I am not a health professional, but I am in a research field and very data/science oriented.

Personally, I say something immediately if it's actually dangerous, I think that's a moral responsibility for anyone. That being said, you can't force people to listen to evidence or science, so I don't push it past sharing the information. If a group is typically receptive to these kind of things/if it comes up a lot there, then I know it's not the group for me. I cannot be in an environment like that, for my own sanity.

I hear you big time as a FM doc. It is kind of you to say something when you see something dangerous. Still, you also have to maintain enough emotional distance to know that how people respond is not something you can control. You did MORE than what was required of you by speaking up.

If it's causing you moral injury to be dealing with this, you gotta get yourself out of that environment. It's not worth it - especially because arguing on reddit isn't likely to change their mind or actions.

Dunno if it counts, as I’m only an infectious disease epidemiologist, but my research is on vaccines and vaccine preventable diseases. The do my own research crowd is in full force on vaccine topics. Sometimes, if I have some energy, I’ll provide polite advice with linked evidence. But most of the time? I just force myself to close the tab. My PI always says to just move forward and don’t engage. I can’t protect my mental health and keep working on this all day if I am doing that in my spare time too.

Leave these groups

I am not a healthcare professional mom. My husband works in the NICU, though. This has made me steer clear of people who aren't a professional, who do their "own research." I'd love to say, "Oh! How many years did your research run on for? What was your control group? What outcome were you testing for or against?" Etc. I know my limits. I'm not as educated as professionals. I let THEM do what they love and hope they can save lives and help people. I admire people in the healthcare field. It's hard, grueling work that requires dedication to the lifelong pursuit of knowledge, and for people to claim they can google something or read a buzz article or watch a few tik toks to know better pisses me tf off. If I were you, I'd have a lower opinion of this friend of yours. I'm judging from over here lol.

I'm a dietitian, and there's a reason I don't join mom groups. I'm not dealing with the misinformation BS.

I spent 12 years in working in clinical ophthalmology. Currently 13 weeks pregnant, FTM.

A recurrent problem I saw throughout my career was new mothers was avoiding doctors because they were treating at home with breast milk.

That’s not to say that breast milk isn’t a scientific wonder and doesn’t have a positive impact, because it is! There is a lot of science based evidence backing that it is amazing.

However, there are certain conditions where it either won’t or can’t help or could even make a condition worse. It is disappointing when you see a child have to deal with totally preventable outcomes, like corneal scarring and decreased vision… but in healthcare, all you could really do was advise and document, document, document.

I’ve since left the field but the one thing I learned in those years is that you can’t help people that do not want to be helped. You can present evidence based science with the best of intentions, but some folks will still choose to view you as hostile.

You only have control over your parenting decisions and can only influence those who trust you. With online communities in particular, there comes a time where for better or for worse, you realize you don’t belong there or aren’t welcome and it’s best to move on.

I am not in a mom group but I see it on reddit a lot. Sometimes I do comment but not always. It’s been kind of sad seeing the level of distrust among physicians or evidenced based medicine.

I’m a labor and delivery nurse and I had to leave the new/expectant mom Facebook group because of this. People kept sharing advice that was so unsafe and against medical evidenced based practice and after a while I had to leave for my own sanity.

I think it’s kinda weird/tricky that your group doesn’t respect your informed position as a health care professional. If I had you in my group, I’d be asking all the questions!!

Maybe find a group that values you?

Btw, not a health care professional. But a literacy educator (who has my own opinions about how we teach kids to read/love reading—so similar perspective, maybe? :))

I share what I know and my credible resources and if they respond negatively I disengage. I did my moral duty. Whatever they choose to do is up to them as much as it pains me to know they could cause harm.

It’s like when a patient wants to leave the hospital AMA. I will give them all the information that says it’s not safe, but I will not stop them from leaving… even if I know there’s a chance they could collapse in the parking structure and die (actually happened to a pt I had, he left a smaller hospital AMA, coded in their parking lot and was flighted to my hospital… then left our hospital AMA a few days after I had him - I would guess he’s dead now honestly).

I'm a FM physician. Happily it's not common where I live, at least with moms whose little ones are the same age as mine. So to be honest, I haven't really had to read or hear anything that seemed deeply wrong from a medical or scientific POV. It's sad to hear that it's so different elsewhere.

I think the even harder part is how to feel with misinformation when dealing with other healthcare professionals. That one I just steer clear, because I know what education they should have received, they're just choosing to disregard it.

Sometimes I'll share information debunking inaccurate information if the poster seems to be genuinely seeking more information, or I'll throw in a comment about asking/listening to their doctor because they've actually been trained to read and evaluate research critically (and generally keep up to date on it), which is a learned skill and not something that most lay people know how to do.

But a lot of times I'll just see a comment, shake my head, and think "this person may be beyond help", then move along. You can tell the ones that are entrenched in their dangerous beliefs.

Leave the group. 

Not worth wasting your time or energy on. 

In my experience the smaller the group the less likely this is to happen and also it really helps if the moderators are on top of things. My bump group discord server actually has rules around sharing misinformation. Thankful that we really haven't had to enforce them

I’m in a mom group with people in my profession and it’s breathe of fresh air. I hate seeing unhinged mess.

Seems like a lot of social media groups turn into echo chambers. Some just aren't worth engaging with. A good group will be pushing back on that advice as a whole rather than allowing someone to endanger their kid with the "research" cop out.

I don’t engage and just leave. You’re never going to change their minds because you’re part of the “system”.

Fuck me, even my mother-in-law thinks I’m paid off by big pharma to kill people with midazolam and morphine.

I’m in healthcare and don’t give a shit about things posted in mom groups.

I deactivate social media frequently or remove myself from groups because I can’t handle the stupidity.

I was a flight nurse (recently stepped away and doing case management) and my husband is a pilot who is currently back in school working on his MD. We both have worked in high stress very safety sensitive positions especially with the military background and calling out wrong things is part of the culture…. Which most people can’t handle so we both come off as abrasive or rude. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I’m not going to change myself or sugar coat things to suit other peoples needs.

I recently had to leave most of my due date groups because of this. It got it the point where I constantly was pointing out unsafe advice and advice that constantly went against evidence based science. I got into so many Facebook arguments. I left and have been so much happier.

The last thing I want to do is downplay the fact that misinformation is extremely dangerous. But I also find it confusing when technically-minded people act as though science and research is some monolith. Professionals often disagree, sometimes even those on the same project looking at the same data. Two well-informed and well-reasoned people absolutely can come to a different conclusion.

Based on your post, I very strongly doubt that this instance was a case of this, but I still want to bring this up. It's something that's been bothering me for a while. I'm an engineer, not a healthcare professional, so maybe our fields are dissimilar enough that my experience in research isn't relevant.

What was the remedy?

Say something. But you can also report the post for misinformation. Hopefully then it will be taken down so other people don’t see the advice in it and follow it.

Keep sharing. You'll probably reach a few that are too ashamed to acknowledge their mistake, even if the initial dummy buckles down.

I recently had an argument about the intelligence of an anti vaxxer openly posting in a science respecting mothers group.

Have you ever met a doctor or nurse that wasn't up to date on research? I don't think people should just trust any medical professional. Plenty of advice here is ditch your doctor if they support sleep training early or say anything negative about weight gain, and oh my especially for discussing vaccines. Clearly not ALL medical advice is trusted by every person. You still need to discern from whom you will trust. Thus, why should someone trust a random stranger who claims medical professional on the Internet? Would you trust someone who says they are a doctor and don't recommend the COVID vaccine for babies (talking infants here, not adults)? It's still pretty mixed in my liberal circle of doctors (mostly Ivy's, UC schools, and Stanford), but who do you trust? Heck, one of my friends who is an OB thinks we should follow Asia and include the TB vaccine for infants, but I doubt most of us get it. But she thinks a lot of my friends visit places like Japan, Korea, Thailand, etc so we should vaccinate like they do in Asia. And fair, we do travel international so maybe yeah. But again, discernment for your own circumstances.

Also, we need to distinguish what is good research (double blind, repeatable studies with a diverse sample set) from generalized anecdote reporting (like studies on alcohol and pregnancy when you ask a mom how much they drank). I'm not saying you posted bad studies, but golden standard research on pregnancy is rare. More often than not, advice stems from a better safe than sorry attitude. We just don't test on pregnant women, so it's almost impossible to get double blind studies and half the people on placebos. This is even the case with baby aspirin. You can't test it and say 80% effective or whatever if you can't give half the people who might be high risk a sugar pill and risk the baby just in the name of good research. It's unethical.

This is really tough. There is so much conflicting information out there and it’s only gotten worse. So I know it’s very hard for people to know what to believe and which way to turn. Google is a bottomless pit and thanks to their AI answer generator, it likes to spit out some contradictory info lol. Every health professional will tell you, ‘Stay off Google!’ And that’s great advice.

Personally I just advise people to speak to a trusted medical professional. That could be an OB, Naturopath, DO, chiropractor, etc. But I think working with someone who is supportive and knowledgeable in the type of health and care they are into is a very good place to start. If people want to practice homeopathy, then I would suggest they speak to a Naturopath or Homeopathic medical professional. An OB or GP will have no clue and just say, ‘stay away.’ That may not be helpful, nor may it be accurate.

Personally I listen to everything my OB says but I also listen to my body. For example, I developed a yeast infection in my pregnancy and was prescribed a cream. I used it for 2 days and it burned and stung and made me feel worse. I tossed it and took a probiotic instead that was for pregnancy as well as another one that had a higher count but with the same strains. Boom… problem resolved. My OB never suggested probiotics, but I’ve been studying natural health long enough, read medical journals, and saw that my own prenatal contained probiotics that I felt comfortable taking them.

I think the problem is we live in a very pharmaceutically minded society. For thousands of years cultures all over the globe used herbs and different things to heal. Some of them were very effective and still are, but research has not been done simply because there is no money in it. You can’t patent an herb so no one cares. It’s really unfortunate.

Anyway, I think it’s absolutely fine to share your expertise and knowledge and you should! But also be willing to hear someone else out. If they are not comfortable with something even though it’s been studied that doesn’t mean they are being foolish or stupid. I’ve had many bad reactions to medications despite their long history of ‘safety.’ Every body is unique. And I think if we were more sensitive to people’s concerns instead of dismissing them with statements like ‘believe science’ we would all benefit. After all, science is always changing their minds… fat is bad! No it’s good! Aspartame is great! No it’s toxic! Smoking is healthy! It causes cancer!

I have a friend who thinks GMO food is no big deal. I couldn’t disagree more. But I also respect that this is where she is at right now. So I just encourage her to buy organic lol.

Anyway, that’s just my approach.