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When To Stop Breast Feeding

tamyu said:
You certainly don`t seem like the sort of (far too common) parent who leaves their baby to cry for hours because the baby "needs to learn" to sleep all alone.

I agree with you. But the above isn't something from paeolithic days. The idea of letting the baby "cry it out" was state-of-the-art child psychology in the 1950s and the 1960s. Even the emiment Dr. Spock recommended it. I knew several young parents who reluctantly adopted the method....because their babys' pediatricians so firmly insisted on it.
 
Gene 'links breastfeeding to IQ'

A single gene influences whether breastfeeding improves a child's intelligence, say London researchers.
Children with one version of the FADS2 gene scored seven points higher in IQ tests if they were breastfed.

But the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study found breastfeeding had no effect on the IQ of children with a different version.

The gene in question helps break down fatty acids from the diet, which have been linked with brain development.

Seven points difference is enough to put the child in the top third of the class, the researchers said.

Some 90% of people carry the version of the gene which was associated with better IQ scores in breastfed children.

Researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, used data from two previous studies of breast-fed infants in Britain and New Zealand, which involved more than 3,000 children.

IQ was measured at various points between the ages of five and 13 years in the studies.

Previous studies on intelligence and breastfeeding have come up with conflicting results.

There has been some debate as to whether mothers who had more education or who were from more affluent backgrounds were more likely to breastfeed, skewing the results.

Nature versus nurture

Professor Terrie Moffitt, a co-author on the paper, said the findings gave a fresh perspective on the arguments by showing a physiological mechanism that could account for the difference between breastfed and bottle-fed babies.

"The argument about intelligence has been about nature versus nurture for at least a century," she said.

"However, we have shown that in fact nature works via nurture to create better health outcomes."

Since the studies used in the analysis were done, manufacturers have begun to add fatty acids to formula milk but there have been inconsistent results on the benefits.

Belinda Phipps, of the National Childbirth Trust, said: "This shows for the majority of parents they can have a positive effect on their babies IQ by breastfeeding."

Catherine Collins, a dietician at St Georges Hospital in London and spokesperson for the British Dietetic Association, said the study highlighted the interaction between nutrition and genetics.

"In this study you have an effect that suggests that nature is more important that nurture.

"If nine out of 10 babies benefit, then that is a very good chance."

But she added the study did not specify how long babies were breastfed for and it may be that even breastfeeding for a short period may be beneficial for intelligence.

Professor Jean Golding, who founded the ALSPAC study set up in the 1990s to follow the development of thousands of children in the South West of England, said the results were fascinating and they would be doing a further study of the gene.

"In the past people have had different results about whether breastfeeding improves IQ and this would sort out the reason why," she said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7075511.stm
 
Why do we (and by we, I mean society in general) keep referring to IQ tests as a measure of someone's intelligence? Surely we all know by now that the only thing an IQ test measures accurately is how proficient a person is at taking an IQ test?

Can't we find a better system?
 
Mainstream news uses the IQ test to 'sell' the general public on issues of intelligence and sense because this is easier for them to accept.
The reality - that 'measuring' someones intelligence involves so many factors that it is nigh-on impossible to get a fair or accurate comparison between individuals - is just too much for the general public. They expect that science can accurately measure and benchmark anything.

While the results of this test linking breastfeeding to intelligence is worthy of study, I suspect that it's main use is to 'sell' the middle classes (ideal targets for artificial milk advertising) on breastfeeding.

"Oh, look! We want a super-intelligent baby, Charles! I really must breastfeed!"
"Of course, Harriet. It stands to reason we have the 'intelligence' gene."
 
Breastfeeding 'protects mother'

Women who breastfeed their babies may be lowering their own risk of a heart attack, heart disease or stroke, research suggests.

A US study found women who breastfed for more than a year were 10% less likely to develop the conditions than those who never breastfed.

Even breastfeeding for at least a month may cut the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

The research features in the journal Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting breastfeeding has health benefits for both mother and baby.

Research has found that breastfeeding reduces a woman's risk of ovarian and breast cancer and osteoporosis in later life.

And the list of benefits for the baby is long, with breast milk credited with protecting against obesity, diabetes, asthma and infections of the ear, stomach and chest.

The latest US study, by the University of Pittsburgh, focused on nearly 140,000 post-menopausal women.

On average, it had been 35 years since the women had last breastfed - suggesting the beneficial impact lasts for decades.

As well as cutting the risk of heart problems, breastfeeding for more than a year cut the risk of high blood pressure by 12%, and diabetes and high cholesterol by around 20%.


It has been suggested that breastfeeding may reduce cardiovascular risk by reducing fat stores in the body.

However, the researchers believe the effect is more complex, with the release of hormones stimulated by breastfeeding also playing a role.

Researcher Dr Eleanor Bimla Schwarz said: "We have known for years that breastfeeding is important for babies' health; we now know that it is important for mothers' health as well.

"Breastfeeding is an important part of the way women's bodies recover from pregnancy.

"When this process is interrupted women are more likely to have a number of health problems (including heart attacks and strokes).

"The longer a mother nurses her baby, the better for both of them."

In the UK, the Department of Health recommends exclusive breastfeeding for six months.

June Davison, a cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "Breastfeeding has long been thought to be beneficial to baby and mother.

"This research suggests that it might have also have heart health benefits for mum too.

"However, it only showed an association between breast feeding and these health benefits. We will need further research to understand why this is the case."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8008678.stm
 
Haven't read the whole thread so don't know if this has been mentioned but I remember hearing a few years back that Spanish international footballer Joaquin was still breast-fed until he was six. :shock:
 
Barnsley mother breastfeeds five-year-old boy

A mother from South Yorkshire has defended her decision to continue breastfeeding her son, despite him being five years old.

Amanda Hurst, from Barnsley, said her son Jonathan was confident and outgoing and had chosen to continue feeding.

She said she had originally intended to stop at six months but it had just carried on.

"I know I'm doing the right thing and I'm a firm believer in children making their own choices," Ms Hurst said.

She told the BBC that until she told her story in a magazine no-one had been aware that she still breastfed Jonathan as he had decided to stop doing it in public when he was three years old.

"We just never stopped," Ms Hurst said.

"Once I gave birth to Jonathan and I started breastfeeding, I thought we'll just get to six months and then I thought we'll go to a year and then it never stopped.

"And here I am five years on. It became a natural thing.

"I'm a firm believer that Jonathan should choose his own path in life," she said.

Ms Hurst said breastfeeding could not carry on forever as Jonathan would lose the ability to suckle when his milk teeth fell out.

When asked what reaction she gets from people and if they find it weird, Ms Hurst said: "I think it's weird."

"If there's anything more important or interesting going on then Jonathan is out there, I don't even get a look in. I don't even get a hug most of the time."

She added: "I know I'm doing the right thing and I'm a firm believer in children having their own choices and in doing what's right for you and your family and I made those choices for my family."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sout ... 652825.stm
 
Creamstick1 said:
Can't we find a better system?
IQ is probably the best system we have been able to find so far, in terms of correlation with measurable stuff that our society values. People just have trouble thinking in terms of averages, statistics and big pictures. A good correlation doesn’t mean a 100% correlation, far from it, so it’s perfectly possible to find a lot of inept people with high IQs.

I mean, I have a pretty high IQ, in the top 5 percent in Sweden, but my achievement has always been average.
 
tamyu wrote:
You certainly don`t seem like the sort of (far too common) parent who leaves their baby to cry for hours because the baby "needs to learn" to sleep all alone.


I agree with you. But the above isn't something from paeolithic days. The idea of letting the baby "cry it out" was state-of-the-art child psychology in the 1950s and the 1960s. Even the emiment Dr. Spock recommended it. I knew several young parents who reluctantly adopted the method....because their babys' pediatricians so firmly insisted on it.


Try this for palaeolithic, I was shown photographs recently of a deliberate scald injury to a baby as an example of what to look for in a non accidental injury, apparently the sort of injury in question was rare but not by any means unheard of partly because there's a belief among some parents that dipping the babies bottom in a hot water helps with toilet training. [/quote]
 
Amanda breastfeeds her six-year-old in tandem with her newborn - horrifying or a loving bond?
By Beth Hale
Last updated at 9:56 AM on 9th December 2010

Another cold winter’s morning in the South ­Yorkshire village of Hemingfield and Amanda Hurst has a hungry son to feed. There’s a chill in the air, even inside the tiny stone-fronted house. So rather than get out of bed, Amanda cradles five-month-old William under one arm, lifts up her pyjama top and breakfast begins.
Then a sleepy-eyed little boy pads on bare feet across the floor and clambers onto the bed, asking in the ­precise tones of a child — not a toddler — whether he can have some ‘lellow’ too.
The little boy is Jonathan and he is six. ‘Lellow’ is a special made up word he uses for breast milk.

And instead of telling Jonathan he can have some milk from the fridge in the kitchen for his b­reakfast, Amanda happily pulls up the other side of her top and lets Jonathan lie alongside her and suckle from her free breast.
Yes, that’s right. She’s breastfeeding her infant son and her school age son. At the same time.

When Jonathan was three, Amanda, quite rightly, told him he was too old to breastfeed. But she found it hard to turn her son away, and his ­interest was only reignited when his little brother came along.
‘I know some people think it’s strange,’ says Amanda, 29. ‘But I think it’s perfectly natural. He’s doing it less and less and it’s only a ­morning thing. I’m feeding William, ­Daddy’s gone to work and it’s cold, so I don’t want to get out of bed.
‘I’ve only tandem fed them five or six times as it’s difficult. Jonathan has to lie alongside me and prop ­himself up.’

The love between mother and son is ­tangible. But there is something intensely uncomfortable about this scene — a child big enough to prop himself up to suckle, jostling at his ­mother’s breast with his infant brother.
William is a baby, completely ­dependent on his mother. Jonathan is a small ­person, rapidly becoming a bigger ­person, and at his age many little boys would grimace at the thought of ­suckling at mummy’s breast, let alone competing with a baby sibling.

Many mothers, too, will find ­Amanda’s decision to breastfeed a six-year-old and a five-month-old simultaneously ­shocking and even distasteful.
Yet when I arrive to meet them, this family could hardly seem more ­ordinary. When I’m introduced to Jonathan he looks up briefly, shows off his two new front teeth (yes, rather alarming), then lowers his head and continues playing with his Nintendo DS.

He’s a happy, healthy six-year-old boy, who likes going to Beaver Scouts, tap dancing, swimming and playing with his friends.
He has a seven-year-old girlfriend, who he holds hands with and who his mum insists ‘he’d rather spend time with than me’.
‘I don’t worry about what other ­children will say, because I know the children he hangs around with,’ says Amanda. ‘The only way they are going to find out is if their ­parents tell them.’

But surely Jonathan could mention it himself? Amanda pauses. She doesn’t seem to have considered that her son might discuss his breakfast ­drinking habits with his pals.
‘He would say lellow and nobody knows what lellow is,’ she says, ­adding that when children come across something they don’t know ‘they just ignore it’.
‘I do question the decisions I make and wonder whether I’m right or wrong. But it’s parenting, there is no manual, I don’t think there is a “right way”.

etc...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... z17c5X8Nef
 
‘I don’t worry about what other ­children will say, because I know the children he hangs around with,’ says Amanda. ‘The only way they are going to find out is if their ­parents tell them.’

:shock:

Yeh, and the parents won't find out and mention it unless you take your non-story and blab it across the papers... oh, wait
 
McAvennie_ said:
‘I don’t worry about what other ­children will say, because I know the children he hangs around with,’ says Amanda. ‘The only way they are going to find out is if their ­parents tell them.’
Yeh, and the parents won't find out and mention it unless you take your non-story and blab it across the papers... oh, wait
Well, when you've been 'skint', you're probably glad to have a story to sell... ;)

(I just hope it doesn't backfire on young Jonathon.)
 
It's not a story though...!

"Woman carries out natural biological process shock"
 
McAvennie_ said:
It's not a story though...!
But it's another datum for discussion on the topic of this thread.

If every child was suckled up to the age of six, then it would be a non-story.
 
Rubbish journalism is just a pet peeve of mine.

Doesn't beat my all-time non-story though which appeared in The Sun a few years back and basically told of a man whose dog chewed the leg off a table, so he replaced the leg and the dog chewed that one off too. That is not news that is just something that happened.
 
You're making a fundamental mistake in assuming that something reported in The Sun actually happened.
 
Whether it did actually happen is irrelevant. The fact that an editor somewhere thought it was worth publishing is what grinds my gears.

Although, granted, it was The Sun.
 
Breastfeeding mothers offered £200 in shop vouchers
By Nick Triggle, Health correspondent, BBC News
"The World Health Organization recommends infants are breastfed exclusively for the first six months"

New mothers are to be offered up to £200 in shopping vouchers to encourage them to breastfeed their babies.
The pilot scheme is being targeted at deprived areas of South Yorkshire and Derbyshire and funded through a collaboration between government and the medical research sector.
A third area is expected soon with the plan to trial it on 130 women who have babies from now until March.
If it proves successful, a nationwide pilot could be rolled out next year.

The use of financial incentives is not new in the NHS.
It has been tried before to encourage people to quit smoking as well as lose weight.

But this is the first time it has been tried on such a scale for breastfeeding.
Under the scheme mothers from specific parts of Sheffield and Chesterfield will be offered the vouchers, which they can then use in supermarkets and high street shops.
The areas have been chosen because they have such low breastfeeding rates. On average just one in four mothers are breastfeeding by the six- to eight-week mark compared with a national average of 55%.

To qualify for the full £200 of rewards, the women will have to breastfeed until six months.
However, it will be frontloaded enabling those taking part to get £120 for breastfeeding for the first six weeks.
Midwives and health visitors will be asked to verify whether the women are breastfeeding.

The team behind the project said breastfeeding was a cause of health inequalities, pointing to research that showed it helped prevent health problems such as upset stomachs and chest infections as well as leading to better educational attainment.

Dr Clare Relton, the Sheffield University expert leading the project, said she hoped the financial incentives would create a culture where breastfeeding was seen as the norm.
"It is a way of acknowledging both the value of breastfeeding to babies, mothers and society," she added.

But Janet Fyle, of the Royal College of Midwives, questioned the initiative.
"The motive for breastfeeding cannot be rooted by offering financial reward. It has to be something that a mother wants to do in the interest of the health and well-being of her child."
She said the answer lay in making sure there were enough staff available to provide comprehensive support to new mothers after birth.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24900650
 
Breastfeeding 'linked to higher IQ'

A long-term study has pointed to a link between breastfeeding and intelligence.
The research in Brazil traced nearly 3,500 babies, from all walks of life, and found those who had been breastfed for longer went on to score higher on IQ tests as adults.
Experts say the results, while not conclusive, appear to back current advice that babies should be exclusively breastfed for six months.

Regarding the findings - published in The Lancet Global Health - they stress there are many different factors other than breastfeeding that could have an impact on intelligence, although the researchers did try to rule out the main confounders, such as mother's education, family income and birth weight.

Dr Bernardo Lessa Horta, from the Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil, said his study offers a unique insight because in the population he studied, breastfeeding was evenly distributed across social class - not something just practised by the rich and educated.
Most of the babies, irrespective of social class, were breastfed - some for less than a month and others for more than a year.
Those who were breastfed for longer scored higher on measures of intelligence as adults.
They were also more likely to earn a higher wage and to have completed more schooling.

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31925449
 
Here we go again......... the breastapo at work.
a. correlations do not indicate cause and effect
b. there are likely to be other intervening factors apart from social class. E.g. mothers who breastfeed might also spend more time with their children and therefore they receive more nurture, especially in a country where one wouldn't expect childcare to be that good.
c. that means a whole generation of children born in the late 60's and in the 70's must now be as thick as pig shit and earning crap wages, as bottle feeding was very 'the thing to do' in those days. Both husband and I are bottle fed and are not thick as pig shit or earning a crap wage ( this is of course merely case study evidence ).
d. the study needs to be replicated, we can't just draw conclusions from one study.
e. when other studies have been adjusted for social class, it has actually been shown that we have been fed (pardon the pun) a lot of propaganda. The only thing that seemed to be consistent finding was that bottle fed babies had more gastrointestinal illness. I can't find the meta analysis at the minuted, but here is just an example of such research http://www.parentdish.co.uk/2014/02...ntelligent-or-healthy-than-bottle-fed-babies/
This makes me SO angry - as you might be able to tell. And once again pits women against women. For some reason parenting brings out the worst in parents, trying to outdo each other. At the end of the day, whether you bottle or breast feed is not going to give your child the best chance in life, but whether you parent him/her sensitively and nurture them.
 
Last edited:
Spot on, Loquaciousness! Once again, a 'study' based on shaky science.
 
a. correlations do not indicate cause and effect

Exactly. Lazy journalists still don't understand how to question this sort of "research"! (But then neither does the majority of the public.)

My first reaction was: "maybe breastfeeding mums tend to spend more time with their children, talking to, reading to and showing them stuff. No doubt more intense and longer interaction will have an effect in later life. The breastfeeding is a red herring and not the cause.

Maybe this has been factored out of the results, but if so it hasn't been widely reported.

BBrain
 
This issue has re-emerged in the COVID era. Some vaccinated mothers are extending the time they nurse / breastfeed their infants in the hope they can pass along some measure of their own antibody protection - at least until there are vaccinations approved for infants.
The Long-Haul Breastfeeders of COVID
Desperate for a little extra pandemic protection, some women are nursing their kids much later than they ever imagined they would. ...
FULL STORY: https://slate.com/human-interest/20...otection-mothers-nursing-longer-pandemic.html
 
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