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Subject:
From:
Maureen MINCHIN <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 17 May 2013 12:31:44 +1000
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Sarah, I agree that this is the one week outcome, in one sense, but doesn't it strike you as strange that we are NOT TOLD how much formula was given by these mums while they were in hospital, and that separated from what they did after going home? That this fourfold use of formula was not then accentuated and related to the later outcomes? Clearly if by one week you've had 4 times as much formula there's less chance you'll be exclusively breastfeeding at three months! Also, that mothers were not asked about whether they had used the 'soothing' techniques so carefully taught to them, rather than putting a merely-days-old baby to the breast whenever he/she was unsettled?  (The best soothing methoid I know: "stillen" is the German word for breastfeeding, and I'm told it means to silence. The study should have included a soothing technique group in the formula-restricted group - but then, there were so few babies experimented on that this would make figures totally absurd.

I read this study as saying that in a community where mothers are taught not to feed their baby when it cries, but to 'soothe' it, severely RESTRICTING the use of formula results in better outcomes that allowing its use ad lib (hardly a novel finding); that truly exclusive breastfeeding is seen as impossible and not encouraged by the staff, who expect it will result in more unsettled babies and so tell mothers how to shush them - not by feeding, but by distraction.  Those getting such tiny quantities of formula presumably were given reasons for the restriction, which should mean that those mothers knew that breastmilk was valuable and that larger quantities formula interfere with lactation. What were the others told? But both groups of babies have had their gut microbiota altered for life. How happy could any informed health professional be,  working in a unit in which, thanks to their care protocols, no breastfed babies are ever allowed or encouraged to develop normally? The book I'm finalising describes how formula alters not only microbiomes but genomes and has intergenerational effects. Sorry, but to my mind this is criminal conduct, assault and battery, not research, however usual it may be in some hospitals.

It is typical of damaging articles like this to be published in journals where they can only be accessed by paying customers, while their abstract and press releases go world-wide. So as yet I haven't got a copy, and am relying on others comments, which I dislike doing.  Another thought I had was that it could also be that mothers who felt that they were NOT ALLOWED to give formula in hospital resented this and used it as soon as they got home, a direct result of the restrictions imposed on them. But that I can't tell. It is a usual reaction for some mothers here in Oz, however.


On 17/05/2013, at 3:42 AM, LACTNET automatic digest system <[log in to unmask]> Sarah Vaughan wrote:

>  I can't see anything that says that any of those supplements took place in the hospital. (In other words, what this seems to indicate is that the mothers who were kept strictly to EBF while in the hospital ended up giving quite a bit *more* formula once they got home, and their babies ended up having more formula overall than the ones who were deliberately given early limited supplements in the hospital.

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