To think that "97% of women can breastfeed" is a load of crap

Fed is the bare minimum. If you don't feed your baby, they die and you go to prison.

Source?

Not always. My great grand-mother didn’t produce a drop of milk after any of her six births. (I don’t know what was wrong with her, I doubt she knew either.) All six babies were fed with the next best thing that was readily available, in this case cow’s milk. They all developed normally, went on to have families of their own and ended up in typical middle class jobs (teachers, a dentist and a veterinarian).

I was absolutely horrified when I first heard about this, especially since the milk wouldn’t even have been treated in any way, and they could have easily been accidentally given milk contaminated with bacteria that could have made them seriously ill. Nevertheless, I very much doubt that they were the only family in the history of humanity to have done this. We are very lucky to have modern formula available these days.

1/3 of women with PCOS don't produce enough milk.

You understand the difference between vaccines and breastfeeding yes? I’m imagining you understand that not vaccinating impacts others and their children, but Emily and all her friends not breastfeeding their perfectly healthy children impacts my child and yours how?

I had a baby with a cleft palate - so they are physically unable to breast feed whatever my situation was. I do find some of the comments on here almost have a tone of ‘of course they’d have survived in the old days, because you would have fed them and not been so lazy/keen to get back to work.’

No, some babies would have died. Or been removed from the mother and left to die quite likely. The idea someone mentioned above that evolution would have ensured that only women who could breast feed would have healthy children to grow up to have more kids makes me feel a little bit sick. Get rid of my son, and just wait for the next baby i have I guess. Because formula feeding is only for evil purposes and not, for some of us, the reason babies with some birth defects can live.

Several reasons really but mainly because you couldn't do it in front of anyone which would be a huge pain.

For me, I just never had even the slightest desire to try it.

Don’t think this was down to lack of milk though was it… It was more the lack of vaccinations, general hygiene and medication! Oh and if they did have low milk, it was also probably down to being malnourished due to poverty. I just don’t think many women genuinely can’t produce enough milk (premature births aside).

I think some of the worst advice given (it happened to a couple of mums in my nct class) is that you have to choose between breastfeeding or formula feeding. Their babies were losing a bit of weight so the hospital nurses told them they needed to stop breastfeeding and they went straight to 100% formula feeding. My nipples were in loads of pain and my best friend gave me the excellent advice that if I needed to give ds the occasional bottle that was absolutely fine. He had a couple of bottles of formula, a few expressed and just knowing I had the option somehow made it easier. He carried on breastfeeding until he was 2, alongside normal weaning. DD was bf until just before she was 4. Once milk supply is established and nipples no longer hurt in so many ways it is the easier option, in particular not having to get out of bed to sort out a bottle in the middle of the night/ability to comfort them particularly if they are unwell

Apart from women waiting longer to start trying to get pregnant - which I acknowledged already - that article doesn’t make any of the suggestions you did.

In fact it’s about MALE infertility rising as a result of falling sperm counts, whereas you had said WOMEN taking birth control was messing with women’s bodies. Not the same point at all.

Fed is best. You want unfed babies? Just mind your own business!

Wet nurses have been a thing for millennia. In ancient times babies ended up being passed around at feeding time.
Farmers give lambs to other ewes if their own mothers die/can't feed them.
Mammals care naturally.

My baby was in NICU and the medical staff actually wrote in my hospital notes that I had low milk supply and was struggling to breastfeed because of it, when it was just that my milk hadn’t come in yet. They put my baby on a drip, entirely unnecessarily, and refused to remove it until “I could prove I could breastfeed”. This was their concession because I refused to formula feed, against their advice.

They watched me feed her every 2 hours to judge whether I was getting it right. I had to grit my teeth through a bad latch because I didn’t want to show them it wasn’t going perfectly. By time she was out of NICU my nipples were bitten to shreds and bleeding a lot.. it was excruciating.

Do you want to know what was actually going on? My baby was 2 days old. My milk hadn’t come it. I was feeding her perfect colostrum, which anyone with even the most basic knowledge of motherhood would have known. On night 3, when she was out of NICU, my milk came in and my breasts were engorged and spurting everywhere.

The reason my daughter was in NICU in the first place was due to a suspected infection, nothing to do with feeding difficulties. I was stubborn enough and fortunate enough to have not had my breastfeeding journey cancelled by the doctors, but whenever I hear of women who “can’t” breastfeed it usually turns out to be that some completely ignorant medical expert has shamed them out of it through bullshit reasons like I was given.

Of course there are some women who don't want to, but that's not what is being discussed.

97% can lactate. That isn’t the same as having enough milk to feed their baby. My understanding is 80-90% of women can produce enough milk to sustain their child(ren) fully, which is still most but given 10-20% of women can’t exclusively breastfeed due to supply issues it is hardly rare.

Absolutely!

I've a large plexiform fibroma on my breast and nipple, I begged the NHS to remove it and they refused as it was classed as. "Cosmetic". It severely impaired my ability to breastfeed, same NHS told me off for not having it removed prior to pregnancy.

Generally people had bigger families so quite likely someone’s sister, neighbour, friend would be lactating and be able to feed another woman’s baby as well as their own.

I do remember the midwife guiding my baby’s head very gently. But I was allowed to hold my own boob😅

They recommend that you eat all allergens- including nuts- whilst breastfeeding as it reduces the risk of allergies, so you can let that guilt go.

I breastfed all of mine. One for 8mnths, one for 14mths and one for over two years. I would never pressure anyone to BF as I still remember the pain. It was intense. I also got mastitis at one point and that was no worse than the usual pain. I have no idea why I continued. Bloody minded I guess. And eventually the pain did stop and then it was convenient. The one benefit I have noticed is my kids teeth are exceptionally straight and the one who was breast fed for two years has teeth that always surprises the dentist that she never had a brace. One has extreme allergies which I think came from my diet. I knew not to eat nuts but there were other allergens I did eat.

The 1% statistic in the UK is also from 2015 - more than 10 years ago! There's been a huge uptick in breastfeeding rates since then, it's not a reliable stat to use anymore, but it was still used in my NCT, no idea why

I don’t know why I’m posting on this thread, as breastfeeding was probably one of the most stressful experiences I’ve ever had, and I just know comments on here will make me upset. I thought I’d got over it, but I’m pregnant with #3, and I’m aware that I’m about to go through it all over again.

I just wrote out a massive post about my specific breastfeeding experience, but I have deleted it because I know people will just tell me I’m lying.

Something I found really distressing when trying to make sense of my breastfeeding experience was that I was constantly told it was impossible to experience what I was experiencing, and then told more than once when asking for help online that posting about my experience would put other mothers off and therefore I should keep quiet.

And I’m sorry to say it, but the idea that breastfeeding is natural therefore must work 97% of the time is mad. Nature is very often cruel and nonsensical! Each of my grandparents had several siblings die, though they were hazy on the details. But my grandmother in particular remembers her mother weeping and desperately trying to feed one of her babies things like condensed milk (my grandmother says she wasn’t aware of them having access to formula, I’m not sure when that became available commonly in the UK).

I also remember my dad, a farmer, laughing at the idea that it was natural and should work. Oddly, my best breastfeeding advice came from my dad extrapolating his experience with sheep onto me (I’ll note that apparently he kept trying to talk shop with the midwife when my mum gave birth to me, telling them what he’d do if I was a lamb. I’m not sure anyone appreciated that much).

Also, I saw someone talking about high rates of breastfeeding in Norway and the supportive culture. I’m very fond of Norway but… supportive? Are you sure? 😅 incidentally my Norwegian friend looked at me like I had two heads when I told her how devastated I was during my breastfeeding difficulties. It was alien to her that anyone would feel so much emotion about it. I think combi-feeding is extremely common in Norway.

FTR despite three intersecting difficulties, I combo fed my first up to 7 months about 50/50. With my second, it was more like 80/20 as she had zero issues latching leaving me with just two of the three issues to deal with so it was easier. So I think I did very well actually.

I think I’d probably be classed as a mother who could breastfeed exclusively but didn’t. I think my first baby probably would have limped on until weaning age. But God he was so thin. He was a big, incredibly long baby, and he’s continued to be very tall. So his weight was never too bad in and of itself, but he didn’t put weight on for weeks and weeks. He was so thin. I remember he was about two months old and just sobbing to the health visitor saying “look at him, that’s not right is it?” God, I was desperate for someone to tell me to just formula feed him entirely. But of course they didn’t. They reluctantly agreed that it would be alright to give him 1-2oz a day of formula, but made noises about how I was risking my supply (which was basically non-existent anyway. Yes I am certain of this before anyone tells me I’m wrong. I paid more lactation consultants than you’ve had hot dinners and also had it confirmed by a hospital consultant.). Anyway, at about 3 months I cracked and for a week or maybe even two just entirely formula fed him. Even after day one he was a transformed baby temperament-wise. After a week he’d put on weight and he looked a lovely colour at last. After that week (or two, I don’t recall now) I felt sad about having stopped BF and luckily it was very easy for me to reestablish it. Despite not having much milk, I do seem to produce milk for absolutely ages after stimulation stops. Anyway, my point is that MY baby would have survived on breast milk alone perhaps, but he was very clearly not thriving.

When I had my second, I had the same community midwife team. When they asked me my plans for feeding, I said I’d most likely be combi feeding. The midwife sighed and said something like “I’m so relieved you’ve said that. I so desperately wanted to tell you to start formula with your first baby but we’re not allowed to”. Mental.

It's no more 'crap' than the fact that most people have 2 legs. Some don't. But must do.
Maybe spend more time reading and understanding statistics before getting cross at them.

Wow yes. It sounds bad!

Thanks for sharing.

My mother had her first in early 90s. Also in for 7 days with nurses bottle feeding. When I was having difficulty with a screaming baby due to reflux she kept telling me; it’s probably just your milks dried up. Mine dried up at 6 weeks. Blah blah blah. No convening of the facts was helpful. But she can be quite unsupportive and difficult at the best of times.

Was interesting when my partners sister gave birth. My mil is very warm and amicable kind of person. Yet she was also saying to sil that it’s probably her milk is dried up. There was nothing wrong with sil breasts. Her kid was 90 percentile! In reality SIL had post natal depression and a useless partner so was finding things overwhelming having to feed, wind, settle etc. and needed an alternative explanation for a baby crying 😢 very sad as I know she wanted to breastfeed exclusively until 1 year prior to giving birth. She stopped completely at 4 weeks.