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Comment by hnick | Hacker News Reader

Baby formula is one I often think about. There are a lot of people who need it for biologicial reasons, but for the rest most of the research I hear about says that breast milk is better overall. For the same reason we cannot catalogue and add every essential nutrient and vitamin into a 'meal pill', I wouldn't trust them to be able to do it for baby formula either.

Yet the formula is very popular, especially in China (they have to limit the quantities per person here in Australia since they grab so much to send home). So sometimes I wonder if this is a problem or not.

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Baby formula is interesting in that it seems to be used as a signaling agent for class differentiation. Which is to say, that the poorer the region the more likely parents will show how much they value their baby by giving it formula. Conversely the amount of time and effort necessary to breast feed a baby means that in more affluent areas baby formula is greatly shunned by mothers.

Mind you, this is mostly my experience with the subject from people I’ve talked to and haven’t seen any formal study.

Also, while I strongly believe that mother’s milk is vastly superior to formula, I was more than happy to supplement with formula with my twins. Producing milk for 2 is a full time job, also not possible for most women. I think formula generally is fantastic, but I also think it preys on a vulnerable population (parents of newborns).

In my experience breastfeeding is much easier than formula. Not sterilization, no cooled boiled water, no trips to the kitchen at night, no need to bring lots of extra things on trips, etc.

Breastfeeding seems harder for about 10 days at the beginning - and if you use formula in this period you won't get enough milk and you are stuck with formula going forward.

(Twins could well be an exception I've no experience with twins!)

It's been a while since I looked into it (I don't have kids or plan to), so I can't give you references, but I remember coming to the conclusion that there's little difference in outcome between formula and breast milk, once other factors are taken into account.

It's better to feed your child breast milk, if only because it's cheaper and there's no particular reason not to. But there's now an entire culture shaming parents who choose feed their child with formula instead of breast milk, even though there may be (and often are) extenuating circumstances for their choice.

I don't agree with the shame at all, and my personal opinion is it's probably better because it's cheaper and equipment-free as you say and years of evolution mean that it works well enough in most cases.

While looking into this though I noticed that a manufacturer's site (https://nutricia.com.au/early-life-nutrition/karicare.html) actually has a popup saying that breastfeeding is better. I wonder what prompted that, community outrage?

> It's better to feed your child breast milk, if only because it's cheaper and there's no particular reason not to

Downsides: Only mothers can breastfeed = more work for them. Yes you can pump and refrigerate and have dad feed later with a bottle but pumps are garbage, time consuming and makes mom feel like a cow.

Moms may feel self conscious breastfeeding in public and in conservative cultures it's probably impossible.

Mastitis: painful infection. Already had this 2x in 5 months, requires antibiotics.

Our first kid was formula fed, our second breastfed. Second one is much less work for me as a dad.

Main upside to breastfeeding is that you don't need to carry around formula for two years, find a microwave, sterilize bottles etc. When traveling this is gold. Another upside is that I think breasts tend to stay in better shape aesthetically when not breastfeeding.

Formula is pretty popular in Australia too, it's just that middle-class Chinese don't trust the local product to be safe (and arguably rightly so, given the number of issues they've had with it).

Get a book on raising a newborn. See how much content there is on breastfeeding. It should be about 10% of the book. The content on formula? Add water, shake, that's it.

If you think formula does not solve any problems for a very large part of the population then you have no clue what you are talking about.

Baby formula is fine for everyone, at least where there is access to clean water. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/a-nuanced-view-on-breast-vs...

Yeah, please don’t try and guilt new moms into feeling bad if they have a hard time breast feeding, or can’t, or even don’t want to. Formula is perfectly fine and really makes the whole first year of child rearing way way way more manageable.

A very small number of women genuinely don't produce enough milk. Most will produce enough but struggle to keep up for the first 10 or so days. Using formula in that period means they will never increase production enough.

Breastfeeding after that is way way easier than pissing around with powders and bottles.

>Breastfeeding after that is way way easier than pissing around with powders and bottles.

*Provided the mother isn't employed

The US really needs to have better maternity leave!

Breastfeeding is optimal for a baby. We are not responsible for hiding facts from mothers in order to manage their feelings of guilt.

I have no stake in this, and I'm not trying to guilt anyone. Do what you need to.

The overall outcome is more important than any one factor. This applies to any activity, opportunity cost is always looming over us.

It looks like that applies to the studies too based on the parent's link - looking at just one factor finds some differences but then there's no overall difference by age 5. So that's definitely something I'll pay more attention to when the next headline rolls around.

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