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

Charmed, I'm sure.

The '97% of women' figure quoted is hypothetical as it does not include a large number of women, and because it doesn't, then the data is fundamentally flawed. If the percentage was quoted as '97% of women who have given birth' then it would be more accurate.

It's A truth, for you. It's not a universal truth.

I exclusively breastfed dd for 2 years until she self weaned suddenly. We were down to last thing at night & first thing in the morning feeds by then.

Once we got over the initial 6 week getting established issues (mainly my sore nipples) then it was incredibly easy & enjoyable.

I loved every aspect of it & consider it one of the most special times in my life.

I grew her for 9 months on the inside & kept her alive for another 9 months exclusively with my body (she was slow to adapt to solids initially) - what a priviledge that was!

So - that's another truth all women deserve to know.

I think in general you only bother to research what you are aware that you don't know. If you've grown up with your mum and gran saying, "I couldn't breastfeed, I only got this yellowy clear stuff and my milk didn't come in so I gave up after a day" then you may well take that at face value.

You might find it hard to believe but it doesn't make it any less true. The lack of education on breastfeeding is abysmal - not just about colostrum, but latch, positioning, supply. Sure you can google, but when you're newly post partum, it can be incredibly overwhelming trying to sort through so much information - that's why support is so vital.

You're right that there are a minority of women who genuinely suffer from low supply, but they do not explain why the majority of women stop breastfeeding. Additionally, low supply does not mean a woman has to give up breastfeeding - with the right information and support, many low supply issues can be overcome. Often it's not low supply at all but another cause, such as latch, tongue tie etc.

You said that women's bodies were being messed up now by late motherhood. I'm saying that it's always been a thing. Nothing new there.

The two scenarios are totally different

Late motherhood has always been a thing. Late first motherhood is new, but before the era of contraceptives, women would be having babies upto menopause. It wasn't unusual to have a baby and grandchildren at the same time.

I genuinely think women’s bodies are just messed up now, by obesity, late motherhood, birth control, things like the morning after pill, endocrine disrupters. I just don’t think they work like they used to, they’re less healthy; they’re out of balance.

My mum gave birth to me in the UK in the 80s, but she wasn't British herself which I strongly suspect influenced her. She insisted that I stayed with her at all times, no taking to the nursery to sleep, and she breastfed me. It never occurred to her that she might not be able to breastfeed, it was what she expected to do and she did it. Breastfeeding was just the norm for her (I suppose she must have seen her mum breastfeeding her younger siblings) and so it was the norm for me.

No doubt breastfeeding support need to be improved but I honestly find it hard to believe in the age of google that most women don’t know (or find out when they ask chat gpt etc) about colostrum, cluster feeding etc.

The whole discussion just undermines women who do have genuine supply issues, which is a small but significant minority.

Of course they'll be mix feeding as they'll be giving solids by 6 months.

It’s not a question of blaming the women for being uneducated, but blaming the system for poor support.

I was told by a midwife that my son didn’t have a tongue tie. Breastfeeding was extremely painful and it affected my supply, then the midwife told me I had low milk supply. If I’d given up (and who would have blamed me), I’d have been posting on here saying I was unable to bf because of low supply, which wouldn’t even have been incorrect but, crucially, only a partial story.

In the end I had his tongue tie corrected privately and as soon as his latch improved my supply increased, and I was able to bf exclusively and until he was 14 months. This only happened because I had the money, desire and ability to sort it privately. Many women, especially vulnerable post birth, don’t have these things. If they’re happy with ff then great but I see time and time again women posting their regret at being unable to do it. and the system is letting those women down.

This isn't just mt personal opinion - there's plenty of research that shows that antenatal education and support is lacking and this is one of the primary reasons women stop breastfeeding.

My main take away from mine and my peers experiences with infant feeding was that many of us came away with a lot of psychological baggage from the breast is best push. Our actual experiences varied, succeeded to BF after some struggle, unable to BF despite lots of support, settled for mixed feeding etc. but we all had the baggage.

I swear I'm not a tin foil hat wearer but these experiences have made me struggle to trust anything that is said on the matter by professionals. There seemed to be this huge agenda to get mums to BF by any means necessary that left some of us quite dehumanised and like our own health and needs didn't matter. Even though I breastfed it's affected my trust. Not that I trust formula companies either, obviously they exist to make money.

In reality I suspect the high proportion of inductions and very medicalised births must affect how many women can realistically breastfeed. I also don't think that triple feeding regimens are realistic unless the mother has a very high level of support from family or friends.

Women who judge others’ birth and breastfeeding choices are hypocrites of the highest order. It’s all “be kind” and “sisterhood” until women reach childbirth, and then some women seem to take the opportunity to compete in the motherhood virtue olympics.

A friend of mine was unable to breastfeed. She repeatedly went to the doctor, to walk in clinics, anywhere that could help. She tried all sorts of advice, she just could not get breastfeeding to work for her. She was devastated. In the end she accepted she’d have to exclusively bottle feed and in time dealt with her disappointment. But she was required to bottle feed her baby, it wasn’t a choice and it wasn’t an excuse. The judgmental comments on this thread would have made her feel even worse.

Even if women do choose to bottle feed, who fucking cares. Perhaps it fits better with her life if she goes back to work, perhaps the sensation is unpleasantly visceral for her, perhaps she carries sexual trauma that makes it difficult to feel her body isn’t entirely hers and pregnancy was hard enough. Maybe she just wants her boobs to herself. It’s no one’s business.

It’s also not as though you can tell which adults were breastfed or bottle fed, the benefits in the long term are pretty negligible.

Or maybe women “claim” things because they’re true?

It’s patronising to assume women who struggle with breastfeeding are just uneducated.

Just to be clear in case you were upset by my comment - I am in no way saying that the evolution is what we want today! Back in the day kids died of all sorts of illnesses and ailments it was dreadful. I think it's great that there are other options available for people who struggle with breastfeeding.

All I was saying is that if you removed the element of choice then I'm sure the study would be right and 97% of women could breastfeed. I don't think the study looked at whether the baby was able to take the milk. Cleft palette is 1 in 700 babies so that alone wouldn't move the needle too much but there are many other reasons too.

Hope your little one is thriving and please don't think anyone thinks we want to go back to caveman times!

The advice used to be that if you breastfed a) you fed on demand (which I did - can always read a book) and b) you don't give a bottle as this decreases your own milk supply which is entirely attuned to your baby and fluctuates with their needs. TBH I couldn't be arsed to bottle feed, it seemed such a hassle. I never could express milk, but it didn't matter since I was at home (as were most mothers in the 80s) and had no problem feeding in public places if I was out and about, and did not return to work until my older DC was nine.

I could too - but DS1 absolutely refused to cooperate. The senior mw with a group of students watching eventually gave up trying, and my very experienced community mw told me to crack on with bottle feeding as she had done with her middle child.

And the algorithm has just served up this to me… I have widely spaced breasts. And obesity, at the time, and PCOS. And a mother and a MIL who both crashed out of breastfeeding very quickly in the 60s. And a bloody awful time trying to breastfeed, though we kept going until we ended up in hospital.

You’ve been given free access to this story from The Economist as a gift. You can open the link five times within seven days. After that it will expire.

Why many women cannot make enough breast milk
https://economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/05/12/why-many-women-cannot-make-enough-breast-milk?giftId=Y2E3MmY0MTgtZjEyOS00ZGMxLWIyOTctNDk2ZTViMmRjYmFi&utm_campaign=gifted_article

A big part of the problem is a lack of education about the reality of breastfeeding. A lot of women claim that their milk didn't come in - but your milk doesn't come in until several days post partum! Before that you produce tiny beads of colostrum, and that's all your baby needs.

Another common claim is that they couldn't produce enough milk and their baby was starving, again, cluster feeding is completely normal. It's very hard, but if you're breastfeeding you should expect your baby to be on your boob most of the time day and night for the first few days/weeks.

I really struggled with breastfeeding initially - my colostrum was delayed due to a major haemorrhage, and my baby had an 80% tongue tie which meant latching was very painful, but thankfully I received absolutely fantastic support from the midwives both on the ward and in the community.

I stayed in hospital until breastfeeding was fully established, I was able to ask a midwife to supervise every feed to ensure the baby was latching, I was encouraged to latch frequently rather than giving formula, warned off dummies, reassured that cluster feeding was normal, fasttracked for a tongue tie release, and I had several home visits from the infant feeding team, and was encouraged to join their support group. I feel incredibly lucky to have this level of support, and without it, I would have given up breastfeeding within a day.

Tldr - Most barriers to breastfeeding can be overcome with sufficient support and education.

@JasminealiveI mean yes with regards to the iron bit. And lack of studies in general 100%. Not sure how any breastfeeding support (of which I had absolutely masses) could help an autoimmune disease

Some great posts on here and I think far more nuanced than a lot of feeding threads I’ve read. Especially @BertieBotts and @MrsAvocet.

This sort of thing though… ‘most give up when it hurts a bit’ - may the God I don’t believe in forgive the person who posted that.

And maybe remember that what a woman says to you about her reasons for doing something is rarely the full detailed picture, for multiple reasons, one of which is not wanting to walk someone she doesn’t know that well through a blow by blow account of weeks and months of feeding problems.

Most women can but some don’t want to
some struggle and give up.

My baby would not latch effectively. I spent £££ on private help plus having lots of nhs help. And going to the support groups etc etc.

The only way we got a decent latch ever was with 4 pillows and a ridiculous position that only lasted 3 min.

I still manged to feed only breastmilk until 6 months with expressing but it was hell. In some ways now I regret it. Because I do wonder how much easier those 6 months would have been if I'd moved to combination feeding earlier.