[cjCamel]

No-one on this thread has mentioned breast feeding. The WHO recommends exclusively breast feeding a child for 6 months, and to continue until they are at least 2 years old. I understand that this is not possible or desirable for many parents, but the choice to do so should be available.

No surprise that even the most socially responsible companies in the US are skewed towards the extreme low end of parental leave allowance relative to other countries.

US employment law doesn't incentivise long term employment full stop, so little wonder some on here find it hard to understand why it is worth paying employees to come back.

[agensaequivocum]

There is nothing wrong with bottle feeding. Some children do not breast feed well, some do. You should just go with what works.

[kazinator]

Formula can be consistently made. The "breast milk is best" argument depends on cherry-picked breast milk.

Is it still better than formula if Mom drinks or has some health problem? Stuff passes into breast milk. If Mom takes an ibuprofen, into the breast milk it goes.

Can HIV pass through breast milk? No clear answer:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8826332

If you look at the scientific arguments about how breast milk is better, they revolve around hair-splitting. Like increased risk of necrotising enterocolitis in pre-term babies.

[jacobolus]

Your post is mommy-shaming FUD.

Ibuprofen is considered safe to take while breastfeeding. A brief web search didn’t turn up any concerning evidence (maybe you know of some?). There are some medicines which concentrate in breastmilk, but ibuprofen is not one of them.

Women who need certain prescription medicines, are undergoing chemotherapy, have HIV or certain other viral diseases, have had significant lead exposure, etc. are clearly warned not to breastfeed.

Mom has to drink alcohol extremely heavily on a regular basis to make a serious problem for a breastfeeding baby.

Alcohol content in breastmilk is roughly comparable to blood alcohol content. 3 drinks and it’s like 1 part in 1000. I wouldn’t advise breastfeeding women to drink several drinks at a time, but more for their own health than their infant’s – if mom loses motor control, becomes belligerent, starts making poor choices, etc. that isn’t great for her family. People in general should use alcohol sparingly, but new mothers don’t deserve any special scorn for drinking.

At worst, some studies suggest that babies drink less on average in a breastfeeding session immediately after the mother was drinking, presumably because the taste is strange.

The dangerous one for the baby is not a mother drinking while breastfeeding, but regular or heavy drinking during early pregnancy. The period of time when alcohol can have the most severe negative effects often comes before a woman realizes she is pregnant.

[agensaequivocum]

There definitely can be risks depending on the health of the mother.

My thought for the original post was of an average healthy woman.