Mummy Guilt Culture - Protecting or Patronising

[sunshine 11]

I'm confused - there are some articles that say BF'ing reduces SIDS, others say there is no identifable link - this is from the SIDS for kids information statement as clearly they aren't willing to make a statement saying it absolutely proves the link. At the end of one article on Reuters I found the below:

" The analysis doesn't definitively show that there's a cause and effect relationship between breastfeeding and SIDS risk, but Hauck said she is "fairly confident" that's the case."

Health authorities aren't going to make recommendations unless they are satisfied of the link. It's dangerous for them to do this, as there are so many studies done everyday around the world on health issues, often with conflicting results, or data gathering methods which aren't consistent. They would be changing their recommendations all the time, confusing people by making statements that they later retracted. This is exactly the same as allergies - there is the potential for a link between starting solids later than 4-6 months, but until the academic world is convinced of this fact through consistent and substantiated empirical evidence, they won't release it as a statement of fact and authorities won't officially be changing their recommendation of starting solids until after 6 months.

I am not challenging the worthiness of the data or the belief you may/may not have between BF'ing and SIDS BTW, just wondering how health authorities could disseminate this information without creating enormous confusion and the potential for great harm if the information is incorrect. I have no idea how they would possibly keep up with all these differing studies and give people advice that wasn't consistenly changing and people being attacked for their decisions to/not do something based on something that has in the world of health academia, yet to be proven.