My point is this -- people can be convinced by "studies" and people in white coats that formula is similar or possibly better than breastmilk (see the last 50 years of medicine before they came back around to recommending breastfeeding). Studies are obviously important, but logic can't be thrown out the window just because a "study" purports to show something -- if you're going to make a counter claim why something like formula is better or even comparable to breastmilk (as scientists and doctors did for A LONG TIME), you have to have an OVERWHELMING amount of evidence, the burden of proof is on you, you basically have to disprove evolution to prove that formula is in any way comparable to breastmilk from a healthy, well-fed mother -- and good luck disproving evolution!
Why, yes. I'm not a zoologist, but I know giving a replacement milk is the best solution when the mother either is absent for whatever reason, cannot produce milk, or cannot produce enough quality milk. This is why we have milk for infant cats and dogs, actually. Otherwise, the animal would die. There is a similar nutrition for birds (as they don't produce milk) and it is common for folks to buy pigmy goats as an infant and bottle feed them.
Why do humans think they're any different?
We don't. Replacement breast milk saved lives, and these sorts of issues were the original use of infant formula. When applied to current society, it still saves lives and helps to keep folks from financial ruin because some countries (like the US) don't really give mothers time off work to properly breast feed, and it is usually difficult to pump milk at work. At some point while pumping, people usually have to supplement formula as well. As a side note, I was one of the babies that would have died without a wet nurse, as my mother had gall bladder surgery before I was 6 weeks old (fairly major surgery in '78) and could not breast feed.
That's the reason maternity wards have fridges full of donated milk so that at least during the first days/weeks/months of life, especially for those born prematurely, the replacement milk is actual breast milk.
The point about maternity leave is a good one. Obviously countries should have a maternity leave that is longer than the breastfeeding period. That the US doesn't is pretty terrible imho. (This isn't an employer expense in all those countries that have it, it's usually a tax funded system)
Assuming there are absolutely no medical or circumstantial reasons to use formula (such as the complication with work in my original reply and public acceptance of breast feeding in public), there aren't many reasons. You know, except being able to be away from your child for any length of time in the first months. But this simply isn't reality, nor is breast milk always enough (my mother simply couldn't produce enough milk for my little brother to stay healthy, and his asthma was already a concern). Some women die in childbirth as well. Not to mention psychological concerns (I refuse to have a child. Pregnancy and breast feeding are the stuff of nightmares for me). We need the option there just to make sure all babies have nutrition.
And the more folks push, the more acceptable it is to shame non-breastfeeding mothers. That really freaking bothers me.
I've found though that most people push formula more than anything. My partner and I have just had our first baby, she's fully breastfed and barely a day goes by where people ask whether we're supplementing with formula as breast milk does not contain the right or enough nutrition for them.
I side with breast milk first and and foremost if it's a viable option as I'm less inclined to believe large formula manufactures such as Nestle really have the best of interests.
If the baby is purely breast fed and getting enough milk, you have to probably have add some extra iron to their diet around month 6 or so.
We had to start supplementing early, my wife could never get her production up enough to fully feed the baby. Our pediatrician was relieved we were ok with supplementing, a lot of moms in SoCal aren't and it's a super big issue. They (the pediatricians) seem to be at battle with breast feeding ideologues, people really need to be pragmatic.
I think the problem we found with our personal situation was from day one anything that occurred such as baby crying,fussing, not sleeping was attributed directly to poor breast milk by both people we knew and strangers. My partner felt forced to move to formula but luckily with support from our midwife her supply came in well and both baby and mother are happy.
Choices and support are the most important things but if supply,will,health and the option allow a mother to breastfeed I think the benefits do outweigh formula.
Happy to hear you had a supportive paediatrician!
Doctors are pattern matchers, your newborn symptoms could have been in their experience the baby not getting enough milk. If it wasn't the pediatrician, well, they are your best source for the baby's health, everyone else isn't qualified (including nurses, midwives, etc...).
Also, it takes a while for the milk to come in after the baby is born, it is an incredibly tricky process of getting the baby fed where nature doesn't do us many favors. The baby probably was hungry, the milk probably came in later than they wanted, but all is still ok. Finally, you know what goes into baby with formula, with breast milk it is much harder to tell, making the job of determining if the baby is getting enough much more difficult.
Breast feeding has benefits sure, but they aren't so much that it is worth starving the baby. It is a serious tightrope to walk, especially in the first few weeks before production comes in completely (if it does at all, many women have problems).
If you have a colic baby, all bets are off, of course.
Well it would be great to know just if they're different at all. You seem to think it's 'obvious' that breastmilk is always better; I don't see a logical reason to think so, or at least not so strong that it shouldn't be studied.
Yes, the research does show that breastmilk is better. My wife nursed our children until they were 15 and 18 months old, respectively. I'm not some pro-formula-campaigner. But I don't see any reason for naturalistic fallacy-based reasoning, either.
But I have to ask, how is evolution not an "obvious" reason that breastmilk is a superior source of nutrition for baby mammals? Why would every mammal do best on their mother's milk but somehow humans do better on processed junk food powder that didn't exist until 60 years ago?
Your argument seems to revolve around the difference between humans and other mammals, with that I would agree - I don't see a reason it'd be different. But your argument also relies on the assumption that for other mammals the mother's milk is better. That's the whole question to be investigated - is it really so? If so, what is it in breast milk that is better? And once we figure that out, how can we put that into something that can more easily be manufactured and used, so that all women can get the advantages that breast milk provides? It's not like 'nature' is some magical thing that imbues mystical powers on matter. It's all physics and chemistry. We don't understand everything about it, maybe we only understand a tiny part of it; so that's why we have to do the research.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684040/
>By the 1940s and 1950s, physicians and consumers regarded the use of formula as a well known, popular, and safe substitute for breastmilk. Consequently, breastfeeding experienced a steady decline until the 1970s (Fomon, 2001)
We tend to care about the individual more than the population, so we treat sick children instead of letting them die. Since nature isn't always helping, maybe natural food isn't always the best option.
I think that the current understanding is that evolution serves the gene, not the population or the individual.
There is some polemic about the gene idea (1), but it seems to me that the discussion is more about semantics, and, that from an information point of view, it's the gene the minimum unit that is "learning" about the environment.
The shape and behaviour of a molecule is depending of the constituent atoms. I suppose, you could express it the other way, but at the end of the day, is the most fundamental units what give us the most useful explanations.
(1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene-centered_view_of_evolutio...
Natural selection can send a specific gene mutation into an immediate dead end, but presumably across all mutations, it's a net positive for the entire population as they become generally better adapted.
But, populations evolve, not individuals, yes.
Citation needed. What's even more possible is that in the long run nature will win -- it is a far more powerful force than intellect.
In the very least, let's see how intellect fares against the heat death of the universe...
Of course, there are probably species that burn through a few generations per hour but these are not really suited to solving problems that mammals can.
For some problems regarding the functioning of living things yes, but for other problems evolution doesn't apply, and nature (aka the universe) can "strike" before science had the time to find anything to protect against them (e.g. a meteor hit).
And for other problems still, science might be the one that created them (e.g. nuclear annihilation, global warming, etc).
>Of course, there are probably species that burn through a few generations per hour but these are not really suited to solving problems that mammals can.
No, but some of them could e.g. mutate and kill all humans or enough to destroy civilization.
But in another sense, intellect vs nature is a useful distinction to make.
(E.g. blind forces of evolution through selection/mutation/etc, vs conscious targeted changes).
Human knowledge in general might, but I'm talking about how humans take action and shape the world around them vs how evolution does.
Conjecture and refutation are not like random mutations -- that's just the "survival of the fittest" part of evolution, which is not the actual mechanism and which applies to everything (after all, anything that survives is fitter that what didn't).
ESTablishing shot: Motorhome parked in remote field.
SUPER: Meanwhile, at the Soylent lab...
Obviously, before anyone makes that sacrifice, it makes a lot of sense to study whether it has any corresponding benefits.
Do you think most men want to go sit in an office all day doing menial tasks to support their family? Since office work is fairly split evenly by gender, do you think men want to go work on oil rig or construction site all day to support their families?
And judging by the fact that women have rushed into the work force while men have not rushed home, I do think it's fair to say that people would rather be sitting in an office than chasing a toddler around the house.
And because some folks have kids first, then find out how horrible it is. The first child doesn't always seem horrible, so they have another.
And because even happy parents find a lot of the work involved absolutely horrible. I'm not sure if anyone gets joy out of waking in the middle of the night to feed the baby, change an overflowing diaper of shit, and/or deal with spit up and so on. Older children keep doing pretty disgusting things for years to come.
Even jobs taking care of folks are considered low-rung, crappy jobs with horrible pay.
Parenting thoughts from a non-parent - pass.
Edit: Besides, me being childless is exactly why I'm qualified to answer part of this question. I understood that, for most of my life, I had to hope that the birth control methods available to me didn't fail (basically condoms, since I can't tolerate hormonal birth control and couldn't afford to be sterilized, if I could even find a doctor).
Its equivalent to taking relationship advice from the neckbeard down in his mother's basement.
I certainly had no problem warming up refrigerated breast milk at odd hours of the night for all three of my children.
I think everyone should pump and freeze. At the very least you'll be more comfortable. The bonus is that you can make your significant other feed the kid!
We can conclude from these observations that the traditional female gender role isn't all that great, and that there is a lot of value in technology (for now, formula, but soon, artificial wombs) that reduce the need for anyone to do that work.
[1] There is an increased push for paternity leave because dads want to spend more time with their newborns, which is different from wanting to embrace traditional female duties. And a huge part of that push is to set the stage for women to escape their traditional gender role. Dad being more involved from the beginning means that, in the long term, it will be easier for dad and mom to share child-rearing duties. It's harder to do that when, e.g. the child reflexively runs to mom any time it needs something.
We don't know what a Zoologist might recommend in 10 years when new results are found from studies like these. That's exactly why studies like this are done, so we all learn.
Science is about knowing the details. The hows, whys and how muches.
Again without studies it's hard to claim anything.
Apart from shared immunity during the first few feeds. Also being better for the babies development.
> definitely formula is better when the mother is malnourished.
In cases where the mother can't afford food it send a little abusive to also try to sell her formula.
The only reason not the breastfeed is if you can't. But it is not as easy as it looks so we should not judge mothers either way.
When my kids were born I was kind of shocked at the level of pressure put on my wife to breastfeed. Advocates made formula feeding sound like borderline abuse.
There are many reasons why someone might choose formula feeding (and some reasons are better than others) but the last thing breastfeeding advocates should be doing is making new moms that are on an emotional rollercoaster to begin with, feel like they are a failure and bad mother if they can't or won't breastfeed.
To be more clear, specifically what I am talking about is that I know some women who have chosen not to try because they have heard it is very hard, and maybe some additional facts of its benefits (not just pressure from people that condescend) might have convinced them to try, or convince some women to do it longer. Everybody says it's good, we all know it's good. But nobody likes to do something just because someone else said it's good for them. They want to know why.