I’ve found the pedi’s to be useless as far as breastfeeding information. Why on earth would they be any better a source for bottlefeeding? In a perfect world, they’d do both. It may not be ignoring so much as they don’t do well with either, really.

That was my thought too – I received oodles and oodles of (advertising) information on formula too, just nothing from doctors.

After my friend gave birth to a preemie I was in the room with the dad, the unconcious mom, and two nurses. The nurse handed the 4 pound baby to the dad and gave him this HUGE bottle and told the first time parent to feed the sluggish infant and then walked out! I had to show him how to hold the baby, open her tiny mouth and coax out a few drops from the enormous nipple. Later, they roused the mom from her sleep and tried to get her to breastfeed the still super sluggish baby. Naturally it was a no go but the same two nurses spent a good 20 minutes workign with her to try to get her to nurse and then they left again! Once again, the dad and I tried to get the baby to use another bottle that I, not a nurse, had prepared. This guy was so clueless he pulled a ginat pacifier straight from the package and tried to put it in the baby’s mouth. I jerked it out of his hand and nicely said he needed to sterilize it first. That poor guy was so confused. The nurses never even told him he needed to sterilize the nipples and bottles for this fragile baby. Once the grandmother showed up, I filled her in on the poor nursing staff and left the car wreck in her capable hands.

Nutritionist: I’d posit that the bottle propping issue is evidence of the failure of education to bottlefeeding parents. HOWEVER, I will note that a fair amount of breastfeeding mothers I know pump and have their children hold the bottle or prop it . . . and a fair amount of non-breastfeeders are EXTREMELY hands on. Believe it or not, I know some bottlefeeders who would otherwise be described as attachment parents!
That kind of generalization that breastfed babies are somehow better cared for by their moms is what pushes this breast vs. bottle war forward unnecessarily.

I agree with jeannesager. I’ve met my fair share of moms who breastfeed who aren’t spending time bonding with their children, as well as bottlefed babies who get plenty of mom time with mom talking to them and looking into their baby’s eyes. After failing at breastfeeding, I would still do skin to skin when feeding my babies.

Women who cannot or choose not to breastfeed are not evil or uninformed and many many of them are terrific mothers.

Some chronic health conditions are also genetic too. So I should blame my mom’s lack of breast feeding for that too??? Strange, but my grandfather had type 2 diabetes and he was breastfed, yet my dad (his son) was not breastfed and hasn’t had it. His sister (breastfed) has it.

Nutritionist, you might have gotten a college degree in your major, but you really need to go back to school to learn some “bedside manner”. I hope our paths never cross should I need information concerning nutrition for my family or children. I think I’d trust Dr. Google more, and Dr. Google doesn’t judge.

Actually I would argue the opposite of this article. Rather then being bias towards breastfeeding there is a bias against it. That bias being that breastfeeding could not possibly provide enough nutrition to an infant naturally, so parents must be careful to check every BM, chart every second a mom breast feeds and the color of every ounce of breast milk pumped. Also even if they are spending more time, is that time quality time? Sure I saw a lactation consultant in the hospital and the nurses questioned how often my daughter was feeding, came into tell me when I should wake her up to nurse etc, but most of that information was false and made me insecure about breastfeeding. Yet 15 minutes with my midwife when she was checking me out of the hospital helped me more then the hours spent with nurses and even my lactation consultant. My midwife went over the basics, really made sure my daughter was latching on correctly and that I was comfortable breastfeeding.

mlb, maybe you can do something to make it better!!! Good luck to you!!!

“I’m all for breastfeeding, but with my own very unscientific look at bottlefed kids vs. breastfed kids, I can tell you the numbers quoted all the time hardly apply to all. Breastfed babies are healthier? Tell that to the mom who breastfed for a year and whose son constantly has double ear infections . . . and the mom who bottlefed from two weeks on and has never taken her daughter to a pediatrician for a non-well-care visit.”

Please, stop spreading this statistical nonsense! Of course these are individual differences in health. Not every individual breastfed baby is healthier than every single bottlefed baby. But the science is very clear — ON AVERAGE, breastfed babies are healthier than bottlefed babies. This means that the health of most babies is improved by breastfeeding, whether that baby is naturally quite healthy either way, or naturally quite unhealthy compared to other children. These individual stories of examples of a breastfed baby who is less healthy that a bottlefed baby seem compelling on an anecdotal level, but in no way constitute scientific evidence.

“Breastfeeding promotes health, helps prevent infant and childhood disease, and saves health care costs, especially important in managed care. Potential health care cost savings from breastfeeding in four medical diagnoses were analyzed. Results showed the following potential savings in health care costs: Infant diarrhea, $630 million; respiratory syncytial virus, $31 million; insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, $72 million; and otitis media, $660 million for a total of $1.3 billion potential saving in health care costs using only 4 medical diagnoses. Breastfeeding also improves intellectual development of children according to new medical research studies. The benefits of more intelligent children on society is enormous even though it cannot be directly measured in terms of dollars. Finally, it was calculated that if WIC mothers breastfeed, yearly cost savings for basic food packages would be $2,665,715. Breastfeeding education and support should be an integral part of health care especially in managed care where rewards are for preventing health problems and not using health services.” Abstract of a paper submitted for publication by Janice M. Riordan EdD, RN. Associate Professor, School of Nursing Wichita State University.

There’s a complete lack of information from doctors and pediatricians when it comes to breast and formula feeding. And I must stress that BOTTLE feeding does not mean formula feeding. And formula need not be fed with a bottle, that is not the optimal feeding method for formula.

And while I agree doctors should have a lot more training in this, and if they don’t/didn’t get it in medical school they should learn in their own time; it is ultimately the parent’s responsibility.

Why do moms spend their whole pregnancy preparing for the birth, and giving very little thought on how to care for a baby. In fact far more time is spent focusing on the birth than even on the pregnancy itself. The same thing is true of marriages -its all about the wedding, almost no one plans for the actual marriage.

The information is out there, if you have questions get the answers. If moms bothered to know that powdered infant formula is NOT sterile and is unsafe then formula companies would make it sterile, they have the technology but since moms don’t know they won’t make formula more expensive.

Certainly the industry that makes bottles and the gazillions of nipples that you are going to go through as they wear out, or to find one your baby is going to take isn’t going to mention that its not the best feeding method. Paladais and other feeding cups do not wear out as frequently. Of course you can’t prop a feeding cup using a bottle sling, stuffed toy, or other device.

Maybe moms shouldn’t be required to know about casein/whey ratios, healthy fats for babies, calorie counts, etc. But you can’t expect the government to make all your healthy eating choices for you -not at any age. And certainly there is no “one rule fits all” for babies.