Comment by irjustin
2 years ago
> unworthy nurses making moms feel intense shame for not “trying hard enough” to somehow magically produce milk.
Stay away from mommy blogs/forums. Those are the most toxic cesspools I've ever witnessed. Things are changing, some of the newer ones are not nearly as bad, but man the judgement is super real.
Nurses are one thing, but personally, the worst is family members who think they know better and don't understand the data and that times have changed.
FORMULA IS PERFECTLY FINE.
Maternal milk is better than formula in every possible way and there is a perfect scientific consensus around this. Formula is the least worst substitute to maternal milk but going around and screaming that formula is perfectly fine, as if it was as good (or even better!) than maternal milk is denying some very well-established piece of science for likely ideological reasons.
> Maternal milk is better than formula in every possible way and there is a perfect scientific consensus around this.
I have not seen result like this obtained in a randomized, controlled trial, and it is almost certainly false as stated: you're almost certainly exaggerating for effect, but doing that in scientific context is bad intellectual hygiene.
All results of this sort that I have seen have been purely correlational, and as such suffer from selection bias. This might be true, but the evidence is far from conclusive, and if such consensus exists among medical professionals, it only shows how susceptible they are to groupthink and parroting the stuff they heard from the cathedra.
Milk is better than formula, but formula is better than starvation.
There are way too many instances of infants "failing to thrive" because their mothers are bullied into relying on breast milk which they simply aren't producing enough of.
And this is what I'm talking about - Clearly, you've never been a mother who can't produce milk for her child.
I've been there with my wife and I'm only the husband.
Everything you say is true, but by saying this and in this manner, you lack empathy. You sound just like the mommy blogs and their followers that I'm speaking against who spout facts with no room for life's situations. My wife sincerely believed she was less of a mother because of people like this.
I say it again: Formula is _perfectly_ fine. Use it a little or as a total replacement. You're not a lesser mother/parent for it.
When you say more empathy is required, do you mean the same thing should be phrased differently, or do you mean it should not be said at all?
1 reply →
It’s like saying that you should only eat organic food. Sure, there is lots of science backing it up, but that’s besides the point. It’s not always possible or easy for everyone to get organic food. Any food is better than no food.
Formula is adequate as far as macronutrients go, but it lacks sugars present (at varying levels-about 20% of the population are FUT2 non-secretors and cannot produce the α1,2-fucosyltransferase enzyme that is used to make human milk oligosaccharides), stem cells and bacteria present in breast milk. Women in the US are often deficient in the strain that can metabolize the human milk oligosaccharides, b. infantis, and it's not clear afaik to what extent bacteria gets passed vertically in breastmilk. The microRNA present in breastmilk can modulate gene expression, but the extent and effects are unclear.
B. infantis and human milk oligosaccharides create a feedback loop that encourages the formation of a robust immune system during a critical period [1]. Some formulas contain b. infantis, and some contain 2'FL, the HMO present in breastmilk. The most robust strain is EVC001, which has been shown to be present at a year after 21 days of supplementation. In an observational study, it reduced the diagnosis of necrotizing enterocolitis in very low birth rate infants by 73% [2].
I wish this was common knowledge, but most formulas do not contain these (often they contain other pre and probiotics) and babies are missing out on the specific sugars and bacteria that we know impact the development of the immune system.
1. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00660-7 2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35032555/
At least this one doesn't sound as bad as the other post, but it's still in the same vein - you've never been a mother who can't produce milk for her child.
I've been as the husband there and are all your facts don't allow for people's situations.
Formula is perfectly fine.
> you've never been a mother who can't produce milk for her child
That's your assumption.
You're missing the point, which is that you can supplement formula with both 2'FL and b. infantis and get immune system outcomes that are more similar to those that occur while breastfeeding [1]. The fact that milk typically faciliates a cascade of changes that lay the foundation for a healthy immune system is not at odds with formula feeding. Formula is adequate macronutrition, but if we cannot be honest about the ways in which it is not on par with breastmilk, we will never close the gaps.
1. https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2023/05/18/Abbott-s...
3 replies →
What are some good mom blogs?
Not a "mom blog," but covers pregnancy and childbirth from a scientific viewpoint plus some parenting topics - The Skeptical OB - https://www.skepticalob.com/ the author was a practicing obstetrician, professor at Harvard Medical School, and mom of 4.