The Alpha Parent Arrogant is at it again.
The Alpha Parent Arrogant is a sanctimommy extraordinaire: obnoxious, self-congratulatory and anxious to make all the other mommies feel bad.
The best part about the Alpha Parent Arrogant is that she is always ready to share her wisdom with the rest of us. She doesn’t hesitate to point out the deficiencies of your parenting practices (in other words, how your parenting choices differ from hers). She doesn’t hesitate to make dire predictions about what the future holds for your children. She never hesitates to bemoan your lack of understanding of the key issues of childrearing, letting you know that you are not as “educated” as she is.
But let’s give credit where credit is due. The Alpha Parent Arrogant has surpassed herself this time.
Her new meme:
Breastfeeding is like Marriage. You can’t cheat on it and expect it to work.
That’s pretty much a work of art. It manages is to be simultaneously offensive, guilt inducing, inaccurate and self-aggrandizing. But I’ve gotten use to expecting nothing less from the Alpha Parent Arrogant.
Here’s a thought, Alpha Parent Arrogant:
Giving advice is like marriage. You can’t shame your partner and expect it to work.
And here’s another:
Blogging is like Marriage. You can’t be a narcissist and expect it to work.
Apparently the Alpha Parent Arrogant is shocked, shocked by the blistering contempt with which her little aphorism was greeted.
And in her typically offensive way, she tries to defend her obnoxiousness.
For anyone that still has their panties up their crack with regard to the “Breastfeeding is like Marriage” meme I posted yesterday, here is my defense posted on The Leaky Boob
Charming, no?
It motivates mothers to trust their bodies, to re-evaluate any urge to supplement.
Formula feeding≠infidelity. (DO I SERIOUSLY NEED TO SAY THAT?)
You’re missing the point. This meme has nothing whatsoever to do with formula feeders in the main. It’s about mothers who are trying to breastfeed. Cheating= harms marriage as supplementing= harms supply. The meme is a simple cause and effect comparison. It says nothing of shame or morality. It compares the stress of cheating on a relationship to the stress of supplementing on your supply.
Here’s the technical term for this “explanation.” It’s bullshit!
C’mon, Alpha Parent Arrogant. Surely you can do better than the classic defense of the passive-aggressive narcissist: “Who me? I didn’t intend to hurt you. You just took my obnoxious, self aggrandizing attempt to denigrate you the wrong way!!
I can understand why this picture enraged so many people. Most women supplement, so the majority of women looking at this will have been triggered in some way, great or small. In the MAJORITY of cases, supplementation leads to a complete switch to formula. These are FACTS and I hasten to add, their truth is what frustrates people most. But if you’re offended because you’ve supplemented, that’s your beef. The meme isn’t aimed at you. It is aimed at the pregnant mother or the new mother getting to grips with breastfeeding who can heed the warning.
In other words, if you’re insulted, it’s because you deserve to be insulted.
No, Alpha Parent Arrogant, no one is frustrated by the truth. They are simply appalled by your viciousness.
Here’s the way I see it, Alpha Parent Arrogant:
You are nothing but a garden variety jerk.
I was surprised and curious for your article topic Blogging is like marriage … And your article intrigued by what is shown. Thank you for sharing this with us.
What a nasty person she is. I’m sure she’d call me selfish because I think my baby-to-be is better off with formula than a mother who can’t even sleep when the baby sleeps and that feels awful from no medications, or being exposed to 4-5 medications in breast milk.
I wanted nothing more to breastfeed my son until he wasn’t thriving on it. Then you know what I did, I gave him formula so he could live because no matter what I did my milk wasn’t enough for him. I didn’t end up supplementing because well that is a lot of work, but it is not the same as cheating by any means. You have to work hard to make it work and I admire moms who could do that. It’s admirable doing what needs to be done to keep your baby thriving. There’s nothing admirable about cheating on your spouse.
” I gave him formula so he could live”
THIS.
same.
I am having the funnest time on the comments. Wooooweee the sanctimommies are out and about. “You must breastfed yur kids! I made it work! Everyone can! Blah blah blah!”
I hate these broad statements about breastfeeding! I “cheat” on breastfeeding every day with my 8 month old and have been “cheating” on it for months. He gets 2 bottles of formula a day, sometimes more, sometimes less, and my supple is still great! I can pump 5 to 6 ounces plus in 10 to 15 minutes! A good friend of mine had serious supple issues at birth so she gave her baby mostly formula while she work to build her supply through pumping. By 3 months she had gotten her supply up so much she hardly needed to use the formula anymore!
I seriously can’t even make myself care about these obnoxious, uneducated bloggers who want to pontificate about and judge my parenting choices anymore. With my first child, every criticism stung. I took my inability to breastfeeding as some deep, personal failure. I tried so hard to exclusively breastfeed that my child ended up labeled failure to thrive at two weeks. Now, with my third, it’s hard to believe that I let people who don’t know me or my medical history hold such power over how I feel. Now back to feeding my six week old (formula! the horror!) as my older girls watch Power Rangers (gender confusion!) and eat their non- organic breakfast cereal (toxins! GMOs!)
can I be your BFF? (love the Power Rangers!)
But I thought breastfeeding was easy, cheap and fun. Why would anyone cheat?
And does that make my breastpump a dildo?
COFFEE SPITTAKE FTW
“Does that make my breastpump a dildo” is the funniest line i have read in a long time. I must remember to give you credit when I repeat it.
I have committed my very best trolling in recent memory on that thread. Goodness.
The meme shows exactly what The Alpha Parent thinks is most important: Breastfeeding, not having a well fed child who is growing properly. For her, breastfeeding is the ultimate goal. For parents and healthcare providers for whom having a well fed child who is growing properly is the ultimate goal, breastfeeding is useful only as it a tool that helps achieve that goal. If exclusive breastfeeding is all that is required – great. If not, formula is another tool to help the child grow properly.
That is the most disgusting meme and defense of said meme I’ve ever seen. Middle child of mine was EBF, the only one not supplemented and she was the one I lost total supply on and nearly starved to death. Apparently, she’s wrong.
I’m cheating a little bit myself by not reading the thread (sorry!), but speaking as a veteran breastfeeder (I fed two babies expressed milk for a year each and am 8.5 months into direct feeding my third child), it takes a loooong looong time for some of us to dry up once we have a well-established supply.
What’s this obsession with expression? Sorry, but can’t you just use a pump?
Expressing milk can be done either by hand or with a pump.
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Bottle_feeding_with_expressed_breast_milk
Sorry, but in common lingo, “expressed” reeks of holier-than-thou, I did it BY HAND while you loser moms used a pump judgement.
If someone used a pump, why not just say “I fed two babies PUMPED MILK”?
It’s expressed by means of a pump. What is so difficult to understand?
In common lingo, people typically say “pumped” or “HAND expressed”, There is a certain type of mom who brags about “HAND expressing” her milk, as if those of us who pumped are a lesser species feeding our babies a lesser product.
Sorry if I’m misreading this here, but it does read as if AmyP might be trying to brag about her HAND expression of milk. Otherwise, why not just say pumped?
Really, I’ve never heard a pumping mom say she was “expressing” milk. They all say “pumping” when a pump is involved.
For those of you have haven’t had the pleasure of having lactivists pressure you to hand-express, you missed out on a whole lot of pain (even if you do it right!) and a whole lot of nothing, since it is woefully ineffective. I’ll take the Medela Symphony any day–and the lactivists can shove their hand expression where the sun don’t shine. That is, if it ain’t all torn up from their homebirth.
I think that you are mistaken about what express means in “common lingo.” Not to say that there aren’t a few women who do choose to drop that in there deliberately, but “expressing” milk is used quite frequently without layers of lactivist meaning.
Like I posted above, every single time I have heard the word “expressed” in everyday use, it’s been out of the mouth of lactivists and prefaced by the word “HAND”. I’m surprised that no one else finds the obsession with hand-expression bizarre–let alone the way lactation consultants push it as the be-all and end-all for extracting breast milk when baby can’t.
But if “expressed” only refers to doing it by hand, why would they need to label it as “hand expressed”? The reason they do it is to distinguish from pump expressed milk.
If milk expression were only done by hand, no one would have to clarify it is “hand expressed.” That would be redundant.
The fact that is what they say tells you that you can express milk in other ways.
I really think you may be reading too much into the word choice of “expressed” vs “pumped”. They really are used interchangeably by many women. I actually have better results by hand then with my Medela pump, but I usually still say I am “pumping”. The word choice really is irrelevant and made without any sinister holier than thou subtext. I’m sure AmyP was just trying to say that she bottle fed breast milk without any value judgement on the best way to get said milk into the bottle.
And yeah, nothing inherently sanctimommy about hand pumping. It just works better for some of us, especially if pumping isn’t an everyday thing.
There is nothing inherently sanctimommy about vaginal childbirth without an epidural, but many women who go that route *are* sanctimommies about it. They are the same type of women who brag about HAND-expressing their breast milk.
In both cases, these women are pathetic and I feel sorry for them. Needlessly inflicting pain on themselves with the mistaken notion that it’s better for baby and they are a better mom because of it.
To be sure, there are a select few women who do better with epidural-free vaginal birth, just like there are women who do better with HAND-expressing their breast milk. In both cases, they are few and far between.
Because “expressed” is technically correct.
When we were in the hospital with our first, we were feeding him expressed breast milk with a syringe. It was recorded as EBM (expressed breast milk). And it was obtained with a pump.
Dunno. I have never heard the term “expressed” used in common lingo except when prefaced by the word “HAND”. Thank the self-righteous lactivists for that. Because, you know, those magical sparkly unicorns only come out if your baby latches right, or you torture yourself with laborious, carpal-tunnel inducing HAND-expression.
And Bofa, did you really go around telling your friends you fed your baby “expressed” milk?
Why would I bother telling my friends about it? What’s it to them? That’s a lactivist thing to do.
Although for the daycare, it was described as EBM as well.
Trying to see if anyone has ever used the term “expressed” in everyday language. At work, it’s called a “pumping room” (if you’re lucky enough to have one, not an “expression room”. The awesome hands-free bra a friend lent me was called a “pumping” bra, not an “expression” bra.
I’m pretty far from a lactivist (I combo fed and couldn’t care less how people fed their babies) but me and my mom friends have certainly talked about things. Like, “Do you have a space at work to pump?” or me telling a story s about me pumping while interviewing a source by phone and only later wondering if he heard the pump.
I don’t know. If you pump, it comes up in conversation. Everyone said “pump”…unless they wanted to brag and say they “hand expressed”.
Grow some thick skin and don’t look to be offended. Worlds got enough whiners looking for reasons to be offended. At least you don’t call yourself a doctor and have a blog.
Wow, such vitriol. Who said I was offended? I actually WASN’T offended by the lactivists and their obession with HAND expression. I thought they were ridiculous and felt sorry for them. I got to pump hands-free with a nice pumping bra, surfing the internet, answering emails, reading a book, sometimes just watching Breaking Bad. And it was painless and EASY.
I think it’s idiotic to feel self-righteous for squeazing breast milk out of your breasts with a hand. That’s all I was saying.
I know a fair number of mothers who used “expressed” rather than “pumped” for milk obtained with a pump. This seems to apply most often to those who exclusively used pumped milk rather than breast feeding due to latch issues.
Also, hand expressing wasn’t at all painful when I tried it (except when I had mastitis and used that as a method to relieve a very full and painful breast) and was fairly effective for me. I preferred a hand operated pump because it was easier to hold the bottle in place than with hand expressing. The Medela Symphony was my sister’s pump of choice but the Avent pumps (both the manual and the electric versions) suited me better. I figure that’s why there are lots of choices, including hand expressing.
Lol, not really understanding your anger here! Pumped or expressed mean the exact same thing.
Don’t be some sensetive 😛
Why does anyone here think that I care about the lactivists’ bizarro judgement about the means of extracting breast milk from our bodies?
Yes, I bought into the whole “breast-is-best” BS and felt guilty (briefly) about combo feeding. But I NEVER cared about the means of extracting the milk. NEVER. I think these ladies are ridiculous. I mean really, if you have nothing better to do than sit around squeazing your breast for long periods of time, you need to get a life!
But we are often commenting on this blog about ludicuous lactivists things, and I think the obession with hand-expressing milk is one of them!
Trust my body??? I’d be dead if I did that! As would at least one of my children. Now *that* would impact on breastfeeding.
And, if a close relative of mine had also trusted her body more, both of her kids would be severely malnourished due to low supply that no amount of pumping helped. Those 4 extra IQ points would get totally cancelled out, hmm?!
Yeah, the ol’ “trust your body” adage. I’ve chosen the standard “I trust my doctor with my body” thing…smart move, since without my C-section, I’d also be a dead woman.
My neighbor’s daughter has galactosemia (sp? sorry!) We had our babies days apart and both of us were planning to breastfeed and had both breastfed our older children. Both of us chose for our children to have the standard testing and check-ups. She got a call a few days later and the person asked if she was breastfeeding. She said she was and was told to STOP NOW!!! If she had just trusted her body and her baby, her baby would have died from being fed her own mother’s milk. She had no idea that she and her husband were carriers for the genetics to have a child with this condition. The baby needed a kind of formula that is made from a soybean. Without formula this kid would be dead.
Well, isn’t it obvious? Surely if your neighbour had just continued to trust her body, it would have started to magically produce soy-based breastmilk? But she cheated by misplacing her trust in some medical professional who not only availed themselves of suspicious newfandangled technology (a phone call!? I ask you, what’s wrong with smoke signals or a carrier pigeon?), but were likely also on the payroll of some evil soy formula company (part of a conspiracy to stop more women from breastfeeding – it’s called “play the galactosemia card”). So it’s not surprising that no soy breastmilk flowed from those unhappy boobs, even though they would have been perfectly capable of giving that baby what it needed. If only it hadn’t been for the mother’s lack of trust.
Or something like that. 😉
I refuse to give that woman traffic. Few can rise to such levels of ignorance and self-absorption.
“You are nothing but a garden variety jerk.”
Couldn’t agree more.
Honestly, based on her response there and on the Facebook page, she just sounds like a complete moron to me. I kind of think maybe extremism and lack of mental capacity go hand in hand. Why so many people are following her I cannot begin to understand.
Because they have this type of mental capacity themselves:
Hope Jordan: Because you hate breast pumps you gave your child an inferior, artificial, manufactured substance? That screams selfish to me.
Her credentials suggest she’s smart enough, which suggests the ignorance is feigned. Possibly mirroring her followers.
Because, basically, there are a LOT of unintelligent people in the world. Even though they have managed to learn how to use computers
It is all part of what I call Modern Luddism. Religion had all the answers, oh, wait a minute, religion DOESN’T have all the answers. Science does. So let’s be scientific. Wait, science promised, but hasn’t delivered on everything [any more than religion has]. Must reject science for letting us all down. What, after all, did people do in the beginning? Embrace the mumbo-jumbo! [Evidence? Homo sapiens survived!]
I spent 15 minutes in line at a pharmacy yesterday listening to a woman demand “natural” vitamins because “synthetic” vitamins don’t work. She actually needed antibiotics but they, of course, were entirely “alien to her metabolism” and could only do her harm.
This attitude permeates more and more of people’s thinking every year, I fear, among the “educated” classes [all those years working for a degree and what has it done for me? Zilch! Try magic.]
Seriously?!?! I am an obstetrician. I breastfed for a year, basically because I had no supply problems, couldn’t be bothered to sterilise everything and didn’t want to spend a fortune in formula. I continued when I restarted work until my daughter was old enough for cow’s milk. She pretty much drank from a beaker from four months and never took to having a dummy (US: pacifier). Also, I had a vaginal delivery (with an early epidural because I’m not daft and realise that you don’t have to suffer through pain in the 21st century).
Little did I know that I could start writing a blog about how great a mother I was! Some of us are too busy providing for our families, actually looking after them and still go to work (thereby also helping the economy). I hate Santimommies who sit at home giving everyone else advice about how to bring up THEIR children and think that their opinions are based on more knowledge than PROFESSIONALS. It’s as offensive as an unrealistic, copied-and-pasted birth plan brought to a Labour Ward and presenting it to an obstetrician in an emergency.
Alpha Parent needs to realise that giving advice to new mums without ANY qualifications = being a Bridezilla at a wedding.
Worse a bridezilla by proxy as its not her own actions or events that she’s throwing a hissy fit over.
Fortunately my husband doesn’t read this blog. He totally would want to feed our next kid out of a beaker. (Okay i sort of do too.)
Confesson: I have a beaker mug
Isn’t a beaker a type of mug in the UK? I’m getting confused as to whether people are talking about a cup or a lab instrument.
Stupid American strikes again! Thanks for the clarification. Nothing wrong with cups, but i like my mental image of a baby drinking from a laboratory container.
Easy in Oz – it’s a ”sippy cup”
Same here, Sue! (By the way, i’m the stupid American, not Clarissa, in case anyone was confused by that comment.)
Not sure if anyone else was confused (maybe the down voter) but, as far as I’m concerned no worries,I know it wasn’t directed at me. I am a stupid American though 🙂 I just happen to haven to have picked up a few British terms through a combination of British TV, an internship in London and a DH that hails from a former colony where people still use a fair amount of British lingo.
That is in no way surprising.
People who want to give unsolicited, overbearing and obnoxious advice on the internet should be required to go to a fast food restaurant, stand at the counter and tell patrons: Don’t you KNOW you are headed for a life of heart disease and diabetes? Do you have any idea what’s IN that burger!? You know, diets are like cheating on your spouse—do it once and it’s over! Why are you falling for the sales pitches of Big Fast Food? You should really educate yourself about nutrition.” If they can’t stomach the type of response I’m betting they’d get in person, they have no right to hide behind a computer screen and dole out their superior wisdom to us lesser mortals.
OT, but my sister just forwarded me this link, from a midwifery practice she is emphatically NOT considering: http://www.gwdocs.com/midwifery-services/nutritional-guidelines
I love the way the midwives take care to start out by telling prospective patients that if anything goes wrong, it’s because they didn’t follow this ludicrous diet well enough.
I know. I can’t stand they are affiliated with GWU, a teaching hospital. Why do the docs stand for it?
This is from another part of their website:
“For more information, we encourage you to watch The Business of Being Born
PUSHED is a great book to consider
Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth is our top pick for pregnancy and birth advice.”
Trifecta!
“Nutrition is the single most important determinant of a healthy pregnancy.” Uh, WUT?!?!?!? They have got to be kidding. (unfortunately I don’t think they are). More important than oh, say, mom’s basic health, or whether mom is physically safe, or whether mom is smoking or drinking alcohol, or family genetics. Sigh. I did not bother to read any further.
But you missed the exhortation to drink fresh water! Whatever that means in this age of metropolitan utilities.
No stale water! It’s bad for babies!
That must have been my problem: stale water! Thank the goddess that I have these idiots to explain that to me.
Nah, it was probably those useless prenatal vitamins that did it! (For some reason, the part about just taking a regular vitamin if you feel you HAVE TO made me mad. There is a reason folic acid is higher in those prenatal vitamins)
And that vitamin A is lower…
Dammit!! If only I’d known!! Surely I’d not have had pre-term labor with my twins if I’d had better nutrition. I didn’t cut out all white foods. I didn’t know. Now I only have myself to blame if they suffer any ill effects from being born at 36wks.
“Nutrition is the single most important determinant of a healthy pregnancy.” Oh great! My son is doomed! I’ve had terrible morning (ie: all day sickness) for most of my pregnancy thus far and have been living off basically nothing but bland carbohydrates for the past 4+ months. I’ve seen multiple
doctors (in my practice they rotate) and they’ve all told me the same thing “eat what you can, just try to get enough calories and don’t worry about nutrition until you start feeling better”. Now I find out they LIED to me and that nutrition is the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IN PREGNANCY!!!!! Oh well, I was planning to get an epidural and formula feed so I guess he’s kind of a lost cause anyway…..
I have to amend my post, out of curiosity I actually read the midwive’s page and they said almost the same thing as my doctors. “Don’t worry if you can only eat white foods during your first trimester” Well, I’m assuming they mean white foods that aren’t refined sugar, white bread, pasta or white rice because God knows what might happen if you allow yourself to eat one of those?! Sigh, I guess I could still have milk and cauliflower. I wonder if a cauliflower smoothie would be any good? Oh wait I feel the morning sickness coming back on…..
No, they do mean foods like white bread and pasta. That’s why they said, “Don’t worry…”
I know. I was being sarcastic 🙂 My point was what Sue said.
I think you’re being too kind, Clarissa – they only say the ‘don’t worry’ bit after they’ve given the tirade about how no single morsel of junk food must pass your lips, and that they consider wholemeal bread to be ”processed””. Well – ALL bread is processed – it doesn’t grow on trees!
The assertions they make are unreferenced, and many are wrong – including the water volume, distinguishing refined sugar from honey or maple syrup, eliminating POTATOES?? (I’m sure my grandmother would have recognised potatoes as food).
Then read the list of absolute requirements for receiving their service, including:
They must be in be in excellent health
• They must follow our nutritional and exercise guidelines
• They must be committed to natural birth
• They must have additional labor support and partners that are engaged in the pregnancy and natural childbirth process
• They must embrace our model of care in a university-based learning environment
• They must assume the risk inherent in birth with us
• They must be committed to waiting for labor to begin on its own
Patronising much?
Imagine if a group of OBs announced publicly that they refused to take you on unless you were in excellent healthy and agreed to do everything exactly as they said!
Sue, I hate it worse then patronizing.
IMO, it’s a screening tool, intended to eliminate from their care:
– Single women.
– Women with ambivalent or abusive partners.
– Low-income women.
– The vast majority of pregnant teenagers (I suppose, if you were really well off, and your parents were really gung ho, you could manage it).
– Women with any pre-existing health condition whatsoever, possibly including advanced maternal age.
If every single patient through your door is a highly educated, high-income, adequately insured, securely partnered adult, who is safe at home and has no existing health problems, between the ages of 27 and 36 (and you risk them out if problems develop), you can, indeed, expect excellent outcomes in your practice. If you fix it so that only that population even calls you, you can claim that you don’t weed out patients on the basis of privilege, because your website has done that for you.
Real OBs have a broader client base.
In all honesty they possibly should be risking out those women that don’t have a lot of support networks and need more resources.
They’re a hospital based group of CNMs. They should be able to bring some resources to the table for underprivileged women who want care to maximize the chances of natural birth.
Someone on my Due Date Board had her prenatal care through this group. The food lists are set out as a sort of contract and I remember her asking on the board if anyone else had to sign something like that. She seemed to spend appointments going over food diaries.
But it all blew up at the end. I don’t remember all the details, but she fired her midwife while she was in labor. The had just arrived at the hospital, she was in a lot of pain and her plans for a med-free birth had completely changed. The midwife objected to this, they got into a shouting match. If I remember correctly, she told the midwife it was her birth and she was going to do what she wanted. Then they got into the elevator and told the midwife not to follow. And had a pain-free birth of a healthy baby.
I think your sister made a good decision.
Wow, that is quite the story. I cannot *imagine* how stressful that must have been. My first baby was OP, and labor was far more painful then I anticipated. I have mixed feelings about how it went (the epidural probably saved me a c-section, but the c-section might have been a better idea in the end), but I did get to be in control.
Little sister is due on Christmas, and has found a lovely OB. The NCB crowd would totally disapprove, but lovely OB has already offered to schedule an induction the week of the due date, to relieve any parental worries about going into labor with only skeleton staff at the hospital, or about going overdue and having to pay the annual health insurance deductible twice.
Of course the NCB crowd would disapprove, because this is how they would spin it:
“My OB is totally pressuring me into having an unnecessary induction the week before Christmas so that he doesn’t have to come in to work and can hang out with his family all day and be drunk by 4 in the afternoon. He’s threatening me with getting worse care at the hospital if I don’t and wants to make sure the insurance company covers it so he can make sure he gets all his money to pay for his golf games ZOMG I bet he plays the dead-baby card and guilts me into an unnecessarian too!!1!”
The “eat what your grandmother would consider food” bit gave me a good laugh. My Grandma is from a small town in the Midwest where Jello has its own food group and is served as an accompaniment to a meal and not a dessert. She’s actually asked me “would you prefer Jello salad or lettuce salad with dinner tonight?”
My grandma considered cheesecake to be one of the main food groups.
Sounds like your grandma and I would get along famously.
I was talking to my aunt right after we introduced solids to our older son, which was in the 5 mo area. I asked her when she weened her kids. Oh, she gave them mashed potatoes in the first week, she said. Now, she’s 90 years old, so old enough to great-grandmother to women of childbearing age, but do they really want to rely on her nutrition advice? No offense to Aunt Evy, who is absolutely a wonderful woman, but I don’t think so. We just laughed at how times change.
Yeah about that great grandmothers thing – “Chop wood. Carry water. Hunt and gather. Chase the antelope.”
Riiiiight.
I know a fair bit about my great grandmothers. Only one of them would have had the chance to chase an antelope, and if, by chance, it came up? She preferred firearms.
I should add, isn’t Paula Dean a grandmother? Can we pick what she considers food? (other baggage aside)
my OBGYN pretty much said eat what I can, calories are the most important that I can’t get anywhere else, and the vitamins will take care of a lot of the missing non-calorie things that are important. *gasp* vitamins!
Nutrition is one of the darlings of the CAM crowd – a good diet can apparently substitute for vaccination, cancer therapy, well, anything really.
Yeah, I would think “not smoking crack” would be higher up on the list than “eating all your veggies”.
my poor kid… I’m 5 weeks pregnant and the only thing I can stand to eat is unhealthy food… ugh. food aversions already.
Totally with you.
Pineapple chunks, pear flavoured ice lollies, cheesy white bread baps, baked potatoes with lots of butter and salt and ginger ale was all I had until 16 weeks of pregnancy, because those were the only foods that I could eat without retching.
I still lost more than 10% of my body weight from the puking.
There is no point in trying to eat kale and wheatgrass if it is going to come straight back up again- better a plate of french fries you know will stay down!
I wound up doing the first few months of pregnancy on crackers and mint gum. I am pretty sure french fries would have been better for everyone.
At some point, I need to dig up the “Ode to Cheez-Its” that I wrote when my wife was pregnant with our first.
Please post a YouTube of it.
right now I love anything with CHEESE – macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese, PIZZA… mmm… ice cream… basically dairy is my friend right now. at least it has calcium?
My whole first trimester with DS, all I wanted was pizza. Specifically, pizza from Pizza Hut, with breadsticks. I must’ve spent a few hundred dollars on pizza on those 14 weeks. The end result? My son eats the crust and leaves the pizza on his plate. Perhaps I overdosed him on meatlover’s while he was in utero?
I hate this all-or-nothing attitude about breastfeeding, as if you have to give 100% breast milk 100% of the time in order for it to count. It’s like saying I’m cheating at dinner if I eat beef instead of the usual chicken. It makes no sense.
No kidding. I love breastfeeding. I hate pumping. Baby nurses when I’m home and gets formula otherwise. It’s great, and my supply did actually adjust around my working hours.
You obviously are a person of sense and flexibility. I have great hopes for your offspring, because, you see, it’s not about the intrinsic qualities of the milk but rather because of the qualities of your personality which allow you to make necessary compromises. Childrearing is all about compromises, unless you want to have highly neurotic kids because you are rigid.
Evidently, there’s no dose-response relationship for breastmilk. Who knew?
The all-or-nothing attitude makes little sense for almost everything in life.
Opinion… I think “Arrogant Parent” is smoother…
She is also an Arrogant Auntie-she started breastfeeding her niece too, after the niece watched her nurse the baby and wanted to know what she was doing.
Are you kidding me? Holy lack of boundaries! How did the child’s parents feel about that?
“My niece, Ivry, when she saw how I fed Kye, started wanting to nurse as well. Keep in mind, she was only breastfed a short while before her mom switched to formula. Since she showed interest, even after being told no three times, I called her mom, who lives in Virginia. She said she had no problem with it. Once that was done, I asked her dad (my best friend & roommate). “You sure her mom doesn’t care?” he asked. Once he was assured, I had the green light.
At first, Ivry would pretend to nurse. She didn’t know how to latch or that in order to get milk, she’d have to suckle. It took months of me being a pillow and toy before she ever got the hang of it! Then one night, she did, and got a real good taste of “bobo milk.” She loved it!
I wish I could say she consistently remembered how it worked after that, but sometimes she went right back to her pillow and toy version of getting bobo. However, when she nursed properly, she was almost a natural. I had to teach her that gentleness was key – Ivry has a tendency to be rough.”
She nursed her daughter and niece at the same time.
Wowza. Her niece asked three times and she felt it was necessary to spend months teaching her how to latch on again? That is a little off. Not sure how many women would be interested in teaching a toddler how to nurse, especially when said child is not her own. And I would not be okay with another woman nursing my child.
My two older kids had a lot of questions about breastfeeding after their younger sibling was born. I answered their questions, but I was not interested in having them having a second go at it.
Some people just take themselves and their parenting WAY too seriously. Let’s all get together when our kids are 30 (or so) and see how everything turns out… and let that be the measure of our parenting.
I’ll bring the wine.
Great idea – someone should do a doco that follows the children of parent-zillas at intervals, into adulthood – like that UK 7-up series. It would be fascinating!
It certainly would. One of the things that is so fascinating about that programme is how difficult it is to predict the adult from the 7 year old. Anyone know anything about the children of the “experts”?
Given the reverence for all things natural, the nature part of nature/nurture doesn’t get much attention – or are we just meant to assume they all have wonderful genes anyway? And do they credit their own amazing wonderfulness to their mothers?
I vaguely remembered one story about a famous expert on children who had a disastrous relationship with her daughter – I thought it was a Freud, but couldn’t find it, so I looked up Bowlby instead. He had an upper class upbringing: saw his mother for one hour a day, greatly attached to his nanny who left when he was four, sent to boarding school at 7. Did quite well as an adult!
If you have any parent actually caring about what you are fed, you’ve got a good start in life.
My kid never had formula (ever), and she’s a smart little monkey…So smart in fact that she worked out how to push a step stool across the kitchen, climb onto the counter, unhook the “childproof” catch and get into the snack cupboard at a surprisingly early age.
She’s clearly making up for a perceived lack in junk food!
You realise fairly early on that what you’d like your kid to eat and what your kid will actually eat may not be the same thing.
My advice is to roll with it (and re-stock the snack cupboard).
I have three adult children. One was entirely breastfed. One was entirely bottlefed, and one got both me and a bottle. They are all happy, healthy, and successful.
Do you like champagne?
Wow. Seriously dumb stuff.
You know, several years ago, my family and I experienced some vicious harassment from a home-birthing self-proclaimed all-things-natural ‘expert.’ She even identified herself as a ‘doctor’ given that there is no regulation of that title in our state. A complete narcissist. Even in her pictures with her poor children, she’d identify herself as ‘Dr. xyz.’ I birthed my children via C-section and she took every opportunity to be a juvenile catty mean girl under the guise of being empowered. I only realized later that she was predatory. She could smell a vulnerable post-partum mother from miles away. She could sense the insecurity amidst the hormonal adjustments and the new mother self-doubt. Like a parasite, she attached herself to our supposed ‘friendship’ because she knew she could do, just what Dr. Amy pointed out. Be an arrogant self-aggrandizing person who only feels better about themselves by putting others that they perceive as vulnerable, down in a merciless way and projecting their personal issues onto others. I always had a nagging doubt about her. Something was always off and I found myself avoiding her. I eventually had to seek a PPO against this woman after she sent me an unsolicited letter claiming that I ‘cut my babies out of my stomach for drugs and fun,’ amidst other personal attacks on my family. In the end, I believe all of her home and water birthing tall tales were a façade for a woman with some actual personal bitterness about the messy aftermath of her births, some MAJOR mental issues; things she’d never dare share. She was/is a bully. Mean girls just grow up to be Mean mothers. God help their poor children.
WOW. Thats crazy.
You MUST be in Oregon….
Nope! Not Oregon. Midwest. Nut-jobs are EVERYWHERE!
God help those who judge others so harshly, the mirror may someday be just as unkind. The caricature you just drew sure does sound crazy, but you sound as bad if not worse, positively gloating over how much better you are than her. I don’t doubt that you let her know that too. Your pity for her children and name calling reflect badly on you.
BS. Calling someone out on their bad behavior is not on and of itself bad behavior. I don’t see her being s sanctimommy in her comment!
My relating of this experience here is JUST the tip of the ice-berg. I have the police reports and court documents to prove it. I’m saying that there are some very mentally unstable women out there who have been sucked into a very real ‘Cult’ of ‘natural childbirth etc.’ They can be dangerous and no woman need endure their abuse. Seek legal action!
I just read this and saw a mirror image of what happened when I got into a private facebook discussion about birth. After I had sent some links from this site, I got a dose of condescending name calling, exagerations, and vitriol not at all unlike what you just wrote. There were no court documents, but I did get blocked. I didn’t make any personal attacks. The worst thing I said was- if I had used a birth center, my baby wouldn’t have lived. My only point is – getting arrogant in response doesn’t help anyone.
Greta:
Getting blocked on FB =/= behavior that proves in a court of law that you need a PPO (ie, the person will be arrested if the contact you).
Perspective, you’re missing it.
I’m sorry you feel that way, Greta. You’re welcome to handle your rather tame situation however you’d like. My situation was one that involved the police. As I said, a dangerous person. Please don’t insert yourself into my scenario. I believe that my response to the situation was perfectly appropriate given the stress and trauma and sliming my family endured at the hands of a deranged and out of control individual who falsely represented herself as a ‘Doctor.’ The judgment was in my favor. I don’t tolerate cat fight attacks on myself, my husband or my children. I take it where it belongs: Court.
I know it isn’t a fair comparison, but it is an interesting one: there are people out there who don’t think that Dr. Tuteur is a real doctor and that she is guilty of cat fight attacks and that she should be taken to court for abuse. This is all nonsense, of course, but the parallels with your story, the whole “dr” thing, and my experience with friends with religion like beliefs about birth made your story ring some bells for me. I think mocking willful ignorance is a-okay, but I don’t like shaming people for mental illness and I saw you doing that.
Stop projecting, Greta.
Projecting, empathizing, potatoh, potahto. http://www.afterpsychotherapy.com/why-empathy-fails/
Greta, I may have struck a nerve with you. I’m not sure if you’re a doormat or someone who accepts abuse from others, OR someone who abuses others, but, if you do any of the above, I advise you to seek help.
there may have been abuse in your case, but in my case, I was quite annoyed to see someone insult me, my sanity, my family, etc.. and freak out over a few links in a facebook inbox which a person doesn’t even have to look at if they don’t want to. The birth center/cult she was using had had a recent death that she didn’t know about and I linked to a comment about it. Is that abuse?
I am an obsessive collector of information, but I am not crazy or malicious. I was unjustly accused of insanity and abuse after sending some links to this site to a facebook friend’s inbox and sharing why I personally feel so strongly about safety in these things. I was a bit oblivious to overstepping the scope of our conversation, but I didn’t deserve a vitriolic attack. In contrast, if your story is true, and you were in danger of more than just a few unwanted religious pamphlets, that does sound like abuse.
I didn’t get a “gloating” tone at all. Of course, anger comes through as one might expect when describing a situation that ends in a legal Personal Protection Order.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
What a horror-show, Happy Mom! Glad to hear that you kung-fu’d her out of your life, figuratively speaking…
And having read some of the other comments, I will add that I was a contributing member of the “Fed up with natural childbirth” group on Facebook, until the people in charge demanded (in the name of searching out “spies”) that everyone in the group submit a photo of their actual DRIVER’S LICENSE to one of the group admins, to prove they weren’t a sock-puppet. I objected to this requirement (I like to keep a low profile), and I offered to ‘friend’ the group admins on my personal facebook page to prove I was an actual person and not a sock-puppet, but they wouldn’t budge and so I left the group voluntarily. I have no idea if they solved their sock-puppet problem in the end.
I guess what I’m saying is that Mean-Girl-type behavior exists in many factions and the farther you get towards any extreme view, the more likely it becomes, and the more a group tends to tolerates it. I’ve not seen Mean-Girls type behavior here at S.O.B., for what it’s worth, which is why I still participate here.
“I was a contributing member of the “Fed up with natural childbirth” group on Facebook, until the people in charge demanded (in the name of searching out “spies”) that everyone in the group submit a photo of their actual DRIVER’S LICENSE to one of the group admins”
Really? I must have missed that. Never submitted anything and I’m still a part of the group so nothing much must have come from it…
This may well have been the “closed” (or private) Fed Up group… it must have been a couple of years ago now. Or maybe it’s changed since then? Anyway, I picked up the pieces and went on with my life….
I run the public Fed Up group and there are no requirements of any kind.
Maybe this was the private Fed Up group? I don’t know….
We really had no choice with ours. My wife is a petite little 100-pounds-wet lady and she just couldn’t produce enough ever. Our second was the same story. Did she ever go to total formula? Nope. This is just nuts.
How’s the court thing Amy? Did the first appearance go well?
D’oh. Sorry, I really need to scroll more.
I have said it before and will say it again: supplementing saved breastfeeding for me, and the stupid lactation consultant who told me that giving formula will lead to failure can bite me.
I can’t help but think Alpha Parent is a Poe. The extremism is so cartoonish it smacks of Mama Tao.
What a dick. And totally WRONG too. In a few ways
The ability to offer occasional bottles, or supplement, often gets a baby MORE B milk than they would have otherwise got. She has it backwards- the supplementing and occasional bottles are frequently meant to keep BF going. If they weren’t available, there wouldn’t be more BF. There would be a quicker switch to an alternative like cows milk. The supplementing allows longer duration of BF in some cases.
(In other cases, moms realize FF is working, and easier for them, and switch- Oh NOEZ, choices she doesnt like!!!)
Besides a few bottles can help in the beginning, and to keep baby fed if needed. Its like low supply never happens.
What she is REALLY missing is that few American women are with their baby 24/7. This may be because we have partners now, that want to help with baby care, maybe its because of work. Who knows. But EBF REQUIRES mom to be with baby at every meal time, which is just not
the case with a huge majority.
What she is really saying is STAY HOME WITH YOUR BABY AT ALL TIMES. Wow, so progressive.
Out of curiosity, I just skimmed over the front page of her blog…it seems to me that she’s quite obsessed with breastfeeding. I also saw that she referred to herself as “an accomplished breastfeeder.” Well, I just so happen to be a distinguished bottle-feeder. Big fat hairy-ass deal. Will this continue to be the biggest issue of her son or daughter’s life throughout her childhood? In about 7-8 years will my child slam her bookbag on the counter in frustration at night, and scream in my face that she failed her social studies test, because I (gasp) fed her formula, and she would have been smarter had I breastfed her? Seriously, people. Get over yourselves. In the grand scheme of raising children in this day and age, there are bigger fish to fry.
People that have NO other successes focus on the few things they can do. Sadly, BF is often a biological thing. I was able to EBF, but it was because it was so easy and effortless.
And to those who are able to breastfeed their kids with no technical difficulties or supply issues, hey, more power to you. To me, it’s just more important that moms feed their babies in a way that works for THEM. I mean, once the babies grow, then there’s the debate on baby-led-weaning vs. the use of purees, etc. In the end, what matters, is that our kids aren’t going hungry…feeding our kids SOMETHING edible and nutritious is honestly one of the 8 million things we do daily as a parent. Why get all hung up on what everyone else is doing? Why must everyone else’s choices align perfectly with our own?
She has a law degree from a self-described “prestigious” school. Arm-chair head shrinking says she’s self-conscious about not being as professionally successful as her cohort.
I’m an accomplished shitter. Alas, I’ve had a few UTIs, so I guess I’m not an accomplished pisser.
Best. Comment. EVER! I literally laughed out loud.
By the time I found out that my mother had only breast-fed me for a short time, it was too late to fail med school or hand back my post-graduate specialty fellowship, and develop too many hang-ups. In my personal example, it seems that all you really need is to BELIEVE that you were breast-fed forever and you still get the benefits!
I was bottlefed, so that must be why I “settled” for midwifery instead of becoming a doctor…
There is something very odd in defining oneself by one’s ability to breastfeed, or become repeatedly pregnant, or by having white teeth, or some other personal characteristic to the exclusion of other traits. It smacks of there being a huge void somewhere in the personality if that is the only positive trait that one thinks one has.
Seriously. SERIOUSLY. She put feeding a baby a bottle when you’re flat-out exhausted, or feeding formula to your baby when you can’t breastfeed anymore, or any variation thereof alongside making the decision to cheat on one’s spouse. Are you freaking kidding me. Grrrr.
Yup. Let’s see, infidelity has real risks – stis, divorce, stress/depression and psychologically effects on the whole family – formula feeding mash mean more gastro infections.
Infidelity is inherently negative, formula feeding isn’t. It’s offence and the Alpha Parent knows it.
Not true. All three of my kids got occasional bottles and I nursed all three over a year.
Not until they were 6? For shame!
There – that’s PROOF. Without that evil formula you could have BF them all until they started high school!
I’ve been combo feeding since the begining. 1 big bottle per day when I’m at work hasn’t caused any problems. I didn’t know this with my first and wasted a lot of time qnd money pumping. Everybody is different. Low supply, enough supply, we all have our reasons and for god’s sake, breastmilk isn’t magic.
These sweeping statements she makes are pulled out of the very same crack that she accuses others of having their panties in. You simply can’t say that you KNOW how or why bf’ing works or doesn’t work for millions and millions and millions of women. No two situations are the exact same. Life just ain’t that simple, sweetie. I combo fed, or my babies would’ve starved. She can vomit out the opinion that I caused my low supply with formula all she wants. It just doesn’t make it true. But if it makes her feel better about herself, then she should go right ahead. I’ll let her have it, as she doesn’t seem to have much else going for her.
Here is an anecdote. Not data, true, but a good one:
My sister and my cousin are born the same year. They now are both 25. My sis got a bachelor in Law and is now working as a consultant for firms while she works on her master degree. My cousin got a bachelor in french and english literatures, but has chosen to work with horses and now manage a horse-ranch near the Lake of Como. Both are successful and happy young women.
One of them had been exclusively breastfeed, the other exclusively formula feed. Can you tell me which is which?
And was she herself breastfed? I don’t want to visit her page to find out!
Probably not…that’s why she’s so bitter and crusades so heartily for BFing. You know, so others won’t suffer like she has.
My brother and I got the exact same SAT score. I was breastfed for 16 months. He was breastfed for 6 weeks. I’m guessing our success in life has precious little to do with how much breastmilk we consumed.
She’s actually claiming she’s not shaming? From everything I’ve seen, her entire blog is blatant shaming of FF moms.
And she seems to be proud of it. Come on Alpha Parent! If we parents who formula fed should own our decisions, then you parents who shame formula feeders should own yours.
And the irony is: the first thing bloggers like her say is “if you don’t like my blog, don’t read it.” But they are the FIRST ones to tell YOU what to do and how to do as if they were entitled to it.
Her tagline is “The Snobby Side of Parenting”. How obnoxious.
Her obvious obsession with boobs, her boobs, everyone elses boobs is troubling…
At least she puts it out there so people can avoid her. Being proud of snobbery is pitiful.
” In the MAJORITY of cases, supplementation leads to a complete switch to formula”
Um, no.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/05/08/peds.2012-2809.abstract
I nursed both my kids until they were 18 months old each. AND I supplemented because I hated pumping. Supplementing didn’t hurt our breastfeeding situation, it HELPED it go longer. People need to mind their own business!!! Unless someone is feeding their baby gasoline, get a life…
Oh, stop with all that PROOF.
LOL
This pretty much summarizes my experience. Son was not latching well at hospital, we were discharged on a Saturday night with 4oz of donor milk, which was pretty much gone by the ped’s appt. on Monday. Got a can of formula. Made up a couple of small bottles. Milk was in that night, I was pumping around the clock. By Wednesday baby was on breastmilk exclusively – I’d attempt to nurse, then we’d top him off with a bottle of breastmilk, and then I’d pump for 20 minutes. By four weeks he was getting enough at the breast. He got nothing but breastmilk until he was six months old, and is still nursing a couple of times a day at just over a year.
Is this the one that came out the same week as the similac for supplementation formula?
Curious, how applicable is this to babies who didn’t lose too much weight in the first week? Or have they bothered studying anything like that?
I can’t get the full text (required subscription), but this study only followed 40 babies.
Hate to say it, but if a NCB advocate came here with a n=40 study and tried to claim it was “proof” of ANYTHING he/she would be laughed out of existence…
Just sayin’
Also interesting: one of the coauthors of this study served (not sure about whether they currently do or not) as a paid consultant for Abbot Nutrition (Similac) and Mead Johnson (Enfamil) and Nestle.
Hmmm
Also interesting – the “control” group obviously DID supplement (47% of them in fact) in the first week. The early limited group were instructed to only give up to 2 Tbs after each feeding. I imagine that the 47% of the control group that did supplement in the first week was likely giving more than 1 oz per feeding. Maybe this study doesn’t say what we think it says….
Seems like tiny amounts of supplementation, closely supervised (giving moms instructions on exactly how much to use and how often), while encouraging continuing bfing results in better longer-term EBF rates than large amounts of unsupervised supplementation with little to no support and/or encouragement to continue bfing results in worse longer-term EBFing rates.
Who’da thunk giving babies large amounts of formula supplementation without encouraging the mothers to continue bfing might result in lower bfing rates?
Oh. Wait…
lol
I’d love to see a study of hundreds (better still, thousands) where both groups recieve support and encouragement for continued bfing, and both groups are instructed on HOW to supplement in a way that will limit impact on supply. Seems the bigger factor here was that the “control group” didn’t recieve instruction on how to supplement without negatively impacting supply, but the early supplement group obviously did get that instruction….
Oh, silly me… I misread it -the ELF group gave 2 teaspoons (not Tbs) per feeding. Yeah… I bet those in the control group who supplemented in the first week gave a LOT more than two tsp. That kinda explains things 😉
And more multips in the ELF group (70% vs 50%). That’s a HUGE factor in bfing success. That alone could account for the difference in LT bfing rates…
After that LONG thread, we can agree that the study referenced (despite its shortcomings) shows a group of women who supplemented but continued to breast feed. This, in itself, contradicts Ms Alpha Bossy-Boots. QED.
Oh absolutely! I realize that many women who supplement early go on to bf without further use of formula, and that many women successfully combo-feed, indefinitely. This study was brought up and I felt it worth discussing. Really I’m surprised it wasn’t brought up in the Similac thread, as one of the main reasons the lactivists were in a tizzy over the new product was the *timing*. And it does seem a little too fucking *perfect* – a small (n=40) study, co-authored by someone with financial interested in Abbott Labs, that appears to be poorly done (giving essentially sabotaging “advice” to the control group), says that ‘early supplementing may increase bfing rates’. It’s promptly picked up by a variety of media outlets (the headlines, of course, are deceiving and most of the articles don’t do a good enough job of pointing out the problems with the study). A few days later, guess who introduces a new formula “for supplementation”? Makes it hard to defend the position that similac isn’t going after the EBFing share of the market…
I’m not big on conspiracy theories, but this “coincidence” is just a little *too* coincidental for me…
Maybe I’ve been watching too much NCIS; you know about Gibbs and coincidences 😉
At any rate, I thought it was worth talking about this study more in depth.
me, both the study and the commentary you linked were published on line on May 13 (check Lynette’s link) – six weeks ago. Exactly where is this big media conspiracy happening (because I seem to have missed it completely)?
Finally, once again: if you wish to discuss this study in depth, you must read the whole study yourself.
I just said it was picked up by a number of media outlets, not that there was a “media” conspiracy. The headlines are as awful as you might expect, and the articles don’t really delve into the limitations and shortcomings of the study (of course, that would require actual journalism, which is pretty rare these days).
I was hoping Dr Amy (who obviously has access to this study) would chime in with her opinion of it. My understanding of stats doesn’t hold a candle to hers and she could pick it apart for us laypeople, let us know if the methodology was sound, what the good points were, what the bad points were, and whether the conclusions drawn are appropriate. She does that all the time with other types of studies. Of course, it seems this may be a case of the Skeptical OB being selectively skeptical…
Unfortunate, since new and expecting moms could really use some help in making sense of crap like this. I may not always agree with everything Dr Amy says, but I trust that she knows how to read and evaluate a study, and her opinion on this one could be helpful to a lot of women who will be wondering if they should consider supplementing to increase their odds of successfully breastfeeding.
me, why don’t you email Dr Amy (the address in the sidebar) and ask her to analyze it instead of flooding this comments section?
I guess that didn’t occur to me… I’ve seen her chime in in the comments section before (quite frequently, actually) so I guess I figured she’d say something here if she was willing. Sorry for “flooding”. Was not my intent!
“Seems the bigger factor here was that the “control group” didn’t recieve instruction on how to supplement without negatively impacting supply, but the early supplement group obviously did get that instruction….”
If both groups received the same instructions, then it would not be a controlled trial.
This is stats 101.
What I’m saying is, this study doesn’t prove that early formula supplementation increases LT bfing rates. All it seems to suggest is that giving mothers instruction on how to supplement in such a way that is least likely to interfere with supply (how to supplement, how much, for how long, etc) helps with LT bfing rates for those mothers who are concerned about their baby’s weight loss in the first few days. I wonder if the control group had been given instructions on how to supplement properly (should they choose to do so, after they leave the hospital) would the results have been very different. Basically, encourage the control group to exclusively bf, no in-hospital supplementation, but make sure they have proper info on *how* to supplement without jeopardizing supply; still give early supplementation to the ELF group in the hospital, still instructing them to stop when the milk comes in, etc. Seems to me that formula is not some magical thing that saved the bfing here… instructions on how to supplement properly (should one choose to do so) is likely what saved the bfing.
Sending a new mom (esp when there is a disproportionate number of FTMs) home without giving her any help/support/encouragement wrt bfing, showing her how much her baby’s weight has dropped since birth (did they make it clear to these women that a 5-10% drop is considered normal and that supplementation is not medically indicated until you get to a 10%+ drop?) causing worry, and offering no more advice than the “five S’s for soothing fussy babies” is a recipe for disaster. Were all participants given access to IBCLC’s? Were they all instructed on how to tell if baby is transferring milk adequately? Were they equally encouraged to continue bfing? Were they informed that a 5% weight loss is not an indication that their babies aren’t getting enough, or that they won’t make enough milk once it does come in? The ELF group had the benefit of a HCP giving them instruction and encouragement…. maybe that’s the confounding factor…. Of course, the study is too small to make any conclusions about ELF on a population anyway…
me, the only person who’s throwing around the word proof is you.
The study was posted to counter the argument that any amount of formula always leads to quitting all breastfeeding. According to many anecdotes posted here in the last few days, it doesn’t – and now we have a small controlled study which supports those anecdotes.
I have also not paid to read the full thing. That said, if the study was conducted correctly the only difference between the two groups is giving the small amount amount of formula. This means both groups should have received the same information during counseling. This is how a controlled study works – eliminate as many variables as possible except for the one you are studying. That is basic science.
While you bemoan the fact that it only involved relatively few subjects, please consider that this is exactly the kind of pilot study the researchers can use to justify repeating on larger scale.
Finally, I find it ridiculous that you are nitpicking an abstract. If want to criticize the methods used, pay up and find out what those methods were. Otherwise, your comments are meaningless.
Addendum: I’m assuming the intervention here is demonstrating how to do the syringe top up while at the hospital. Without access to the actual methods, we can’t say how much if at all the counseling differed for the intervention group.
However, it is clear that IF counseling IS part of the intervention, then – yes – it HAS to be different that the what the control group gets.
Sure, it has to be different – the ELF group was instructed to supplement in the hospital, and only until their milk came in. The control group was instructed to use the 5S’s to calm their fussy babies. This is what I am looking at, as I can’t access the full study:
http://pediatricsde.aap.org/pediatrics/june_2013?pg=42#pg42
“me, the only person who’s throwing around the word proof is you.”
Further down-thread Renee said, “Oh, stop with all that PROOF.”
I was certainly not the first one to claim this was being held up as “proof”.
“Finally, I find it ridiculous that you are nitpicking an abstract.”
I’ve gotten some additional info from critiques of this study (including a Doc at Case Western Reserve (UH Cleveland)). It seems the control group was given info on the 5 S’s, rather than instruction to feed the babies as frequently as possible until their milk comes in. The first 4 of the 5 S’s are at the least useless, at the most counterproductive, to establishing supply and getting a baby to gain weight. The fifth S (sucking) only helps if the baby is sucking on a boob. It does seem like the control group was whipped into a veritable tizzy about what amounts to a non-problem, then given advice that basically sabotaged them.
I’m not saying supplementing has to be the end of bfing (obviously that isn’t the case). But before anyone throws around a study as proof of anything, it needs to be replicated and have a large enough sample to be meaningful…
me, please post links.
Ah, we crossposted -thanks!
I hope those companies are hiring the best researchers, when they go out and hire researchers?
I hope so too, but if there is a conflict of interest doesn’t that play a role in how much weight we give to a study? I’ll take these results with a grain (ixnay, make that a mountain) or salt until it is independently replicated on a large scale.
The scale is the problem, not the conflicts of having worked for a formula company at some point in the past. Studies should be judged on their merits. Judging them on when else experts have served as experts is, IMO, lazy and borderline conspiracy theorist.
Like I said, I don’t know if this person still has financial ties. I just mentioned it as a potential issue….
It strikes a nerve because it’s the favorite go-to of Jennifer Margulis types and other people who don’t have the scientific skill set to criticize a study’s design and conclusions.
Seriously… How can you vote this down? It’s the truth.
Very telling tho 😉
That *one* person disagreed with you? I don’t know what you imagine that indicates, but you seem pretty sensitive to dissent.
Lol. No. No one “disagreed”. That’s the point. Voting down isn’t “disagreeing” – it’s “I don’t like what you said here, but I can’t come up with anything to counter it, so I’m going to down-vote”. I welcome disagreement (otherwise I wouldn’t be on a site like this 😉 )
Passing judgement on a study without reading the full thing, is akin to writing a book report after reading the front and back cover.
Ummm… I realize that (that’s why I mentioned it). But any study that has a sample size in the double digits is likely pretty weak, don’t you think? I’d love to see Dr Amy tear this study apart with the same voracity that I’ve sen her tear apart other studies. Not because it supports formula supplementation (I don’t really care whether someone wants to use formula or not), but because it seems like it’s poorly done and probably never should have been published in the first place…. certainly not in an aap publication.
All it provided evidence for was that – telling women how to supplement correctly is better than not telling them. And since the ubiquitous lactivist alternative is – supplementation is the devil -, the study may have provided evidence against that. If the result was statistically significant, it qualifies as evidence, even if they were only comparing two groups of 40 women.
So the conclusions the authors came to are incorrect then? They didn’t merely conclude that showing women how to supplement correctly improves breastfeeding rates, but rather that the supplementation itself improves rates. And, fwiw, the type of supplementation they did in the study is precisely the same way the “lactavists” recommend supplementing be handled (using something other than a bottle, using the smallest amount necessary for the shortest amount of time possible, and continuing to encourage mothers to nurse frequently). No, a ‘lactivist” would not want a woman supplementing a baby who had lost less than 10% birth weight (it’s not medically indicated until then), but I’ve not encountered any lactivists who try to claim that supplementation is *never* necessary (well, I suppose there may be some out there, but most will offer the standard disclaimer).
me “but I’ve not encountered any lactivists who try to claim that supplementation is *never* necessary”
did you skip reading the blog post you’ve commandeered into your own personal soap box in order to moan about the limitations of a study you have not even read?
The subject of this post, Alpha Parent, made exactly that claim! She is quoted at the top of this thread by Lynette Hafkin, while posting this study you are which taking so much time to deride (without even having read it!) precisely because this study does indeed refute Alpha Parent’s claim. See Sue’s comment, and expat’s. They were more concise than I.
Please, me, stop and take the time read and think about what you are reading before erecting elaborate strawmen in order to champion your own cause.
I don’t agree with Alpha Mom’s analogy (comparing supplementing with infidelity), but she doesn’t say bfing can’t exist or will absolutely end with supplementation either. From the page linked to:
“… .breastfeeidng can still exist when supplementation has occured…” (her typos, not mine)
And in reading thru that I still can’t find where she said there is never a medical indication for supplementing. Besides, it seems unfair to paint all breastfeeding advocates/lactivists/whatever you want to call them with the same brush as one extremely militant example of one. And in that thread, while it was obvious that these women don’t like the inconvenience of being confronted with an example of medically indicated supplementation or ffing, they certainly didn’t try to claim that it doesn’t ever happen.
Now, she does claim that the majority of the time supplementation will lead to totally switching to ffing. I’m not in her head (thank god for small favors), but it occurs to me that “supplementing” here means what typically happens with supplementing: a full 4 oz bottle is given, and, yes, quite often that can lead to more and more supplementation and less and less bfing, until bfing ends completely (the control group in the study is an example of this). The study quoted used supplementation in the intervention group in a way that “lactivists” have been known to support and recommend. And apparently, supplementing in the way lactavists often suggest doesn’t interfere as much as typical supplementing.
At any rate, I couldn’t give two $#%@’s about Alpha Mom whoever. (had never even heard of her before this post, seriously, where do you find these people? now I remember why I closed my facebook account, lol). A study was posted and I thought we could discuss it. AlphaMom or no Alpha Mom… I thought the study and its authors’ conclusions provocative enough to discuss independently. I suppose I should have started a new thread… I’ll admit this was bad form on my part, but does that really change anything?
I love how this got voted down, but no one has addressed anything I’ve brought up wrt the limitations of this “study”.
Tee hee. 🙂
Dear me,
While you make some interesting yet poorly supported speculations, I would vote this thread down simply due to the use of the f word, um, ;), teehee, lol, …, and bfing (just because it looks too much like an abbreviation for barfing). While I don’t think you are a sociopath at all, really I don’t, the frequent use of these terms in the twitterverse has been correlated with people diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. In short, they are a marker of something not good.
Yours,
Expat
? Sorry if using the “f-word” one time offended you. I thought this site had an adult audience. I can refrain from profanities without issue. No problem!
Nice ad hominem tho 😉
As for, “um” “tee hee” “;)” and “lol”
Are those really problems? lol is a sign of antisocial personality disorder? Seems like most of the free world has an antisocial personality then….
But nice diversion! Way to change the subject and stoop to attacking me, rather than my arguments! You rock!
Is sarcasm a sign of antisocial personality disorder?
Lol, tee hee, and 😉
you also used hmm, and just sayin. Used in excess, these things paint an unflattering portrait. Over the last few days, it ihas been very -one note- and obsessive. I know you are very sensitive to criticism, but it may be time to change gears. Variety is the spice of life. And you don’t have to be this person that you are being on this site. You don’t have to hammer on every point a million times. Slow down, practice brevity and see how it feels. You will probably like it. I don’t think you are a bad person, but you seem to be in a state and are fixated on promoting some strain of cnm practice that you started to follow. I got really excitable and hypersensitive when I was pregnant.
“Used in excess, these things paint an unflattering portrait.”
Okay. I’m sorry if my writing style offends you somehow. Not sure what else to say about that. Is it really relevant?
And, yes, I suppose I have honed in on the one or two aspects of a thread that interest me…. not trying to be “obsessive”, but if I agree with someone I’m far more likely to simply “like” what they say, unless I feel I can add something useful. If I disagree, or even just feel like sharing a different perspective, at that point, yes, I will comment.
I’m not sure how “sensitive to criticism” I am. No, I don’t like being personally attacked (no one does). But I am reading what others are writing, and have conceded numerous points in a number of threads. I’m not unwilling to examine my own beliefs and alter them when presented with new info. I’m sorry if you feel I am “hammering points millions of times”. I might reiterate something that seems to get glossed over, especially if I think it is relevant to the conversation. Again, wrt “brevity”, sorry if my writing style is so offensive to you. I’m not a writer, I’m a former accountant; I’ll be the first to admit my writing skills are not my biggest strength… (okay, that may be an understatement, but I never claimed to be Faulkner)
“I don’t think you are a bad person, but you seem to be in a state and
are fixated on promoting some strain of cnm practice that you started to
follow.”
Did I mention the CNM practice since the thread about postdates? I didn’t think so. Why are you mentioning them now? Sorry, I am genuinely confused here.
And, no, I’m not pregnant. Are you gonna ask if I’m on the rag next?
it isn’t a question of writing style or being offensive, it is simply that with all of the sarcasm, you don’t seem to have much interest in being likable and while there are bloggers that spin that into a positive thing, there is usually a tongue in cheek aspect which you are missing. The person has to occassionally be visible beneath the armor. (I was using “strain of cnm practice” to describe an ideological stance in general, not a particular group of cnms. and with the pregnancy thing, I was implying that I identified with the obsessiveness you were exhibiting, but that for me it comes and goes depending on hormones. Fixating on various things can be very useful for me when it is applied to work and I understand how boring things can be without something to obsess over.. it is all very aspergers. It can also be debilitating and other people won’t understand it or they will find it annoying.)
Again, I’m not entirely sure how to respond to this. I wasn’t commenting here so you would “like” me. I don’t know you. I’m not sure what ideological stance you are referring to… Someone linked to a study, and I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the study. I think you may be reading way too much into it. Is it “obsessive”? Well, I guess that’s a matter of opinion. One could argue this whole blog is “obsessive”. If you don’t care to engage in discussion with me, well, you certainly aren’t obligated to… I won’t be offended.
So, aside from accusing me of being mentally ill, hormonal, or having an ASD, do you have anything to say that is relevant to the topic at hand?
Just one thing to add (I promise): I understand you don’t want to discuss this with me. You don’t need to offer any reasons for hat…. you could simply not discuss it. Bofa basically responded by aying that it is pointless to debate the merits of a study without having read it firsthand; unless and until I gain access to the full study, my misgivings and opinions are based on what I’ve gleaned from the abstract as well as other people’s interpretations/critiques, and so trying to discuss it is an exercise in futility – there is too much that is steeped in the hypothetical.
This is a well-reasoned, thoughtful response. She effectively ended the discussion and she did it without resorting to ad homenim attacks. You, otoh, have called into question my character, my mental health, my hormonal state, have accused me of being “obsessive”, of having Asperger’s syndrome, and of being “unlikable”. Even if you were right and I am some crazy, hormonal, obsessive, maladjusted Aspie, may I ask what that has to do with whether or not the points I bring up wrt the topic at hand are cogent?
For the record, I didn’t call you any of those names and I don’t like seeing any of them used as an insult. I am at times a crazy, hormonal, obsessive maladjusted aspie and that should be deserving of sympathy, not holier than thou rejection.
“For the record, I didn’t call you any of those names…”
You didn’t insinuate that I must have a mental illness? What about saying I was exhibiting “signs of antisocial personality disorder”? That is a mental illness (and “crazy” is just a layperson’s term for ‘mentally ill’). So, yeah, you called me crazy. Oh, you pussy-footed around it, but it was pretty clear you were trying to shut me down by calling me nuts.
You didn’t suggest I was hormonal? You told me that you got all “excitable and hypersensitive” (things you accused me of being) while you were pregnant. What is the relevance of that, except that you assumed I must be pregnant? When I pointed out that, no, I’m not pregnant, you implied that my “obsessiveness” may be related to fluctuating hormones.
You didn’t imply that I have an ASD? What about when you said “it is all very Asperger’s” (referring to my “obsessiveness”)?
You didn’t imply that I was maladjusted? Oh, I guess well adjusted people are “unlikable”, “annoying”, “excitable” and “hypersensitive”. Oh, wait. Maybe not. But you meant all that in the most *positive* way, no?
FTR: I don’t believe being mentally ill is a character flaw. Nor do I like seeing disorders (like Asperger’s) being used as insults. I also don’t like when women are dismissed because of being “hormonal”. The fact is, while you are obviously backpedaling now, that’s exactly what you were doing to me: ignoring the content of my posts, all the while attacking my character and accusing me of things in order to paint me in a negative light. And this thread is not the first time. So as much as you say you *don’t* like seeing these things used as insults, that’s precisely what you were doing. You just don’t like being called out on it.
The reason why i have stuck with this conversation is that when I was pregnant a little while back, I was behaving very much as you are now in a conversation with my sister and I was trying to act as I wish she had acted instead of what she did do which was reject me and tell me not to contact her anymore until I had “found some peace”. I am still pissed at her about that, because sisters aren’t supposed to reject you when you are upset about something, and I felt like she was being holier than thou. I’m trying not to do that and it isn’t helping. I’m starting to see her side a bot more clearly. It is difficult to interact with someone who won’t acknowledge any flaws in their behavior and who is intent to see everything as an exaggerated personal attack for which effusive appologies are deserved. I wanted my sister’s apology to fix my wounded ego (she had told me that I had behaved badly in some unrelated situation)
Not to be harsh, but I’m not your sister. I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I honestly don’t appreciate the armchair shrink-ery you are practicing here. I don’t understand why you are so bent on making this personal (this is not the first thread in which you have insinuated things about my character). You’re right, your sister likely could have handled whatever the two of you disagreed about better. And it sounds like it really hurt you that she wasn’t more patient. I’m sorry for that.
FTR, I never said my behavior was “perfect” or anything like that. I don’t expect an apology either. I don’t know you; you don’t “owe” me anything. However, in a debate personal attacks are often done for the purpose of discrediting the opposition – the fact is, I could be sitting in an empty room under a bare bulb, eating a can of cling peaches in my underwear and that would still have *nothing* to do with whether or not my points are cogent. All I’m asking is that you refrain from the thinly veiled personal insults. Either discuss the points I’ve made, or don’t. But don’t try to psychoanalyze me or imply anything about my “hormonal” status, or project your own issues with your family on me, or whatever. It’s simply not relevant to the discussion.
At this point this thread is obviously dead. And that’s okay. And maybe you really didn’t mean all the things you said and implied about me in the way they came across. Not to be flippant, but, whatever. It’s really not that big a deal. I had let it slide the first few times (in other threads), but from here on out, yes, I will call you out on it any time you get personal like that. It’s not necessary, and it gets tiresome.
The topic at hand is : why the down vote? why do you think it isn’t important to be likable when trying to convince someone of something? Why do you think of being obsessive as an insult when I described its positive aspects. I find looking at behaviours through a diffractive element which separates them into various personality disorder catagories to be instructive. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t fit into some “disorder” catagory occassionaly. Stress changes people. This whole blog -is- obsessive. It is like a collective mind spinning on one general topic with all of the variations contained therein, but each individual mind in the collective is not obsessing. Each person spins the topic of the day through their mind and offers a reaction. Conversations explore the reactions, but it is something of a pathology when they spin around in circles or when tying up logical loose ends becomes a compulsion.
“The topic at hand is : why the down vote?”
Yes, I did ask that… at that point in time I had gotten no responses, but this down vote had occurred. I wasn’t taking it personally, but it did strike me funny/odd that someone would down vote me asking a simple question or pointing out limitations I was gleaning from what info I could access about the study. Especially when (at that point in time) no one could be bothered to answer any of the questions or address any of my misgivings. That’s all.
“why do you think it isn’t important to be likable when trying to convince someone of something?”
First of all, I don’t think that. Sometimes being “unlikable” or “mean” gets people’s attention faster (just ask Dr Amy… at the risk of being labeled a sociopath I’ll “lol” here). Second, I don’t see where I was trying to “convince” people of something so much as I wanted to discuss the merits of the study posted. I offered my opinions in the hopes that we could engage in a dialogue about this study. That’s all.
“Why do you think of being obsessive as an insult when I described its positive aspects.”
Because this thread is not the first time you have accused me of being “obsessive” and in this, and the others, it certainly didn’t come off as though you were intending it as a compliment. Quite the contrary, actually. Telling me I “don’t have to be the person I’ve been being” on this site, calling me hypersensitive, telling me I’m “in a state”, etc. None of that seems particularly *positive*. But now you back track and tell me you meant “obsessive” in a good way? You may have meant it that way (I really don’t know), but it certainly didn’t come off that way….
“I find looking at behaviours through a diffractive element which
separates them into various personality disorder catagories to be
instructive.”
And I find it a thinly veiled insult, especially given the societal stigma against the mentally ill. Has accusing someone of having a personality disorder ever gone over well, in your experience? Do you really expect someone to take that as a positive comment?
“Conversations explore the reactions, but it is something of a pathology
when they spin around in circles or when tying up logical loose ends
becomes a compulsion.”
I’ll admit I’ve had more time on my hands in the last couple weeks than I usually do, so I’ve been able to indulge not just in reading the blog and comments section, but actually participating (something I don’t get to do too often). Yes, when someone responds to something I wrote, I try to respond back. Is that compulsive? Maybe. It could also be seen as good manners. Someone takes the time and trouble to comment on something I wrote, I will acknowledge their existence by replying back to them. Often on this site (and many others) conversations go around in circles. Often people use “lol”, emoticons, “um”, “jus’ sayin'” etc to clarify the tone of their post. Here you are accusing me of basically having something ‘wrong” with me for doing the exact same thing the majority of commenters here (regulars or no) do too.
It’s simply an attack on me, rather than addressing the content of my posts.
I laughed when I saw Alpha Parent’s blog for the first time. What on earth makes her think she’s the alpha anything? I think women who feel the need to portray themselves as the perfect parent because they martyr themselves to their cause are really just hiding their unhappiness about their situation. When a parent comes along who is secure about working, not breastfeeding, not baby carrying (or god forbid they use a front facing carrier), etc they can’t handle the threat to their mental well being and lash out.
This line gave me pause for thought the other day:
“And a recent Finnish study found that bullies cared more about being respected and admired than their victims did (Sitsjema et al 2008).”
http://www.parentingscience.com/bullying-in-school.html
A lot of blogs do seem to care an awful lot about being respected and admired. Many bloggers, especially mummy bloggers (although maybe it’s just because I read some of those) don’t seem to tolerate dissent in the comments and discussion.
Evidencebasedbirth is guilty of that for sure. Anything but glowing praise gets deleted. Not very scientific
Our late dog (yes, the one in the profile pic) was an alpha dog. It’s not bragging it’s a statement of fact.
What made him an alpha wasn’t smacking down every dog he met, making sure those other canines knew they were beneath him. What made him an alpha was boundless confidence. He was enormously social. He loved to greet other dogs.
Other dogs joined in his hijinks because he made it look fun.
The more Alpha Parent posts I read, the more I think she’s no alpha. Nor beta, I wouldn’t want her as my trusted lieutenant. She’s the yappy one who is begging for attention.
And nipping at your ankles.
Or in the corner whining.
Or humping your leg.
Or eating her own vomit.
Or sniffing what’s up everyone else’s crack.
I had a husky back in the day, and when we took him to the dog park, he’d prance up to other dogs and yap this really silly bark right in their faces. Usually they ignored him, sometimes they’d start to chase him and then stop when he ran off…he didn’t act like that to people, only dogs at the dog park, but that’s what I thought of here.