Melissa Senf wrote:
> Attachment Parenting has a book with evidenced based information about breastfeeding and incidence of child abuse.  I did a similar talk and focused on the link between mothering hormones and child abuse.

(sorry, don't know why my computer is formatting the quoted section so 
poorly...)

I'm always highly dubious about this research as I don't see how it 
would allow for reverse causality - i.e., a mother who is feeling 
overwhelmed or poorly bonded is less likely to put the effort in to 
breastfeed and also more likely to snap and abuse her child, so it seems 
to me far more likely that it's the other internal and external stresses 
that bring about both the non-breastfeeding and the abuse, rather than 
breastfeeding itself being protective against abuse.  (I suppose that's 
technically not reverse causality, but I can't think of the correct name 
for it - hopefully you get the point.)

To disentangle the two, I suppose what you'd need would be an RCT in 
which a vulnerable, high-risk group of women were randomised to receive 
either breastfeeding support and promotion, or an equal amount of time 
spent on general discussion of parenting topics without breastfeeding 
promotion, and the results compared.  I'm curious as to whether anyone 
knows of any such research?  Or, alternatively, has any of the published 
research showing a formula-feeding/child abuse association figured out a 
clever way to allow for the possibility of the above confounder?


Best wishes,

Sarah Vaughan

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome