Extended bottle feeding linked to weight?

Today in the Journal of Pediatrics, scientists report that children who are regularly using a bottle at age two are more likely to be obese when they’re preparing for kindergarten.

The study used data on 6,750 U.S. babies born in 2001. They found that those who were still using a bottle at age two were 33 percent more likely to be obese at age five and a half — after adjusting for breast/formula, mom’s body weight, family income, TV time, birth weight and more.

Pediatricians generally recommend weaning from a bottle at 12 months, but according to this research, many parents don’t adhere to that advice.

Here’s the percentage of toddlers still be bottle fed at age two, and why some experts think they could be gaining more weight:

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Does she look incompetent to you?

Three separate studies have confirmed that “mothers who breastfeed are widely viewed as less competent than otherwise identical females,” as published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Additionally, one of the studies found that “breastfeeding is a handicap for women hoping to be hired for a job.”  I wasn’t entirely shocked by that last statement since an anti-mother bias still exists in the workplace – that is until I read that a woman set to give her child a bath was perceived more favorably than a woman about to breastfeed, implying that “it isn’t parenthood per se that makes (women) less desirable as an employee,” but breastfeeding specifically.

Psychologist Jessi L. Smith of Montana State University who led the study says that both men and women view breastfeeding mothers as less capable. “Importantly, we did not find evidence that gender of the participant influenced perceptions of the breastfeeding mother,” she says. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to an avid Babble reader that women are pitted against each other when it comes to breastfeeding and breastfeeding support.  As you know, Michele Bachmann – who says she breastfed her children – recently slammed Michelle Obama’s support of tax write-offs for breast pumps.  Even mothers who agree “breast is best” can’t come to a consensus about how it should be handled in the workplace. Continue reading »

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Oh, is that a baby on my breast? I didn't notice.

Babble has two fascinating features up this week that sit firmly on either side of the breast vs. bottle debate. One, a slideshow of celebs breastfeeding in public, features photos of famous moms like Maggie Gyllenhaal, Salma Hayek and Gwen Stefani gleefully feeding infants.  (In Hayek’s case, she was photographed feeding someone else’s infant – one of the 10 biggest breastfeeding controversies, according to TIME magazine.)  The other is an opinion piece by Being Pregnant blogger Monica Bielanko on why she won’t apologize for formula feeding.  Titled “Not Breastfeeding is Fine,” Bielanko’s central argument is that because of her strict Mormon upbringing, she has “always associated nudity, especially breasts, with sexuality and then sin and shame,” a correlation that makes breastfeeding difficult, to say the least.

Bielanko has essentially been told to get over her insecurities by breastfeeding zealots who seem to be completely callous toward her emotional and psychological issues yet obsessed with the health of her baby – a child they don’t and will never know.  I think it’s one thing to advocate breastfeeding in general, but to attack specific individuals for their choices is a bit much.  (Those same breastfeeding advocates willing to attack an individual for choosing to bottle-feed would likely never attack a gay person for choosing to be in a same-sex relationship.)  Beyond a certain point, these extreme lactivists are not trying to help anyone, but rather are choosing to attack other mothers in an attempt to legitimize their choices amidst a culture that can seem to be anti-breastfeeding.

Then there are those, like most of the celebrity moms profiled in Babble’s Celebs Who Breastfeed in Public feature, who are simply trying to lead by example.  To make it known to the world at large that they are breastfeeding their children, perhaps in the hope that a new mother on the fence about breastfeeding will feel inspired, or maybe just because an essential element of breastfeeding is doing it on demand no matter where you are, even if you’re in the park/at a store/on the cover of a magazine.  (Don’t you hate it when your baby bugs you for food while you’re trying to pose for Vogue?  Kids!)

Michelle Obama has taken heat from conservative women for announcing last week that she supports the mantra, “Breast is Best,” in the same way that Bielanko (and many others like her) have been ridiculed by La Leche Leaguers.  Bielanko says, “Other women breastfeeding in public make me feel uncomfortable, too, even though I think it’s good that they’re doing it.  I can’t help that reaction, it just happens.  I can disguise my discomfort, I can smile at the breastfeeding mothers, and I do, but I can’t control how I feel on the inside.”  She’s certainly not alone.  Kim Kardashian famously tweeted about how gross she thought it was that a mother seated near her was breastfeeding in an LA restaurant (though I doubt K.K. made any effort to hide her feelings).  As an aside to the First Lady’s new focus on breastfeeding, the Surgeon General has made it clear that “No mother should be made to feel guilty if she cannot or chooses not to breastfeed.”  Yet clearly Bielanko does feel guilty, and some would suggest she should. Continue reading »

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Is sharing breastmilk a good idea?

For several months last fall, the chest freezer in my basement became an unofficial milk bank. Four different women I knew had babies. Two were in NICU, one had other issues that interfered with nursing.

So the mamas pumped milk. They pumped gallons of milk. One pumped so much milk the hospital where her daughter was staying couldn’t store it all anymore.

My freezer started to fill up with little bags of breastmilk. I’d have been a perfect candidate for Eats On Feets, an international movement to help new moms share breast milk.

A Canadian mom recently started several chapters of Eats on Feets in Canada. The group uses Facebook to connect moms with low milk supply to moms with a milk surplus stashed in their freezers.

This sounds like a huge win for everyone involved. There’s just one problem. Health care professionals are warning that the practice could be dangerous for babies.

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Are you paying attention?

Mammals are called mammals because our newborns nurse.  Humans babies, though, don’t just latch on and eat up.  No. They stop and look around, sigh, and the nursing mom will stroke the baby’s cheek or jiggle him or remind him of what he’s doing and the baby will start to nurse again.

I designate this nursing baby as a “him” because that’s pretty much my son nursed — whether on my breast or when we gave him a supplemental bottle.  My daughter, she was usually more focused when it came to meal time, no matter its format. Either way, by getting held close and attended to in feeding, psychologists suggest my kids were learning the basics of turn taking, a basic element of child development the foundation of conversation.

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Bottle feeders are tired too.

When my oldest was born, I tried very briefly to breastfeed.  I probably would have succeeded had I stuck with it, but I was so exhausted and she was so hungry that I gave up within a few weeks.

Bear in mind that this was in 1982 and I was an overwhelmed 17-year-old.  Breastfeeding didn’t enjoy the high profile that it does today and my desire to do it had nothing to do with the health benefits.  I wanted to breastfeed because it was free.

But my need for sleep quickly overcame my financial concerns and I gave up.  She got a bottle and I got more sleep.  Or did I?

According to new research out of  West Virginia University, the idea that bottle feeding moms get more sleep than breastfeeding moms is nothing more than a myth. In fact, not only are both getting the same amount of sleep, they are getting plenty of it. Continue reading »

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Photo Credit : istockphoto.com

With all the breast vs. bottle debate in our society, and among our mothering circles today, a new debate over donated breast milk has emerged onto center stage.

While it is nothing new that breast milk is considered best for babies, there are mothers out there who cannot produce milk, or may have a medical condition in which their breast milk may not be safe for their baby. Then there is children maybe not being able to handle breast milk like I went through with my second son.

In recent months I have seen this debated on public forums, and in most cases described as gross, or disgusting with some mothers going as far as calling it unsanitary. But a recent news article out of Connecticut shows donor breast milk the norm for babies in one of Connecticut’s leading children hospitals. Continue reading »

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