Does formula feeding cause ill health later on in life?

I recognise I’m about to open a can of worms here, but this is important, so it needs to be examined. The question occurred to me as I was washing up, a position that always causes my back to ache unfathomably, especially when I was pregnant. Could I (feasibly) sue my own mother for health problems caused by not being breastfed?

I was a formula fed baby (a mix of goats milk and soya, since you ask). Aged 34, I have histamine intolerance which may or may not be causing an as yet undiagnosed autoimmune condition that might be one of (or all of) Crohns, IBD and ankylosing spondylitis – they all stem from the same family of diseases, caused in a part by gut bacteria dysbiosis and mast cell disruption (this abstract describes my symptoms as well as anything a GP has yet come up with).

The thing is, the long term health data on breastfeeding is largely unavailable, but my own experiences speak volumes, and have informed my opinion  (IT’S JUST MY OPINION THOUGH). Breastfeeding my own babies, I noticed a pattern among my peers. Babies who weren’t breastfed, or whose mother supplemented with formula in the first 12 weeks inevitably went on to have an allergy of some sort. According to research, this is caused in part by the wrong bacteria populating the gut. Many children grow out of of these childhood allergies. But what if the consequences of formula feeding are more far reaching. Increasingly, evidence points to the fact that they may be.

I didn’t suffer from allergies as a child. According to my mother, she breast-fed me for a couple of weeks (or days – she’s a bit vague about it), before introducing formula. My older sister was formula-fed at birth (my mother tried, but had problems), and suffered grass allergies, asthma and lactose intolerance, although none of these was chronic.

I hit puberty early, which I partly put down to the phytoeostrogens in the soya milk, which is no longer recommended for feeding infants. Whether this might cause hormonal problems or even contribute to breast cancer later on in life, I’ve yet to discover, but I personally feel it may be a risk factor, although I haven’t sought medical advice. Who knows? Certainly not the midwives and health visitors dishing out one-size-fits-all advice to women who have just given birth. The advice, of course is always to try to breastfeed, but if a woman doesn’t want to, or can’t for some reason (tongue-tie seems to be a common factor among my friends who didn’t persevere) that’s it. It’s up to her. Of course it should be, but I do think an awareness of the risk factors for both mother and baby should be made plainer. And incentivising women to breastfeed wouldn’t hurt. For the long-term health benefits and cost savings it confers to society as a whole, women should be rewarded for something that is utterly time consuming, draining, and mildly, if only temporarily self- sacrificial.

For me, it’s only now the potential negatives to not being breastfed for any length of time are being felt. I have an allergic reaction every time I eat histamine-rich foods, which is contributing to an inflammatory response that is having implications for both my physical and mental health. The list of foods I can eat has shrunk to a minimum, although I have attempted to heal my gut lining with GAPS diet protocol (which initially starves the gut – and any bad bacteria, replenishes good bacteria and goes on to avoid grains – and am feeling much better as a result). But after the initial starvation phase – where you drink only chicken stock for several days – when my symptoms improved, I am still waking every morning with chronic mid-back pain (as well as coping with long standing issues with my joints and eyes) with could be symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, or the onset of ankylosing spondyliysis (which my paternal grandfather suffered from – but whether or not he was breastfed himself has long been lost to the sands of time.) There is also, perhaps, a point to be made about epigentics and breastfeeding or the lack thereof over generations, about which I’m too ill informed to go into here. My mother wasn’t breastfed herself, and having struggled with her weight and arthritis in recent years, I wonder whether she too can point the finger at own mother for some of the health issues from which she’s suffering now in her sixties.

The point I’m trying to make is that, increasingly, evidence shows breastfeeding may be essential for long-term health, and being particularly crucial during the first 12 weeks. Admittedly, I went on long courses of antibiotics in my teens and early twenties that have likely affected my gut bacteria, and which I also believe may be in part to blame for my current crop of health issues.

I don’t know for sure that my health problems now are caused by me being formula fed – there are too many potential causal factors to unpick. But I do feel my health may have been compromised by not being breastfed, particularly as I was lucky enough (and persistent enough) to breastfed my own children (who may also, ironically, be compromised as a result of me not being breastfed!) for a reasonable time: seven months my son and 15 months my daughter. Neither of them suffers allergies, but my son is diagnosed ASD, perhaps as a result of me being on antibiotics to the day I found out I was pregnant with him (find out more about the potential antibiotic links to autism and Asperger’s here).

The thing is, I do feel the politics around breastfeeding has got in the way of a salient point: whether we like it or not, breastfeeding is essential to health both to the mother and the baby, short and long term. So anyone railing along with the proliferation of #breassure on Twitter is missing it. This is not about feminism or anything else. It’s that the convenience of formula feeding potentially comes with a far reaching catch. And so it’s hardly surprising the NHS is now putting pressure on new mums to breastfeed, when there is so much evidence stacking up to show it has a part to play in the prevention of chronic diseases later on. Obviously this evidence was not around when my own mother was making choices about breastfeeding (though choice is a spurious point, given formula was routinely introduced to infants in hospitals in the early 80s and, as a working mother, I was put in day care at six weeks). But I feel like my own health now is a case in point.

I’m not making a value judgement – breastfeeding is hard, painful and pretty much impossible for mothers who have to return to work shortly after giving birth. But as a baby who was not breastfed, with several chronic health issues in my thirties, I feel pretty pissed off about it, and that’s a fact no one can argue with. (I’m not going to sue you mum, btw – but that’s not to say someone couldn’t, one day.) But there’s nothing I can do about it except do my best to eat well now, for my own benefit and to set a good-enough nutritional example to my kids for their long term health.

And for the avoidance of doubt, I’m not a medical practitioner, am writing purely from my own experiences and assumptions, but have read the following articles which seem to back up my assertions.

http://www.bestforbabes.org/lack-of-breastfeeding-is-a-key-factor-in-autoimmune-allergy-pandemic/

http://breastfeeding.support/breastfeeding-and-rheumatoid-arthritis/

http://jaoa.org/article.aspx?articleid=2093315