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Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

probablydance.com

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Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#61

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

notshift wrote: post #53
rtlfe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article links to some studies. https://www.vox.com/2016/1/11/10729946/breastfeeding-truth Edit: this one somebody else linked is better. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/everybody-calm-down-abo...

The second article you linked cites several studies. I looked at each of them and pretty much all of them conclude that breastfeeding is better than bottle, except the childhood obesity one, which found no effect (I wouldn't expect breastfeeding vs bottle to have an effect on weight or height). The first study cited only looked at height, weight, and blood pressure after breastfeeding, which are not the variables I w…

In most cases, I wasn't able to tell which study you were referring to. I was able to correlate study 4 tho:

> The fourth linked study on IQ concludes: "These results, based on the largest randomized trial ever conducted in the area of human lactation, provide strong evidence that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding improves children's cognitive development."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18458209/

The study was cited with criticisms of its method and strong reason to believe the study result is implausible. The effect size is far too large: there is no way that EBF causes a 24 point jump in IQ, when observed correlated effects are so much smaller. That effect is so large that it would be immediately and apparently obvious who was breast fed. In fact, you could guess someone's EBF status simply by knowing how smart they are. Intelligence would be multimodal around who was breastfed and not.

I'm not sure exactly what they screwed up when running the study. Possibly an overreliance on the power of random cluster trials? After all, if you run 31 clusters in total, then it wouldn't be too surprising that you find weird statistics, since N=31, not the number of human participants. But whatever the case, the whole thing is completely compromised because the result is so implausible.

Anyway that's the best and only random study of EBF and intelligence if 538 is to be believed. Which means we essentially have no randomly controlled evidence at all that EBF improves intelligence.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#62

Post by sgerenser »

donw wrote: post #11
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative. There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. But even if we stipulate that mothers must breastfeed, many working women pump milk during the day if they don't have unlimited paid time off after birth. In such cases bottles must obviously be used. And many women cannot produce enough breastmilk, and must supplement with formula. And many other possible reasons why bottles…

> There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. American scientists in the 1950s pushed all manner of highly-processed food products on the public because they had "figured out" nutrition. Except for micronutrients, probiotics, most of what we understand now about biological pathways, etc. Barring overwhelming evidence from replicated experiments -- "peer review" is and has always…

How is infant formula in the U.S. different than in Germany or Japan?

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#63

Post by sgerenser »

b112 wrote: post #19
jimbob45 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be the case that some breastfeeding is beneficial. However, I’ve been unable to figure out where the line is drawn after much internet research. Some places say six weeks gets you most of the benefits, others say twelve years minimum. You’re right though that the studies are less conclusive than some would like you to believe.

/years/weeks/ right?

Maybe it was hyperbole. Some hardcore breastfeeding advocates say it should be done until the kid is 3 or 4 years old.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#64

Post by greenonions »

elzbardico wrote: post #56

Just out of curiosity: is it common for Americans not to breastfeed? It may seem funny but for me mentions of bottles for newborns sound so strange

Very common, although breastfeeding is also common. In our case, we primarily breastfeed but supplement with formula.

Some thirty years ago, as my parents would tell it, people would primarily just use formula.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#65

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

Ovah wrote: post #37
sgerenser wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a doctor, but these stats sound completely ridiculous. Would love to see the source material.

Which of the stats do you think sounds ridiculous? SIDS for example is pretty rare to begin with (33.3 deaths per 100,000 per Google). At the end of the day I'm guessing the advice maybe saves a few lives on a population level, but only gives a slight statistical advantage to a proactive parent. I wish I had links to actual publications. I copied the numbers from a lecture given by a senior obstetrician.

The effect sizes are implausibly large. Breastfeeding would not be a live debate if the causal effect was that large. For example, a 36x risk of SIDS is really just too much to believe. This lit review: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/apa.13...

Doesn't mention any studies with effect sizes larger than 4x. And it is concerning habitual breastfeeding or other feeding treatments. If breastfeeding a single time provided a 36x safety factor, these kinds of results would be impossible. A 14x reduction in infant mortality is similar far beyond the reasonable belief.

Personally I wouldn't toss out a claim like that without strong evidence to cite.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#66

Post by dgfitz »

elzbardico wrote: post #56

Just out of curiosity: is it common for Americans not to breastfeed? It may seem funny but for me mentions of bottles for newborns sound so strange

Breastfeeding is hard. A lot of moms try and have a hard time getting through “the wall” of the first week or two. Taking nothing away from them, it’s very hard, more so if the difficulty wasn’t anticipated ahead of time.

I’ve watched my wife do it three times, with the 3rd time being right now with a 6 week old.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#67

Post by sgerenser »

Ovah wrote: post #37
sgerenser wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a doctor, but these stats sound completely ridiculous. Would love to see the source material.

Which of the stats do you think sounds ridiculous? SIDS for example is pretty rare to begin with (33.3 deaths per 100,000 per Google). At the end of the day I'm guessing the advice maybe saves a few lives on a population level, but only gives a slight statistical advantage to a proactive parent. I wish I had links to actual publications. I copied the numbers from a lecture given by a senior obstetrician.

Breastfeeding once reduces SIDS risk by 36 times? If that’s even remotely accurate, which I doubt, I’m 100% sure it’s correlation not causation. People who breastfeed are much more likely to be higher income, more informed about keeping toys and blankets out of the crib, have baby sleep on their back, etc.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#68

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

cocothem wrote: post #8
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Negative. There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed. But even if we stipulate that mothers must breastfeed, many working women pump milk during the day if they don't have unlimited paid time off after birth. In such cases bottles must obviously be used. And many women cannot produce enough breastmilk, and must supplement with formula. And many other possible reasons why bottles…

Interesting response. Let me just say that in general I would prefer the people around me to mention an alternative way of doing things (related to raising babies or anything really) along with some reasons if available. Not preach, just mention. So that they make sure I am aware of it. Maybe there is that one case where I find out about something I wasn't aware of. And then I wish we could all say "yes I know" or "I…

No mother in the United States is unaware that other people would prefer her to breastfeed. In general, what you say is true, but only for alternatives you haven't already considered thoroughly.

And it will become annoying to be constantly confronted with a viewpoint about your most intimate choices. Like relatives repeatedly asking an intentionally childless couple when they will have kids.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#69

Post by greenonions »

542458 wrote: post #26
farmerstan wrote: post #17

To soothe the baby the author forgot: 1) pacifier. Holy hell those things are life savers. As my kid got older he would sometimes lose the pacifier in his sleep and start crying. We just bought 10 of them and sprinkled them theoughout his crib at night 2) driving. Driving your kid around will often soothe them. I had a particular route I would take down the highway that would guarantee put him to sleep.

In the category of “no universal truths for babies”… my partner and I were hesitant to use pacifiers due to some of the negatives around jaw and mouth development (zero judgement for people who do use them). We agonized over whether we were overthinking it, whether it would help him sleep… but eventually we broke down and gave our kid one. To our surprise, he hated it. Wouldn’t keep it in his mouth at all, and all ou…

We had no such qualms about a pacifier, have given it freely, and our baby doesn't care for it at all either.

Re: Why babies cry in the first three months, how to tell them apart, and what to do

#70

Post by notshift »

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #61
notshift wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second article you linked cites several studies. I looked at each of them and pretty much all of them conclude that breastfeeding is better than bottle, except the childhood obesity one, which found no effect (I wouldn't expect breastfeeding vs bottle to have an effect on weight or height). The first study cited only looked at height, weight, and blood pressure after breastfeeding, which are not the variables I w…

In most cases, I wasn't able to tell which study you were referring to. I was able to correlate study 4 tho: > The fourth linked study on IQ concludes: "These results, based on the largest randomized trial ever conducted in the area of human lactation, provide strong evidence that prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding improves children's cognitive development." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18458209/ The study was…

Ah, fair enough. I was mostly skimming the linked article and clicking through to the referenced studies. You're right, you'd certainly have to throw out that particular IQ study in that case.
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