riddled with guilt - is it all too late?

[pregnabrain]

hello

dd2 is 4 weeks old today. she's been mainly breast-fed from the start but i had to supplement with formula from about five days old as i suffered a horrible post-natal crash (anxiety, panic attacks, insomnia) and had to be given sedatives to sleep.

am now consumed with guilt and convinced i've condemned her to a life of allergies and food problems. she's pretty much off the bottle now, and feeds really well from me, but is it all too late? have i messesd up all the benefits of bf?

am not intending to stop, btw, just really sad about what's happened.

apols if this sounds irrational and silly. amstill suffering anxiety...

[MrsSylar]

Oh dear. Why on earth do you feel guilty? You are now breastfeeding well, I am sure your baby is fine. The odd bottle wouldn't have made any difference.
You are obviously still anxious, and it may be an idea to see someone about that. But honestly, you are doing REALLY REALLY well to be breastfeeding your baby, especially given your post natal crash.
Keep up the good work

[JulesJules]

You are doing brilliantly. You could have given up altogether, and you didn't. Well done . I had a tough time bf to start with and then we got into it and it was great, keep it up, good luck!

[pregnabrain]

Thank you MrsSylar. Am seeing someone about the anxiety etc, and I do realise that I'm probably not being totally rational about this.

Thank you for your kind words. I know that there are lots of other benefits to breastfeeding, it's the allergy thing that's bothering me (both dh and i have a history of allergies).

I'd just like to know, if anyone can tell me, if it's too late for me now to provide any protection against allergies.

I keep reading breastfeeding sites and they talk about the importance of the 'virgin gut' and they're all full of statistics about higher rates of allergies etc in kids who've had formula at an early stage. So now I'm beating myself up about it and convinced that dd will suffer for something i could have prevented.

[MrsSylar]

I don't know the figures, I am sure someone more informed than me will come along. But just remember there are MILLIONS of people out there who were formula fed and who have grown up perfectly fine(I am one of them!)

I know what you mean about guilt though, and it's all about keeping everything in perspective.

If you'd smoked loads of fags and drank loads of vodka when pregnant, then fed your kid nothing but hula hoops, you may well feel justified in experiencing some pangs of guilt. However, you are now breastfeeding your very young baby, and the odd bottle of formula, really will not have harmed them.

Like I said, you are doing just great. Keep it up

[SoupDragon]

Hey, don't worry about feeling guilty. Motherhood is one long guilt trip from conception onwards.

You can only do your best for your baby. the benefits she gets from your milk are fantastic, even with the formula she had early on. What's done is done - your decision to offer formula was based on your needs and you are now back mostly breastfeeding which is what you want to do.

You're doing great!

[throckenholt]

what's done is done - and you worrying won't do anything to change that.

I think allergies are very much a genetic thing - if you have that tendency you have it - regardless of how you were fed. formula feeding won't induce allergies (probably) but breastfeeding may help to build up immunity and reduce the tendency. So - if she has been breastfed (at all) then she will be benefiting.

Don't beat yourself up.

And I hope you feel better soon.

[SoupDragon]

What difference will knowing "statistics" do? They are, after all, only numbers. Your DD could have ended up with whatever allergies she ends up with had she been fully breastfed from birth (DS1 had hayfever and he was bf for a year!). You will never know what might have happened had you not given formula and you can't go back and change it. Go easy on yourself!

[thefortbuilder]

hey pregnabrain - you're doing brilliantly! and as everyone else says don't feel guilty - there will be something else along soon enough that you will be feeling guilty about - that's just how it is

any bf'ing is a bonus

[NotSoRampantRabbit]

You've done amazingly well to continue bf.

I was an anxious first timer and understand the guilt as well as the next mum.

Now that DS is 3 I have a bit more perspective (some days) and when I feel the guilt descending I just take a good long look at this beautiful person, who despite all my shortcomings, is happy, healthy, funny, and an all round top chap.

Not so easy at 4 weeks, but the principle remains. Look at your dd. She's fab ain't she? Don't even go there with worrying about all the things that could go 'wrong'.

[pregnabrain]

awww you're all so lovely. i'm now in tears at how nice everyone is.

thank you for all your sensible messages about keeping things in perspective and the pointlessness of the guilt thing. you are absolutely right, of course. as soon as the feeding guilt subsides, something else will replace it (i've got a whole other set of anxieties for three year old dd1!). gah.

i suppose i am hoping that someone might come along and tell me that i can undo what's been done if i chuck the formula out now and bf like mad for the next however many months

[wobbegong]

Hello pregnabrain, At my post-natal group last week, we sat around talking about how hard we had tried to bf and how guilty we had felt about bottle-feeding (whether fully or partially). Our babies are about 6 months now, and we have that wonderful thing called perspective. In the early months, we all felt like you feel now- ridden with guilt, for some of us so much that it ruined those early weeks when we should have been bonding with and enjoying our babies. At six months, the bottle-fed babies are thriving, the bf babies are thriving. You did and are doing your best (well done!), and that's all there is to it. Your last message sounds more positive.

[MsDemeanor]

Hello, firstly poor you for the anxiety. I had a similar post-birth reaction after one of my children and know what's it's like to be afraid to close your eyes. You are doing absolutely amazingly.
Secondly, you know the stuff about breastfeeding preventing allergy is very, very weak indeed. There is no proof that it has any effect at all - even with a 'virgin' gut.
This study is a good one: www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj.39304.464016.AEv1?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext =breastfeeding+asthma&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=HWCIT

Breastmilk is wonderful stuff - I have loved breastfeeding - and great for your baby, but there is no real evidence that you have altered your baby's risk profile at all by giving some formula. But if that bottle helped you get some sleep, overcome the worst of your anxiety and maybe even prevented post natal depression, then that really is doing wonderful things for your baby as nothing is better for a baby than an OK mother who loves him.
So please don't feel guilty. You haven't harmed your baby. Enjoy him!

[pregnabrain]

that's a really interesting link. thank you. i didn't realise there was so much doubt over the connection. the breastfeeding sites don't hint at it.

'afraid to close your eyes' is a perfect description of what i felt in the days after dd2's birth. so sorry to hear you experienced this too.

i am so grateful that i am now able to start enjoying her (in between bf angst!)

[welliemum]

Oh, pregnabrain, poor you. But I don't think you need to worry. As MsDemeanor points out, the link between allergy and formula feeding isn't clear and isn't strong.

I think the big worry about topping up early on is that it'll reduce your milk supply - but you seem to have sorted that already.

I've read quite a bit about allergy as DH and I are both very allergic types and like you, I want to do the best for our children.

As far as the research goes, there are only 2 reasonably well-proven effects of early feeding on allergy. One is that weaning to solids before 4 months increases the risk, and the other is that breastfeeding while you wean (whatever age that is) seems to protect against allergy. So that's at least 2 things you can think about later on.

Apart from that, it seems to be luck of the (genetic) draw and basically beyond our control.

So enjoy your baby and don't worry - you won't have "caused" any allergy.

[becka1]

pregnabrain, enjoy your baby and relax! Forumla is not harmful to babys - I know because mine has thrived (after a low birth weight and very difficult delivery). Think about the whole life time of your baby and all of the important things you will do, this is just one of them

[Shitemum]

Even if you hadn't given her formula she might still have ended up getting an allergy of some type. You'll never really know what caused it if she does. Both mine were exclusively bfed and both had ezcema when small. You did what you had to in the circumstances. We can't always do what we planned to do, life throws up surprises, not all of them pleasant.
Well done for managing to get back to mainly bfeeding, many would have given up and stuck with the bottles.
Relax, enjoy!

[pregnabrain]

thank you welliemum, that's useful information. i'm definitely planning to keep bf beyond six months (am so happy to be able to say this now - 2 weeks ago i was on the verge of giving up altogether) so it's good to know that this will help.

my husband suffered terribly from excema as a child, and i've always had really bad hayfever. i desperately want my children to avoid all this but, as you say, it all comes down to the specific genetic makeup of each child in the end. dd1 is showing no signs of allergy to anything so far - will try to celebrate that fact instead of worrying about dd2!

[Elasticwoman]

Every extra day a baby breastfeeds is beneficial. If you have re-established exclusive bf, you are a champion bf-er Pregnabrain.

My ds was exclusively bf but also had some baby eczema, so the link between "virgin gut" and freedom from allergies is not a clear one, as others have pointed out.

In your case it seems you had no choice anyway - unless you could have supplemented with ebm from a milk bank or used a wetnurse!
Not very likely. So although you may regret what happened, it does not seem rational to feel responsible for it.

[MsDemeanor]

So pleased you feel happier. It's a horrible feeling, that anxiety. I worried I'd never sleep again! I felt as though I was buried alive every time I closed my eyes. Don't underestimate how tough a time you've had and how amazing you have been to get through it, stay on track with how you want to feed your baby and look after another child as well.

[TheProvincialLady]

Even if your DD developed allergies (which may or may not be attributable to formula), she will still be breastmilk. And the most important one in my opinion is having lots of close, snuggly contact with a responsive mum. Not that you can't do it with FF but it is almost a given with breast feeding and it makes such a difference to a baby's life. So not only is your DD getting the best milk, she's also getting it in the best way. She is a lucky girl to have a mother who cares so much about her that you went through so much and still persevered with BF

[TheProvincialLady]

Er that first sentence should read she will be getting all the other benefits of breast milk. Though you may feel she has so much milk that she is in danger of turning into it, I don't know...

[Elasticwoman]

You can't over-feed a bf baby.

[Habbibu]

Everyone's told you the facts, pregnabrain, but just wanted to say bloody well done you.