There are always problems with research like this, that focus on a single factor for brain development. The brain doesn’t develop because of nutrition alone.

You also cannot isolate six months in a child’s life to be determinant of the child’s mental health. To look at a child that is “deliquent” (you shouldn’t label a child this way in the first place) and look at the child’s past instead of facing the present problems and helping the child with them is just wrong!

There is far more learning and far more important experiences AFTER the child’s first six months.

If they got “results” with that research it’s because mothers that are more dedicated in taking their parental role seriously are likely to research more on the subject and make the better choices with the information available. They are also more likely to carry on being better parents throughout the child’s life.

Babies are usually happy to be held and cuddled by other people and taken care off by loving grandparents. Let’s not pretend these options don’t exist or are bad when the baby is happily smiling.

Also, many babies have terrible starts of life because of poor health and have to spend their first months attached to machines, having repeated surgeries including actual brain surgeries, etc. To say these babies are more likely to become criminals is just pessimist taken to an evil extreme. With love and care and good parenting these children will become as good as the others.

I just came back from a hospital ward with seriously ill children. There was a letter afixed from a teenager who has had repeated brain surgery as baby and had now taken three A levels, so I don’t believe shite about breastmilk being magical.

It is important to aknowledge that some mothers who breastfeed are not 100%healthy themselves and therefore breasfeeding a child can be done in a distracted or unhappy or irritated way. I have known a clutch of women in my time who do everything according to ‘the book’ and who breastfeed for long and longer periods of time than is ‘normal’..these particular women also ‘believed’ in attachment parenting. But underneath all the theory and practise lay another thing. Fact is these women were not that fond or bonded with their babes at all underneath it all. It just looked like they did. Them doing all the ‘right’ things was a way for them to compensate for the lack of true natural feeling. It happens. A lot I reckon.

We cannot say that one way is better than another.

Many mothers have no choice but to bottle feed their children, as in the case of children born with cleft lips/palates for example. I bottle fed my younger sisters in the course of duty as an older sibling and i can assure you that while these children did not recieve 100% attachment with their mothers, i discovered that it was possible to bond with a baby just by feeling alone with or without a breast plugged in. It doesn’t really matter what you do, it is how you do it and…more importantly why.

A lot of breastfeeding women breastfeed their children to placate them.

I have known the example of two sisters. One did the whole nu age attachment home birthing no vaccination breast feeding sling thing-she lived in a rural farm house with a carpenter husband who played the flute. They ate organic foods and home educated…etc. In actual fact the mother couldn’t really stand her kids so was always mildly stressed and distant as she breastfed. The kids grew up distressed. Not least because the mother insisted that she had always done the right things. She was self righteous. Tense.

The other sister was a bit of a tart, she had four kids by different men, lived in a shabby council flat, fed her kids from the bottle and gave them sugar sandwiches. The kids grew up with a sense of humour and a relaxed and friendly attitude to their mother. This probably occurred due to the fact that no matter what the mother did she was always able to see that she wasn’t perfect. She was relaxed and open and loving.

I am sorry to give you this long winded comment, but this post was so ‘provocative’ and political that it would be kind of unfair not to answer the questions you raise.

I squat on the living room floor when I give birth..I don’t make a big deal out of it. My kids are welcome in the big bed I share with my hubby as long as I am feeling welcoming. I breastfed them all for ages. Ash is still breastfed and he is 3 1/2, but I won’t let him latch on if i feel irritable about something. With my middle child, the bonding process including sling wearing and breastfeeding was interupted early (at one year). Yes he does show signs of having a disturbed energy, but it is never to late to heal and never to late to bond…which we have done..even at this late stage. What is so important with children is to be open to outcome. If I had remained attached to the idea that it is the first few years that form a child..well, then there would be little point in trying after they were 7 eh?

Sending you the best of wishes, and thank you for raising a contraversial point. I wish you well as you continue your parenting journey. xxx

Well, what a lot of loonies we have here. At the risk of upsetting people I have to react to these comments. First of all the ability to deal with stress also has a genetic component so let’s not rule that one out.
“We cannot say that one way is better than another.” – Yes we can, breastfeeding is better! Anybody who has done ANY research into the biological components cannot EVER say that the harm done by bottle-feeding is insignificant.
“You also cannot isolate six months in a child’s life to be determinant of the child’s mental health.” – I thought we were talking about breastfeeding past 6 months. Anyway there is lots of evidence that the 1st year is crucial to a child’s development. There are many cases of children who have been adopted into kind loving families but still have behaviour problem due to what had happened to them in their 1st year.
“Babies are usually happy to be held and cuddled by other people” – Have you had children? Yeah, a bottle-fed baby who is used to being left in a cot will probably be overjoyed to be picked up be anyone but most attached babies will wail until they get Mummy; number one ultimate carer and giver of good milk. This is also the reason why so many people bottle-feed, they can’t handle that much baby-time.
“Many babies have terrible starts of life because of poor health and have to spend their first months attached to machines” – Yes and there is plenty of evidence that it DOES affect them for the rest of their lives. Having A-levels does not make you a stable person. Do you think all criminals are thick? Then you are living in your middle-class castle where you judge people by your narrow standards of tests and how well a child can jump through the hoops society gives it. NEWSFLASH: there are some VERY clever people out there with no A-levels and they are the ones who don’t get caught.
“. ..so I don’t believe shite about breast milk being magical.” – You’re obviously stupid, go and do some reading around the subject! What about ‘I don’t believe this shite about formula being harmless’? UNICEF has said that breastfeeding is the NUMBER ONE factor in child health, more important than clean water so stick that where the sun don’t shine. You sound like somebody who is trying to convince themselves that their bottle-feeding option didn’t harm their child. Either that or you can’t handle the idea women can make something so powerful with their bodies.

Well I thought your post was brilliant! As a breastfeeder I love reading articles that make me feel self-righteous. I totally agree about the physical bonding bit playing a big part, we focused quite a lot on grooming and massage when I worked with racehorses because of the health and psychological benefits which had a knock on affect on their performance. I also think its a shame that research is done purely to try and find or discover that magical ingredient. The only reason they want that magical ingredient is so they can add it to formula. I try very hard not to pump breastfeeding too much, I tend to not talk about it for fear of being accused of making bottle feeders feel guilty. Most bottle feeders do so out of choice, I don’t understand their need to get so defensive. If you make a choice that you feel is the best one for you and your family then there is no need to defend it, if you genuinely couldn’t breastfeed then there is nothing to feel guilty about. Move on!

I’m confused.

Clare referred to some new research which (subject to actually reading it and at that point being able to comment if appropriate on the methods and therefore on how valid the findings might be) suggests that breastfeeding at least 6 months or not may be relevant to children’s later mental health. She went on to speculate on how breastfeeding might affect mental health and to wonder how non-breastfed babies might receive the same benefits in different ways.

I don’t see anything controversial or provocative in that! I guess it’s just an example of how divisive the breastfeeding “issue” can be.

It seems to me that it is not uncommon for people to read a post that merely tries to discuss the benefits of breastfeeding and/or attachment parenting as an assertion that “all breastfed / AP’d babies turn out perfect and all bottlefed / not-AP’d babies turn out as stupid, unhealthy criminals”; and therefore to conclude that the writer is a blithering, bigoted idiot.

Nor is it uncommon for people to say “I know a breastfeeding / AP family that turned out bad” or “I know a bottlefeeding / Gina Ford family that turned out fine” and to reason from this that both breastfeeding and attachment parenting are irrelevant.

Both responses are wrong, for reasons that should be too obvious to even need stating!

I liked Lucy’s comment best

A very interesting post Clare :0) This has caused quite a reaction!! I just think that everyone parents differently, what is right for one is’nt right for another. I’m a bottle feeder or failed breast feeder (I have moved on! ;0) ). I feel that I have bonded with my children they are happy & healthy, they have always had (& still have) lots of attention & cuddles. :0)

Hi C,

Before hearing about that research, I would have gone all the way with you on your original theory. ie: that the reason for the perceived emotional and intellectual advantage apparently conferred by bfing is something to do with better attachment.

The reason I say this is because I agree with Elder Fairy in that I do think it possible to have poor attachment and yet be a long term bfeeder. I did it myself with my poor first child, making him wait four hours for his next feed and all other sorts of rubbish. He is definitely easily anxious I would say, so I suggest that those first months are not only key, (I got markedly better as a mum, the moment I walked into the LLL meeting when he was 15 months old), but that bfing can’t be so nutrionally beneficial as to eradicate the possibility of environmental factors having a long term effect:(

Hope to see you later, though Dd does have post- vaccination pyrexia atm!

The mother may not feel attatched but you can bet you bottom dollar the baby will.

I really, really am not sure, Erika…though thank you for the idea that this could be the case as it may help shift some pretty entrenched ideas that I have held for a while.

The thing is, I really did leave my son crying for ages and yet still managed to keep breastfeeding all the while…(until he was 4 yrs old). It is possible. And I did do a sort of Stranger test on him at the first year…you know the one that John Bowlby did, and it confirmed my suspicion that he is ambivalently attached…a terrible situation where someone desperately seeks attention and approval from loved ones without much hope of getting it.

The only reason I tell everyone this is that I do think it is easy to think that just because you bf, you will automatically get almost everything else right. I have seen this result in some significant problems which have caused the destruction of the families of long term bfeeders.., for example, mum thinks that bfing will replace the need to offer good moral theories. Very rapidly the homes of these families became very difficult to live in, and the relationship between the family members deteriorated horrendously.

This didn’t happen as a result of any malicious intent, but resulted simply from a mistaken belief in the over-arching power of bfeeding…which is why I believe it is worth talking about.

ok, well put it like this…if a mum is finding it difficult to bond with her baby then isn’t it better that she is breastfeeding, even if she hates it, where the baby is getting skin-to-skin contact and therefore a dose of oxcitocin (spelling a bit dodgy here). If she had bottle fed wouldn’t that mean the child would be MORE neurotic because it’s very easy to let someone else do the feeding. Mothers also feed their children holding a bottle at arms length with baby in a walker or high chair so it does not even get a cuddle when it’s feeding.