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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]

Why is Oster, a trained economist, better source than the two people who wrote the AAP technical report and paper (Joan Younger Meek, MD, MS, RD, FAAP, FABM, IBCLC; Lawrence Noble, MD, FAAP, FABM, IBCLC) ? Literally the announcement objective for the AAP statement is : AAP identifies stigma, lack of support and workplace barriers as obstacles that[b] hinder continued breastfeeding.  [/b] Does Oster negate this statement? No, but then she goes on to undermine the AAP.

In the article you linked she references a paper on HTN risk and only talks about the 2011 but the technical report lists two papers in 2018 and 2019.

I think she likes to be controversial and whatever gives her the most clicks.

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Ahhh. A person who is capable of nuanced thought. I said this earlier in the thread, and it is clearly lost on the anti-breastfeeding poster, but the AAP did not recommend extended breastfeeding as the best option. They SUPPORT it, note studies showing health benefits, especially to the mother, and advocate for the elimination of barriers for those who choose to breastfeed beyond six months. That's it. Nowhere in the paper does it say that they recommend extended breastfeeding for everyone.[/quote]

DP.  The criticism of the AAP is not that the cite some support for breastfeeding, but that they overstate the positive benefits and completely ignore the costs.  And of course, [b]stating the support for extended breastfeeding is akin to discouraging formula.[/b] That's obvious; you're just playing ridiculous language games.  If all AAP wanted to do was support autonomy in infant feeding, this would be worded MUCH differently. [/quote]

DP but…the bolded is entirely incorrect. Breastfeeding past one has nothing to do with formula because babies older than one don’t drink formula…someone breastfeeding their 14MO isn’t choosing between breast and formula. [/quote]

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