The Skeptical OB

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, or in this case, two pictures. To hear lactivists tell it, breastfeeding is lifesaving for infants and therefore, formula is deadly. Indeed, there are a variety of scientific publications that purport to show how many lives and how much money could be saved if more women breastfed […]

Quacktress Gwyneth Paltrow has take PT Barnum’s advice to heart. Barnum famously said that you can’t go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Paltrow is channeling Barnum with her website goop and is laughing all the way to the bank. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]When quacktresses like Paltrow trade on their […]

Insufficient breastmilk is a relatively common condition affecting up to 15% of first time mothers attempting to initiate and maintain breastfeeding. Lactation professionals are notoriously poorly informed about this risk of exclusive breastfeeding, many insisting that it is only the “rare” mother who has insufficient supply. Furthermore, breastfeeding professionals insist or imply that the benefits […]

That woman is not too bright, sorry to say. She has no credentials, her sources are limited and biased, and she is obviously just trying to reason away her own guilt for not breastfeeding … No, that lactivist is not talking about me. She’s talking about Charlotte Faircloth, another professional who pointed out that the […]

Imagine a natural disaster: flood, fire, hurricane, blizzard. Or, if you prefer, imagine a manmade disaster: a terrorist attack, a power grid failure, a nuclear explosion deliberate or accidental. Imagine the death, injury, destruction, fear and misery. What would be your first priority if you were caring for those people? It wouldn’t be promoting breastfeeding, […]

Antivax conspiracy thinking has become a serious public health problem. Vaccine preventable diseases, along with the illness, injury and death that they cause, are making a comeback. Antivaxxers like to portray themselves as possessors of secret knowledge about vaccines. In truth, they don’t have secret knowledge; they have deficient knowledge. In addition, conspiracy theories are […]

It’s truly one of the great existential questions of the 21st Century. Which is greater: antivaxxers stupidity or their heartlessness? Antivaxxers latest attempt at “reasoning” involves viciously attacking a mother whose baby died of suffocation, claiming that it must have been a vaccine injury instead. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Anti-vaxxers demonstrate their derangement.[/pullquote] […]

Natural parenting advocates in general, and anti-vaxxers in particular, are certain about one thing: if it’s natural it must be nearly perfect. Breastmilk is “best” because it is naturally made by the human breast. Childbirth pain is good for women because it occurs naturally in labor. Childbirth itself is inherently safe because women were naturally […]

Most of the evidence for the purported benefits of breastfeeding for term infants is weak, conflicting and riddled with confounders … not to mention distorted by white hat bias. Time and again, rigorous studies have failed to confirm the breathless pronouncements of lactivists. Now a new study shows that far from preventing childhood obesity, breastfeeding […]

There once was a time when all babies were breastfed … and they died in droves You might think that people would reflect on this before promoting breastfeeding as a lifesaving panacea. Sadly, you would be wrong. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]There’s an appalling presumption that only Western, well off, mostly white women know […]