The Skeptical OB

We live in the age of coronavirus and it’s time to ask a critical, but uncomfortable question: should breastfeeding mothers switch their babies to exclusive formula feeding? It should be up to individual mothers, but here are some important factors to keep in mind. 1. Without a diversity of sources, babies are excruciatingly vulnerable when […]

Nearly all studies on the purported benefits of breastfeeding over formula feeding are meaningless. Why? Because the choice of the comparison groups is beset by a disabling flaw. Nearly all breastfeeding studies compare two groups of infants, those that have been breastfed and those that have not. Babies who were breastfed but failed to thrive […]

It’s the central obsession at the heart of contemporary breastfeeding promotion, and it serves as a justification for the shaming tactics so beloved of lactivists. It’s the fantasy that the formula industry is waging war on breastfeeding. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=””]Formula was not created as a substitute for breastfeeding; it was created to replace the […]

I’ve been writing for years about how the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is harming babies. The incidence of severe dehydration, sometimes accompanied by permanent brain damage, is rising. Also rising is the incidence of skull fractures of babies who fall from their mothers’ hospital beds and smothering deaths when mothers fall asleep while feeding or […]

For years I’ve been pointing out that the promised benefits of breastfeeding have failed to materialize. Although lactation professionals like Melissa Bartick, MD have continued to write papers modeling the purported savings of both lives and healthcare dollars, with the exception of extremely premature babies neither she nor anyone else can point to any lives […]

Yesterday I wrote about the ways in which the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) is hurting babies (Help me stop the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative before more mothers and babies are harmed). It appears that the incidence of severe dehydration, sometimes accompanied by permanent brain damage, is rising as well as the incidence of skull […]

It’s the central conceit at the heart of contemporary lactivism, and it serves as a justification for the shaming tactics so beloved of lactivists. It’s the fantasy that the formula industry has been waging war on breastfeeding and it’s a lie. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”#AA0F0B” class=”” size=””]Women use formula for the same reason that […]

Lactivists are constantly waxing poetic about the lifesaving benefits of breastmilk. The truth is rather different. If infant formula disappeared tomorrow from the United States, tens of thousands of babies would die; if breastmilk disappeared tomorrow, not a single term baby would die from properly prepared infant formula. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”#88BD4B” class=”” size=””]Infant […]

Breastfeeding rates have risen dramatically over the past 50 years and NONE of the predicted benefits for infant health have come to pass. Why not? Because breastfeeding is SOCIALLY patterned (breastfeeding is closely associated with higher socio-economic status) and most of the purported benefits of breastfeeding are actually benefits of maternal wealth, education and access […]

‘Breast is Best’ or ‘Fed is Best’? A Study of Concessive Relations in the Debate on Methods of Infant Feeding is a fascinating new paper about the rival claims of the Breast Is Best vs. Fed Is Best movements. The paper was written by linguistics professor, Giorgia Riboni. As a linguist, she analyzes the claims […]