'the politics of breastfeedin' - Gabrielle Palmer

Oops sorry for massive rant!

Marking place

SQ I appreciate your posts about how difficult and far removed from any cosy notions of motherhood the first few months can be!

I have left the house precisely 3 times in as many weeks since the birth, house is a bombsite and I have washed my hair for the first time in god knows how long today - am too scared to blow-dry it in case babe wakes for his feed.

Oh and I'm formula feeding. I had a traumatic birth, a CS with numerous complications leaving me in a lot of pain, doped up with morphine. I intended to exclusively bf, had attended the NCT classes, and had the view that it would all be instinctive and lovely. And it was, in recovery after the operation, and straight away in the ward. But then the pain kicked in, and with drugs, drips, catheters, blood drains hanging off me and being flat on my back, I struggled to hold him in a good position to bf, despite being confident and happy to persevere, cuddle and bond. After a couple of lonely nights of agony and various HCAs and midwives being less than supportive, the breastfeeding 'counsellor' reduced me to hyperventilating and a panic attack by shoving babe on to my boob despite my continual protests that I wanted to do it myself and for her to just give tips on positioning. Latch wasn't a problem, nor was the slight pain of latching on, but she kept banging on about it and when I was crying out in pain from my wounds on my tum, she actually said to my DH 'does she really want to breastfeed, she doesn't seem to want to'

I was advised to give formula after that (of and told that I was being referred to the HV for 'enhanced post-natal care' ie 'you're failing as a mum and you haven't even left the hospital yet) and I didn't even try to bf again after my panic attack.

I wish I'd been told just how difficult bf after a traumatic c-section can be, and given sensitive support. The bf counsellor seemed oblivious to the pain I was in, and to the fact that I was high as a kite from morphine.

It has been great for DH to be able to share the load though. Now that I've had my rant about lack of support post-natally , I might be able to make more measured contributions to the thread re the positives of formula (of which there are clearly many, from a practical and feminist pov)

There is also the issue of dehydration in babies who are being BF but not getting enough for whatever reason - babies are admitted to hospital every year for this reason. There was a study a year or 2 ago which looked at the numbers but a lot of people said it shouldn't be publicised as it might put women off BF.

I think that there is a lack of proper neutral information and support unfortunately and that there are problems across the piece.

I found that teh book exaggerated the risks of bottle-feeding and over-looked the fact that if formula wasn't avialable then babies who could not breastfeed would die.

It is simply not true that all women can produce enough milk, I have worked with a number of women whose babies were deteriortaing because of a lack of breastmilk.

While I fully believe that woman should have the right to choose it should be informed. The risks in formula feeding need to be explained.

I've been surprised, while reading the book, that the risks of formula feeding are really quite clear but they are just not talked about. while i had been aware of risk i had assumed that these mainly related to developing countries where poor sanitation and lack of money meant formula is dangerous. I'm shocked that babies in developed countries die because they are not breastfeed.

I BF mine because I wanted too and luckily I did not experience too many problems. There is not enough support for women who want to breastfeed and barriers within current cultural context.

But what I resent deeply is that instead of offering proper support to women in both breast and bottle feeding they just try to make women feel 'bad mothers' for not breastfeeding.

Forcing women to breastfeed in 'baby-friendly' hospitals removes women's right to excercise choice over their bodies.

I think I have posted this on the feminism section before, but it was as if becoming a mother and breastfeeding awaked a huge feminine side of me that had been slightly dormant before.

A few days after giving birth I remember looking at my postnatal body in the mirror (clothed) and thinking how amazing it was. I could grow a baby and then I could make this beautiful, sweet food to feed him! All by myself! I was a woman and I didn't give a damnn about anything else.

My main reaction to reading the Politics of Breastfeeding is one of anger. Anger that so many women who wanted to breastfeed have had the opportunity to do this taken way from them by ignorance in HCPs, by social pressures and most of all by commercial influences.

I feel hugely angry when I think of the actions of the formula companies in the UK and incandescently angry when I think of the actions of formula companies in the developing world. Infant ill health and risk of death is what it comes down to, at the end of the day.

It isn't a historical issue. Look at this from last year.

And most of the people who are trying to support women to breastfeed in the uk? Volunteers. Unpaid mothers. I am one of them, but do I have issues with unpaid women doing what the medical and midwifery establishment has failed to do! I think that breastfeeding and support for breastfeeding is a feminist issue if there ever was one.

I'm still reading but think I must be very lucky. Lots of the things that help normalise breastfeeding in traditional societies has occurred naturally in my life.
Including seeing woman breastfeed, having a female relative attend me after the birth and then spending several months rooming in at my parents.

I certainly don't feel it is oppressive. Interestingly i have been trying to look at work that i could do from home in a really flexible way and this appears to have been how things were done in working class homes so woman could continue to breastfeed.

One thing I have been wondering is about the effectiveness of breastfeeding as contraception. I clearly remember the midwives repeating that breastfeeding is not an effective contraceptive. However it seams like it might be

I read it when I was breast feeding my first child, so 13 years ago, and really enjoyed the book.

The thing about breast feeding is that while I understand that it is an important health issues and so on, that isn't my main feeling about it. And like Hazchem, I worry about offending formula feeders so don't generally talk about it. I find that rather sad, because I absolutely loved breast feeding and fed my second child for over two years. It is one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done. To have not breast fed would, to me, be like never having laughed or never having run.

And I feel that we can't talk about it in that context. It has become a rather clinical topic with the constant talk of health benefits, almost as if it is like sterilising a bottle. We can't have conversations where we talk about it having fantastic elements to it (for some people) and horrible elements to it (for some people). I both loved it and had mastitis twice, which I hated. Breast feeding is a unique thing for the body to go through, but it is generally discussed in a very narrow health context.

annpan I'm reading this at the moment (in fact came on here to think about starting a thread about it!)

As with so many things it's following the "money trail" that is interesting.

I'm also enjoying the section on sexuality. particularly because it's something I'm struggling with.

The thing I am finding hardest is how do I balance my knowledge about breastfeeding in a personal context. How do talk positively about breastfeeding without offending formula feeders? (actually do people who formula feed worry about offending breastfeeders?)

My thoughts weren't rigidly fixed on labour and nor were the thoughts of the other women. I find assumptions like that really strange. I was told repeatedly by ante-natal leaders that they wouldn't talk about x, y or z (basically anything I asked them) as people weren't interested and only wanted to talk about the birth. But talking to the people on the course (both courses) that was not the case. But they simply wouldn't answer questions - NCT or NHS. I found it peculiar and unhelpful.

The problems that I raised in the BF session were things that my friends had had trouble with - I just said that all of my friends had experienced difficulties of one type or another - from cracked nipples to mastitis - and was there anything that we could do to help avoid things like that. I was told that these things are very rare indeed and that it was impossible that all of my friends had had trouble with BF.

Which left me and pissed off, frankly.

It's an amazing book Annpan, and although I come from a family of breastfeeders, with a very positive attitude to it, I can tell you that it really changed my life.

It's one of the five most important books I have ever read.

And also a lot of 'problems' are not problems per se with bfing, but with expectations. It is very hard to prepare a woman for a baby she has not had, especially in the run up to the birth where her thoughts are pretty much rigidly fixed on labour.

roots, not routes.

I think one of the issues is that many of the 'problems' have cultural and political routes.

It is a 'problem' in this country that the baby feeds every hour during the night which takes it's toll on a mother who is expected to be up, dressed and greeting guests in a house with a clean bathroom by 8:30am.

In countries where breastfeeding is more prominent and the babies are held close and co-slept with, they feed for an average of every 24 minutes day and night and yet the mothers have no 'problem' with this. Neighbours clean her house and cook for her etc.

It is a 'problem' that we are so competitive that maternity leave is used by some to retrain, do an MBA or if not the mother feels depressed for 'doing nothing' in her 'time off' and puts pressure on herself to achieve other things which mean sleeping in the day is forbidden, as is an untidy house etc.

Paid maternity leave is only for 6 months and not at full salary which puts pressure on women to think about bottles.

Friends that live within the same culture expect the woman to continue with social life outside the home etc.

It is very very complicated.

Sorry the awful response was NCT that should say, but NHS wouldn't answer either.

My sense was that they simply did not want to even mention anything negative to do with BF.

All I know is that when I asked specific questions about problems my friends had with BF, in order to avoid them myself, I was given an absolutely awful response. This was in a BF class with the NHS. My questions were not answered on the NHS ante-natal course either.

I have never seen leaflets giving information about potential problems either. In fact I don't recall being given leaflets in the classes or informed about helplines. There were some leaflets in the "oh look you're pregnant here's your NHS pack with your book in it" thing but I don't remember what they were.

I don't think there is enough time to go into the details in classes, which is why leaflets are handed out with bfing helplines on.

Also, the 'Lobby' simply don't have enough volunteers/resources to make sure that women DO know what it is like. There is no secret, but the information and availability of quality information-givers is just not there. So women can only get a basic understanding which is based on the physiology and the benefits rather than the complexity of competing cultural expecations and undoing the years of damage caused by the increasingly clever advertising of the formula companies.

I read it about 20 years ago. I remember enjoying it and feeling empowered by it. There is another book of the same name which is also very good.

Not just the actual feeding - but your body does not go back to "normal" while you are BF, you aren't supposed to wear underwired bras, many women need to wear breastpads and leak a lot which can affect their sex life.... Speaking from experience here as someone who had to sleep on a towel even with breast pads in, it's all a bit smelly and leaky and soggy and I wouldn't blame anyone for deciding that actually they want to get back to normal.

And again, these are the sort of things that IME are simply not mentioned at ante-natal BF classes.

I really think that ante-natal classes (or the ones I went to) go too far in not mentioning any potential problems. They seem to think that women are feeble ickle things that will be scared off even trying if they thing it might be a bit hurty. When in fact if women know what can happen, then they are better prepared for the real life experience. Again, expectations are often too high - and in this case they are being set high by the people who are supposed to be promoting BF.

This is just such a wide subject I could ramble on for hours!

I agree with OP. I'm saddened to think that bottle-feeding mothers might skip reading it when it has so much to offer women.

I love the version of feminism where women should be valued for being women rather than their ability to compete with men.

I do think that in our current society where women are increasingly expected to spring back to how they were before they got pregnancy, BF is a difficult thing.

In the olden days you had stuff in different cultures to do with having to lie in bed and have everyone look after you for a certain period of time after having a baby. I guess in those days (and I'm not sure which days or cultures I'm talking about here ) women did more manual work generally and so really needed not to be going back to their normal lives for a while. But the current idea that after having a baby women should be out and about, glowing, with immaculate babies in lovely ironed clothes, the figure should revert to how it was before pregnancy with an elasticised "ping!" and basically life goes on as before but oh look! a lovely baby now as well.... I think that the reality of having a baby is for many women quite different and they feel that they are somehow not doing it as well as they should be - and BF can be very difficult to establish and is time consuming and in our culture it's quite a thing to start BF when out and about and... and ... and

So I think that on the whole, with society the way it is and the messages the way they are, for many women BF on top of everything else just feels too much on top of everything else, too restrictive.

I think we need as a society to loosen up on women who have recently had children, expectations at the moment (often ones that women put on themselves due to media influence) are just way too high and it causes all sorts of problems.

Stream of consciousness again, apols

But breastfeeding does also mean that it's the mother who has to respond to the baby whenever it wakes up at night etc. I think formula is more egalitarian in that respect.

True philbee but formula feeding also requires washing/sterilising of bottles as well as making up feeds - do you think these tasks are done as equally by fathers as mothers? Or does bottlefeeding actually create more work for mothers overall even if occasional feeds are given by fathers?