I think breastfeeding has benefits, but not enough benefits to demonize formula useage. And those benefits do not outweigh the drawbacks for many people.
Breastfeeding has benefits but so does formula feeding! People always talk about the mild passive immunity effects of breastmilk but they ignore things like the shared burden of feeding between two parents reducing maternal sleep deprivation, increasing secondary parental bonding, and improving growth rates in underweight babies that formula feeding affords parents and babies.
This! The sleep is major. My wife and I each got 6 hour stretches because we did shifts when our girl was a newborn. And she started sleeping through the night at 2.5 months old. The fact that vitamin d supplements are not needed for formula fed babies and the presence of iron for anemic babies is so rarely even acknowledged as such a huge benefit of formula. But people will bend over backwards on immunity benefits that largely get digested and merely coat surfaces (as opposed to providing actual immune responses).
I was feeling overwhelmed when my baby started solids with the need to feed iron rich foods. SO relieved when my pediatrician told me baby doesnt need any special iron focused foods!
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u/MMTardis Apr 30 '26
I think breastfeeding has benefits, but not enough benefits to demonize formula useage. And those benefits do not outweigh the drawbacks for many people.