the diseases, don't vaccinate, they do. Why the fuck is whooping cough back. And, where are most of the issues. In the upper northwest with all the crunchy fucks. One study showed a link to autism. One. And it turns out that one study was a FAKE. Decades of viable science down the tubes because of idiots believing one study that was never backed up. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/au ... index.html</a> Even after this I still read stuff about vaccines causing autism. Some people are stupid and this lady on the cover of the Time just, to me, represents that sector of society.
Am I the only one that looked at that magazine and said "There's a cricket god AND they reject the French in this issue? Who cares about big babies and the offspring they can't stop breastfeeding?" I'm sure that it's about some knobbly kneed sports player, but here's hoping that they found a massive radioactive locust bludgeoning its way through the vaguely-agricultural heart of Africa with its millions of spawn and followed in its wake by a starving band of tribal, mask-wearing, loincloth-clad locust worshippers convinced that the coming of the cricket indicates the end times for the white man and the beginning of an era devoid of gluttony, the evils of colloidal silver, and candied bacon on a stick. Plus it makes me think that a bunch of French people emigrated to a country and got kicked out for being too French, which brings a croissant to my warm heart. Focus: This about summarizes the whole topic: