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

Norway has something like 98% initiated and 80% still doing it at 6 months.

I am surprised by the sheer amount of women who feel they didn’t produce enough milk. Is this actually true because obviously if this were the case in some many women before formula, their babies would likely die. I think they believe they’re not producing enough and lose confidence, rather than not actually having enough.

I don't get a say on what they CHOOSE to do with their bodies.

This thread is about whether women biologically CAN and the vast majority can, IF they want to, at least from an anatomical perspective.

If they decide not to because it's doing their mental health no good, that's absolutely their choice and the right decision for them.

Breasts are an organ, like any other organ. If there was this many people saying that their kidneys didn't work and they needed dialysis, no-one would just shrug and say dialysis is a perfectly good option, we'd want to know why on earth so many kidneys are malfunctioning so badly in this country.

I think there is too much emphasis on this and it makes mums feel guilty if they are struggling. I did combo breast and bottle, I think from about 6 weeks but I wish this was suggested to me earlier rather than the professionals making me feel guilty when DS was losing weight. I just didn’t make enough milk.

And quickly looking at some of the posts on here, it seems that some MNers also delight in making those unable to fully BF feel guilty.

In answer to those questioning what happens in societies where there isn’t the availability of formula, they tend to be societies where there is a higher level of pregnancies, and lactating women, so women would feed the child of their sister or neighbour as well as their own (historically this is what happened so would guess this is also the case today for some people).

I can physically produce milk. I wasn’t allowed to breastfeed due to medication that I’m on.

And less scaremongering, guilt tripping or stigma towards mixed feeding.

My baby had a tongue tie and I wasnt able to breast feed. Baby couldn’t latch on properly and was never satisfied. Constant crying. After a few days I had mastitis as milk wasn’t being drawn through. At this point I gave up and bottle fed. No one seemed to know anything about the TT being the issue. No one suggested a snip. It was only months later speaking to another mum with the same issue that the penny dropped.
ETA 5-10% of babies have a TT

My brother was born in the 1930s and was EBF. My mother was middle-class, well-fed and at that point a SAHM. She recalled poorer women commenting when she was out on what a chubby bonny baby he was. When she stopped to talk to them, turned out that their babies were breastfed from a poorly nourished mother when she wasn't out working, the rest of the time they got diluted evaporated cow's milk if they were lucky, or diluted ordinary milk or sugar and water. Formula wasn't readily available and it was expensive. They were weaned off the breast as early as possible. They often didn't thrive, and were often very small and underweight.

So well put !

No, it doesn't. Nevertheless it does suggest that the majority of women could breastfeed. And in developing countries most mothers do.

One thing I can recall, is from a Victorian novel by Anthony Trollope, regarding one of his aristocratic characters (Lady Arabella) who had (IIRC) 9 children, but always employed wet nurses for them. IIRC 3 or 4 of the girls - ‘frail little flowers’ - died as young children.

With reference to breastfeeding, or not, Trollope said, ‘…the Ladies Arabella never can. They have bosoms for show, but not for use.’

What ordinary/poor people did, if they couldn’t breastfeed and couldn’t afford wet nurses, he didn’t go into.

The point is that even if the 97% figure is true-and to be honest, it’s pretty likely that evolutionarily it probably is not far off-it doesn’t mean it’s what 97% of women want to do. But it should be a proper informed choice. Fine not to want to. Not fine to want to and be prevented by external factors. Some Scandinavian countries have very high rates of BF because there is excellent practical and cultural support.

Nope many couldn’t because the health of babies matter as does maternal mental health.

I did much of the above, many women do. Could not have continued, same as for many women. You don’t get to say what other women can and can’t do with their bodies.

I feel like long term combination feeding of a newborn/infant would be the worst of both worlds though? Most of the downsides of well-established breast feeding (being available all the time, not drinking etc) without the advantages (particularly not having to worry about having enough formula ready, bottles clean etc)

I used to just take the baby with me and didn't have to worry about when/what it would eat, whereas friends who were bottle feeding had to count bottles, bring extra formula etc. It seemed like a lot of work. And was a lot more expensive too.

Breastfeeding is a skill

I agree very strongly with this. Just because it’s a natural process doesn’t mean that there isn’t ‘training’ required. I think in bygone generations, women in the family/community would have been on hand to provide help and advice and support. But society has changed and women (quite rightly) are no longer fastened into this female centric domestic existence, while the men are off doing the equivalent of the hunting. We have lost the handing down of this knowledge and skill. I don’t see it as a stretch to state that 97% of women are physically capable of breastfeeding. But who are they going to learn it from when the very midwives and health visitors, more often than not, lack that information and skill themselves? And then there’s the fact that their own mothers very often didn’t breastfeed. A double whammy of no guidance and often criticism for trying to do something that they themselves chose not to. My MIL was absolutely horrible to me and to her own daughter for choosing to breastfeed and I knew plenty of other women in the same boat.

I breastfed both my DC. I never doubted that I would be able to and I chose to breastfeed as the easier option - I am a bit obsessive - knowing that messing around with bottles would drive me nuts especially in the middle of the night. I enjoyed it, didn't have cracked nipples, and fed both DC on demand. I did not experience 'cluster' feeding and have never heard of it apart from on MN but presume it is just the growth spurt that happens c.14 weeks when the baby wants to feed more often - which I was happy to do as I read a book at the same time and was never bothered about housework etc. or cooking dinner for a set time. The only constraint I had was dropping and picking up from playschool, but I was happy to feed in public so not that much of a constraint! (Some many years ago in the 80s btw - most of the women I knew breastfed).

It's fine to say that it didn't work out for you, but not accurate in most cases to say that you were biologically incapable of doing so.

My friend and I had babies around the same time. Mine latched in the first 20 minutes and breastfeeding was a breeze- she gained weight easily, fed efficiently, I had no issues or nipple soreness.

Hers had jaundice. He had to be woken every few hours to feed as he would happily sleep through from birth and was losing weight. He had to be coaxed to take the breast. She had to do triple feeding- 20 minutes on the breast, 20 minutes on the bottle (usually a bit of expressed and a bit of formula) and then 20 minutes of expressing for the next feed just to be able to get him to take enough calories. She had thrush and eczema on her nipples. If she'd said, "I don't want to do this anymore," no-one would have judged, she'd have been considered to have done her absolute best, but she had decided that she was going to breastfeed him by hook or by crook, did a ton of research and, importantly, when she sought support from infant feeding, she got it.

90% of women in her position would have said that they "couldn't" breastfeed and stopped, and that would quite possibly have been the best option for them, but it goes to show that most of them COULD. Whether it's worth it is a choice for the mother.

During much of the past, about a third of babies died before their fifth birthday. Obviously, there were many causes for this high childhood mortality but we can't say that the survival of the human race means that all mothers and babies were able to manage life ideally without modern inventions. The human race survived because people had very large families, so that some of their children survived to grow up.

Moreover, before formula, there were some babies who only survived because of some form of wet-nursing.

None of this changes the fact that I needed formula because I had no milk.

I know!!! I would have breast fed all mine past 6 weeks if I was helped to combination feed as opposed to being told it’s impossible and my milk would instantly disappear!

Formula is a money making business. Breastfeeding doesn't make these companies money!

In the 70s Nestle aggressively promoted formula in 3rd world countries. Many people used formula instead of breastfeeding, they couldn't afford the formula, the water used was unclean, their own milk dried up and many babies died.

I add those to the can’t be asked to breastfeed because I then can’t drink (some of my NCT group), think it’s too icky (family member!, or don’t want my breasts to sag (good friend).

Yeah it’s interesting. Combination feeding is a ‘better’ message to those women who can’t produce enough. They are still breastfeeding but they are topping up. Giving anything by breast is brilliant (in this context) and if more is needed that’s fine.

You posted this while I was posting, but yes, this is absolutely the sort of way that women end up being set up to fail: they're told they don't have enough milk, or the baby will die if you sleep alongside it, and yet you don't have anyone else to help with all the other things that need to be done, so it all becomes impossible. Breastfeeding needs to be frequent but short for the first days or even weeks, and that's hard to fit in around other activities, especially when you don't have a lot of support - preferably female!

I can't stand breastfeeding zealots. I produced milk but it was a pitiful amount and no way I could have fed baby just with that. Rather than be a breastfed-at-all-costs martyr, I combo fed and then stopped it.