Prime crap from the Daily Mail 
The comments are worth reading too. Lisa
Breast is NOT best: Mother’s milk no better than baby formula, scientists claim
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:34 PM on 06th January 2010
Comments (115)
Women should forget what they have been told about the health benefits of breastfeeding, it was claimed today.
A controversial new study has concluded that, contrary to the view of many experts, breast is not necessarily best for children in the first months of life.
Professor Sven Carlsen, who led the Norwegian team, declared: ‘Baby formula is as good as breast milk.’
What really affects the health of a growing infant is the hormone balance in the womb before birth, according to the research.
This in turn influences a woman’s ability to breast feed, resulting in a misleading association between breastfeeding and child health, it is claimed.
The only benefit from breastfeeding supported by genuine evidence is a ‘small IQ advantage’, said the scientists.
And even this was yet to be properly confirmed.
Prof Carlsen’s team reviewed data from more than 50 international studies looking at the relationship between breastfeeding and health.
Most concluded that the more children were breastfed, the healthier they were.
On the surface this was correct, said Prof Carlsen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
But he added: ‘Even if this is statistically true, it is not because of breastfeeding itself. There are very few studies that have examined the underlying controls on breastfeeding ability.’
The largest study on breastfeeding was conducted in Belarus and involved more than 17,000 women and children who were monitored for six years.
It ‘cut the legs out from underneath most of the assertions that breastfeeding has health benefits’ said the scientists.
For example, the study found no evidence that breastfeeding reduced the risk of asthma and allergies in children.
Mental ability was the only area where a small benefit was seen.
‘It appears that children who are breastfed have a small IQ advantage,’ said Prof Carlsen.
‘But this needs to be confirmed in new, carefully planned and conducted studies.’
The Norwegian scientists’ own work pointed to links between levels of androgen male hormones in the wombs of pregnant women, the health of children, and breastfeeding.
‘Pregnant women who have higher levels of androgens breastfeed less,’ said Prof Carlsen.
‘Probably this is a direct effect of hormones that simply limit nursing ability by reducing milk production in the breast.’
A pregnant woman’s health affected hormones in her womb, which had knock-on effects on her unborn child, said the researchers.
Normally a certain amount of the androgen testosterone is converted to the female hormone oestrogen in the placenta, the vital organ that supplies oxygen and nutrients to the foetus and links mother and child.
This is an energy-intensive process, said Prof Carlsen. If the placenta is underpowered, some of the testosterone that should be converted remains unchanged and has an impact on both the unborn baby and its mother.
For the mother, this leads to reduced development of glandular tissue in the breasts so her ability to make milk is impaired.
Adverse effects on the child are believed to include an increased risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and the hormonal disorder polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in girls.
Breastfeeding is less common in younger women, smokers, women who have had the pregnancy condition pre-eclampsia, women who have low-birth weight or premature babies, women with PCOS, and when the child is a boy.
A number of misguided theories have been put forward to explain why these groups avoid breastfeeding, say the researchers. One claim is that the bond between a mother and her child is not as strong when the baby is a boy.
‘This is purest nonsense,’ said Prof Carlsen.
‘Boys are not less loved by their mothers than girls. We can blame biology here, not mothers. All these relationships can be explained by one and the same cause, namely the level of male hormones during pregnancy.
‘We find it very interesting that almost all of the factors previously shown to be associated with breastfeeding can be explained by changes in testosterone levels in the mother during pregnancy.’
He said it was wrong to pillory women who find it difficult to breastfeed.
Women who bottle fed their babies should not worry that they are doing anything wrong, and should not be intimidated by politically correct messages, he added.
‘Don’t let overzealous health professionals give you a guilty conscience,’ said Prof Carlsen.
‘There are many good reasons to breastfeed. But concern for the child’s health is not one of them. There is no reason why women who are struggling to breastfeed should have to go around feeling guilty, or think that they are giving their child a poor start in life if they can’t nurse. Baby formula is as good as breast milk.’
The strongest argument for encouraging mothers to breastfeed was environmental, said Prof Carlsen.
Breastfeeding avoided the environmental costs of producing bottles and infant formula, and the energy consumed sterilising bottles.
Nursing babies at the breast was also the right approach for developing countries, where economics, hygiene and lack of natural resources made breastfeeding the better option.
The research is published in the January edition of the journal Acta Obstestricia and Gynecologia Scandinavica.
here are some of the best comments on the Daily Mail article:
Excuse me…but has there EVER been a recall for breastmilk??? I think NOT! I rest my case!
- Marie Ivey
what a load of twaddle!! first they say yes breast is best ,then it’s not, then it is, and now it is again. Sorry going with instinct here, but if womens breast produce milk for feeding their babies, then surely that’s what we are meant to do – feed our own babies!!
How can they say that formula milk – which is full of man-made chemicals – is better than “woman made” milk??
sort it out people and make up your minds!! I say the mother should decide on what’s best for HER child(s).
- Maria, Aberdeen, 6/1/2010 16:22
I wonder where this chap is getting his funding from.
Have you looked at the ingredients on a packet of baby forumula? Most of the chemicas listed I cannot even pronounce, so as well as cows milk mothers are also giving their babies all these chemicas (do they know how safe they are?)
These companies that make baby formula are making huge profits and then there are the bottle manufactures and the steralising solutions business all out to make huge profits out of new mums so of course they are going to say their stuff is good for babies.
Baby formula comes from cows milk which is excellent for baby cows (calves) not baby humans. I gave my children the best poosible start in life and that is I breast fed all of them.
- Erika Lucas, Wirral England
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by lactivist and Vancouver Mommy, TaraCain. TaraCain said: Complete crap. RT @lactivist: The Daily Mail Say Breastmilk is no better than Formula http://ff.im/-dTQ73 [...]
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I re-blogged this here:
http://nouveaufemme.blogspot.com/2010/01/constipated-brain-verbal-diarrhoea.html
Off to tweet it now
Charlotte x
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First-rate work. You have earned a recent regular reader. Please keep up the nice work and I look forward to more of your newsworthy writings.
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What get’s me is how most wommen breastfeed for their own benefit and not the childs. Because mother wants to burn more calories she will bresatfeed her child until he is two and so fourth, however, children who are breastfed longer are less likey to eat healthier solid foods and in tern develop eating disorders. You can go on with all your formula is bad mubo jumbo, but unless all bresatfeeding mother are on a healthy balanced diet, which is preferably an organic one, then the breast milk is useless as far as vitamins go and formula is better or just as good-minus the antibodies. Whatever mother eats is what makes up her milk supply and very few mothers are classified as healthy eaters.
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Jennifer – you have some interesting ideas but I don’t think there is any proof to any of them. If you have any research you would like to share then that would be fantastic.
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Jennifer , most women breastfeed for their BABY’S benefit! It appears you are not well informed at all about breastfeeding and formula milk. There is lots and lots of evidence and that is why your GP and your midwife will ALWAYS say breast is best for baby. Even if the mother is not eating an organic diet.See suck on this article by Pat Thomas citing LOTS of research! http://www.whale.to/b/thomas.html
What gets me is that people are under the impression that formula is “as good as” breastmilk, when it clearly is not.
Lets see some reliable research (not just one flawed study, financed by the formula company and reported in the daily fail) then, that states otherwise Jennifer.
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What gets me is how most bottle feeding mums do it for their own benefit.. what reason would a mother bottle fed for the babies best intrest???
Formula is modified cows milk – its not even been out that many years! The only vitimins or “goodness” that are in formula are man made or from animals – yummy!
I make the same milk as a mum in Ethiopia – stop putting silly comments that just make you look silly and uneducated.
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” Jennifer says:
…owever, children who are breastfed longer are less likey to eat healthier solid foods and in tern develop eating disorders…”
Do you actually believe this, or saying it for effect? It’s absolute hogwash. My son breastfed for two years – his choice; he stopped when he chose and I never tried to persude him otherwise. He eats an incredibly healthy diet. When I first started him on solid foods, around 6 months old, he ate only organic fresh veg that I prepared at home. He is now a very healthy four year old who states that his favourite foods are broccoli, peas and carrots. He eats a varied and healthy diet. He is not a picky eater, though I admit, he doesn’t like potatoes. Or sugar.
If I bottle fed him and followed that with store bought baby food, he would be used to chemical filled, sugary rubbish by now.
So, would you like to rethink that comment?
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Jennifer is clearly a Troll, I mean, no one could really be *that* dumb, could they?
“Because mother wants to burn more calories she will bresatfeed her child until he is two ”
“however, children who are breastfed longer are less likey to eat healthier solid foods and in tern develop eating disorders. ”
I mean, surely no one actually believes this?? Do they?
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Yes, MANY, MANY, MANY people do believe this kind of nonsense, not because they’re dumb but because formula companies and the doctors that they pay have spent years and years and billions of dollars drilling this claptrap into peoples’ minds. and surprise! like any other kind of mass campaign, like the campaign to convince teenagers that smoking cigarettes is “COOL”, IT WORKED!
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