I had a horrible breastfeeding argument

[EwokMomma]

...I'm just a bit upset by it. I was with a friend and we started talking about breastfeeding and I'm not wanting to go into it all, because that is feeding the negativity, but how do you recover friendships after this sort of thing happens?

[Jojo F.]

For me it would depend on how long I knew this person and how important of a friend they are to me but, talk about it. As much as you don't want too I find discussing 'why' people are upset about something is best, that way you get to understand eachother a little better, kwim?

If this is a very good friend I would try to leave it and move on. But again, it kind of depends on the "fight".

Does it seem like your friend can move on too? I would at least let the friend know how much the friendship means to you and you don't want to lose that over breastfeeding (funny how something so natural can insight such strong feelings!) Or maybe she (I'm assuming it's a she) feels judged for not breastfeeding? Just throwing that out there since I don't know much about the argument.

[Amber Lion]

I think it depends on what the fight was about. If you can leave it at "agree to disagree" then by all means do so and salvage the friendship. If you can't, then you have to either try and resolve it (if possible) or end the friendship. Breastfeeding can really be an intense topic for people, so hopefully if this friendship is important to you both of you can leave it and move on. Maybe breastfeeding is just something you don't discuss. I've got those topics with certain friends and as long as we don't discuss it we're good, however, there are certain things that are unforgivable imo and that ends a friendship (i.e. abuse).

[Ruthla]

It's hard to give specific advice without knowing more details (but it's certainly OK if you don't want to share more details here.) I do want to clarify one detail though: was this argument related to your own personal BFing experiences (was she giving you a hard time about what you personally are doing?) or was it more of a general argument about breastfeeding vs formula?

If it was a general debate, it's probably best to "agree to disagree." If you said something, intentionally or not, that made her feel upset about her own baby feeding choices, then you should apologize. If she's giving you a hard time about a child you're currently nursing, then you need to either clear the air or avoid spending time with her.

[jecombs]

It depends... how close are you? If this is a long-term, close, relationship I would attempt to repair it. If, in retrospect, I felt that I said hurtful things I would apologize for that but not for my feeding choices. However, if my friend said judgemental things about my nursing relationship with my infant/toddler/child, I would find that much harder to forgive. Sometimes you have to agree to disagree on certain topics. Afterall, you won't be nursing your children forever and you might have a lot of other things in common that make the friendship worth preserving.

Is this a friend that has her own children? I have found that I have drifted away from my childless friends since I had DD. They have a lot theories, but not a lot of practical experience or advice (even tho a lot of them think they know it all!).

[EwokMomma]

Well, I'll elaborate now I have had a bit of distance. She doesn't have children. I have a child who I am breastfeeding. The conversation came up because she was saying she had no idea about how long women breastfeed for. And then suddenly we were talking about HIV and breastfeeding.

She was saying that the breastmilk of a HIV mother is rendered completely useless because of the HIV - that ALL the beneficial properties of breastmilk are nullifed by it. She said she had done lots of 'research' and looked at the CDC website statistics and spoken to her Doctor and that she had worked for a gay mens HIV unit and her information was 100 percent accurate. No question.

My stance was purely about weighing up the comparison of bf vs ff infant mortality in third world countries where HIV is prevailant, whether more babies will die of being ff with contaminated water, mixing formula in unsanitary conditions, malaria, diarrhea etc than would die if they are fed breastmilk, even hiv infected breastmilk under those extreme circumstance. I was questioning whether infectious HIV virus is present in breast milk and what percentage of infections are transmitted from mother to baby through breastfeeding and wondering about the statistics and the methods used to test this. I had had heard Marian Tompson speaking about questioning the current research and told her about it.

But my friend was saying that the breastmilk was completely useless if it has hiv in it and that the immunity for ALL other things would rendered useless too. As far as I understood this was not true. That if the child already has HIV the breastmilk would still have protective qualities against other things.

I was trying to explain to her about the AnotherLook information and said that she might want to look at this as part of her research. Then she just got very, very angry with me and said flat out that she would refuse to look at it and that whatever it was saying it was irresponsible and wrong. I kind of said ... well unless you look at it how can you be sure it's wrong, because I myself might be misrepresenting it without having the facts at hand? But she just grew very hostile about it. "well I'm not going to look at the information, it's wrong, I know it's wrong and I'm shocked that that woman (Marion Tompson) would write such a thing, she obviously doesn't know anything, she's dangerous etc etc etc etc"

I know it's an emotive subject, and I really don't profess to know the answers but I'm shocked that she would not even look at relevant research by the leading experts on breastfeedingabout it, not because I think she should look at it, but just because out of pure scientific curiosity and in the spirit of the pursuit of knowledge, and to educate herself on all sides of the argument that she insisted on having and saying she was 100 percent right about, you would think she would be interested in finding out up to date information.

I felt really weird afterwards, I kind of still do. I was starting to feel like she was in a bit of a loop, having an argument with me because she just wanted to vent. When I tried to explain my understanding of the issue, she kept saying "Yes but that's not what you were saying before" like we were in some sort of debate class and she needed to 'win' the argument. I'm just totally wiped out from it... and her.

[MamaDona]

It does sound like she was just stuck in some sort of script or loop, and she wasn't even listening to your responses. I wonder what else is going on with her? Have you spoken to her since?

[jecombs]

Hmmmm.... that's tricky. Has she done things like this in the past? Have you guys ever had a debate/argument before where she absolutely refused to listen to you? ITA with you guys that it sounds like she was stuck in a loop and really wanted to just "win" the argument. If this is a pattern of behavior I would have to assess how much contact I wanted to have with my friend in the future.

If you do decide to speak to her about it again, I would focus on what happened and how you felt, as opposed to the actual topic of BF and HIV. I would probably say something like "I felt wierd/hurt about the way we left-off our last conversation. I just wanted you to know that I never intended to hurt your feelings." That might open the door for her to tell you why she became so hyper-sensitive about the topic.

[kcstar]

That.

BF can be a sensitive subject all by itself.

HIV can also be a sensitive subject. Especially AIDS. There was so much misinformation in the early days, so much fear. And even with better knowledge about how it's transmitted, it's still a stigmatized and frightening illness.

I'm not a medical professional, so this is just my opinion based on what I have read. I may have missed information.

From what I have read, HIV can be transmitted in breastmilk. If somehow the child did not catch HIV while gestating / being born, I would think that extended breastfeeding increases the risk that the child would catch HIV from the HIV-positive mother. BUT I don't see any reason why the immune system boosters that also exist in breastmilk wouldn't work, at least in the short (infant survival) run.

In the long run, though, human immunodeficiency virus does attack the immune system. So if left untreated, I imagine that HIV and AIDS would, in the long run, destroy all the beneficial immunities of breastmilk.

However, it can take ten years for HIV to become AIDS, and the antiretroviral medications have had some successes in extending that further. So I imagine that a child who was born with HIV, if treated, has a pretty good chance of growing up.

[Emmery'sMom]

I was just on the WHO website last night and when the mother is HIV+ they still recommend BFing if safe alternatives are not available.
The presence of the HIV virus in breastmilk does not magically render it useless- babies will still grow and thrive on it, so how "useless" could it be?
Honestly IDK that I could maintain a friendship with someone who is so hostile.

[Dov'sMom]

My understanding is that there are drugs that can reduce HIV transmission through bm, and, when safer alternatives are not available, there's no reason an HIV-positive woman couldn't breastfeed.

That said, I wouldn't lose a friendship over one stupid opinion strongly held. If YOU had HIV, and were breastfeeding during this conversation, then yes -- that's a personal attack of a whole different magnitude. But you wouldn't break off a relationship just because your friend believed that not vaccinating children was dangerous, would you? Or at least -- I don't vaccinate, and I have several friends who think that's just plain wrong. But our friendship isn't based on complete agreement over medical matters. (Now if they wouldn't let their kids play with mine, that would be a bigger deal...)

[EwokMomma]

repeated post

[EwokMomma]

KC and Emmery'sMom, that was my kind of take on it too. I wasn't being unreasonable and saying EVERY WOMAN MUST BREASTFEED EVEN IF SHE HAS HIV NOW!
I was just talking about questioning the idea that breastfeeding with HIV was completely bad or wrong, and that in places where ff would be risky the percentages of deaths of ff vs bf-ing even with HIV needed to be compared. For me it's not even an emotive issue in that I don't have anyone close to me with HIV, it's more of a compassionate issue, and like research about Sunshine = skin cancer versus No sunshine = vitamin D deficiency creating other cancers, something that I think has a lot of research and the answers get clouded by lack of certain knowledge and that we should be asking more questions about.


Right, I wouldn't want to break off a friendship just on that one argument. I was just in a spin about it because it all became so illogical.

I suppose the thing is that whatever the argument had been about isn't even the issue, I was more upset by her way of arguing rather than anything else. She was slamming me down for questioning her supposed 100 percent accurate knowledge, yet she clearly knows very little about breastmilk judging by other questions she had asked me about breastfeeding in the past.

But it did seem like she was in a spin. I've obviously touched a nerve somewhere. Idk, I'm just going to wait on her and see if she gets in contact again and then play it by ear

[Bluegoat]

I believe that the normal reccomendation is that moms with HIV not BF, however, in the case of no safe alternative like reliable clean formula or a healthy wet nurse, it can be the best option. But moms with HIV who do BF are told to never feed formula, as it makes it more likely that the virus will be passed, as it damages the gut. And when the baby starts on other types of foods, it should stop nursing immediately.

The idea that HIV changes the composition of BM is silly, though I suppose it may affect its anti-immune properties - that doesn't seem impossible.

I would probably just ignore the conversation, unless you can figure out what the issue is. It sounds like you friend has some emotion around it that is causing her to not listen. Ultimately, it likely doesn't touch on your everyday lives a lot, I would think? If she does things like that all the time it could be trying, but we all have our little quirks.

[saimeiyu]

I've actually read that recent research has shown that IF a baby is EXCLUSIVELY BF'd, completely, by an HIV positive mother, it actually reduces the chances of transmission by a significant percentage, something like 90% I think. But like Bluegoat said, as soon as the baby gets anything other than that, you have to stop.

I'm curious about what the woman thinks should happen in places where the primary killer of babies is unclean water used in formula or parents try to stretch formula by watering down the formula due to inaccessibility or the expense?

In any case, I don't think it will come up in conversation again unless you bring it up. If you're still comfortable with her otherwise, I'd just not touch the subject with her. I'd also avoid any other debates because if she argues like that on one front, it's probably her way of 'debating' other things, too.

[katmann]

Originally Posted by EwokMomma

I suppose the thing is that whatever the argument had been about isn't even the issue, I was more upset by her way of arguing rather than anything else. She was slamming me down for questioning her supposed 100 percent accurate knowledge, yet she clearly knows very little about breastmilk judging by other questions she had asked me about breastfeeding in the past.

But it did seem like she was in a spin. I've obviously touched a nerve somewhere. Idk, I'm just going to wait on her and see if she gets in contact again and then play it by ear

You might just have to accept this trait as part of her personality if you want to save the friendship. Some people argue in this manner and they can't be open to new ideas. It may be that this particular issue brought something up with her. If you were to bring it up again in such a manner as, "It seems like that topic really upset you, is there a way we could talk safely about it?", then maybe she would let on as to what it is that bothers her about that argument. But, it sounds like it's better to let it go and know that in the future, touchy subjects might set her off. If I were you, I would simply allow some distance and not worry about being extra-close with this person in the future.

[EwokMomma]

I think everyone has kind of summed it up for me. Excellent advice as always.

[Ruthla]

OK, since this wasn't a personal attack against your own breastfeeding decisions, I'd try to steer clear of debating anything with her in the future. I wouldn't go so far as to say "why be friends with somebody so closed minded?". She's probably still a wonderful person when she's not stuck in a debate like this.

[PudnHead]

This is just for your benefit. It has been several years since I heard this so I may have this wrong, but I remember hearing of a way to erradicate the HIV virus out of breastmilk but it was very time consuming. I want to say that the HIV + Mom had to hand express her milk into a "safe" container. I don't remember what was safe (maybe glass?) but I don't think it was plastic. There was a reason they couldn't use an electric or manual pump. Maybe they couldn't afford it, but I was thinking there was more to it. Like the pump would be infected and pass more virus into the milk (this is just a guess - maybe I am wrong). Then the milk was heated and could be used.

It was very time consuming, but the point of the article was the lengths that African HIV+ women went to to provide safe breastmilk to their babies. I tried to do a quick search on this and I found something about flash heated. This might be what I was thinking about.