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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For the Emily Oster haters, here is her blog post on the new breastfeeding (and other) AAP guidelines and why they are not evidence-based and potentially harmful (https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/new-aap-guidelines-on-breastfeeding ). If you have an actual rebuttal, feel free to share it. If you want to bash her credentials, of course you are free to do so, but know that that will just show you don't actually have a real argument.

[quote]I find some of these changes frustrating (obviously). This is true for two reasons.

First: in many cases, these guidelines (new and old) fail to acknowledge other family considerations. Breastfeeding for two years has practical costs and may have mental health costs, or physical downsides. Sharing a room with a child may have negative impacts on both child and adult sleep. There is little, if any, help given to families in navigating these trade-offs. Even when there is acknowledgment of the existence of a trade-off, the framing is often set up to imply that there is a “best” choice, and then some other worse choices if you cannot do that.

This is especially problematic when the benefits are so tentatively supported in the data. People are being told to make choices that may be very costly to them because of some theoretical risk, or some risk demonstrated only in very biased samples. It’s hard to see how this is a good trade.

A second issue is that as more and more restrictions on behavior are added, it becomes less and less easy to prioritize. There are some behaviors that are important for safe sleep — putting a child down on their back, for example. And then there are some, like not giving your kid a hat, that do not matter. When these are all presented together as a package, it can be challenging for parents to identify which things are important (I’ve written more about that here). And as the list gets longer and longer and starts to include things that seem ridiculous (like hats), it makes the good recommendations seem less important.

I believe it is possible to create a more coherent, more data-based set of guidelines that would help parents prioritize better. For now, what we have is flawed.[/quote]

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I am confused by your post. Are you suggesting someone who doesn’t agree with Emily Oster is incapable of a real argument? Because she herself has said otherwise, which is one of the reasons I like her…
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I'm referring to the fact that lots of posters here like to bash her without offering any arguments as to why or how her conclusions are wrong.[/quote]

Oh.[b] I think her data on school spread during  COVID relied too heavily on European data while not adequately controling for the fact that European teachers have access to free healthcare and are reimbursed for the time they need to take of to quarantine, therefore have a different incentive structure when it comes to going to school sick. [/b]

But I read her ParentData on this and while she doesn’t find the evidence compelling for obesity she does accept there are reductions in the breast cancer risk, and while she doesn’t see that as justifying the AAP position, other people will weigh that differently. She also agrees it’s a positive thing for people to be supported for extended breastfeeding by their pediatricians. So she doesn’t seem to agree with it, but she definitely doesn’t seem to be taking it as personally as some. I got a good laugh out of the socks point. [/quote]

Ok, this thread is not about that so I'm not going to get into a debate about school spread of COVID, not sure why you are bringing it up. I'm referring to posts like one in this thread that literally use the name "Oster" as though it's some kind of insult, with no engagement at all with the PP's argument (that did not even mention her)

As for the breastfeeding piece, I think her point about implying there is a "best choice" is a reason why those of us who recently had babies might find this guidance particularly frustrating. [b]It's disingenuous to say women should be supported in their choices[/b] and then clearly elevate one choice above others, a choice that can be very costly (assuming you place a value on women's time), all based on very limited data.[/quote]

But who is saying this? The AAP isn’t— they’re making a recommendation about breastfeeding, not about every possible choice in infant feeding. If they release recommendations about formula feeding (which I suspect after the shortage issue there will be a great deal of pressure on them to do) I don’t expect them to say “oh but also here’s something for those of you who choose to breastfeed!”[/quote]

I mean this is just a ridiculous line of argument. You can't make a recommendation about breastfeeding, repeatedly say how it is the best form of feeding infants and toddlers, and not make an implicit statement about "every possible choice in infant feeding" (really, you don't think there is one obvious alternative to breastfeeding?)[/quote]

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