Women who don’t be believed for their reasons not to BF - a feminist issue?

Do women actually say to you, I don't believe you and you're making it up, or do you just assume they mean that because they continue to talk about their own experiences?

Or some combination when we had babies

That should have said.

I mean fgs - whethr we breastfed or formula fed or some combonation, had babies, together we have a wealth of experience on this topic to share with each other. Consciousness raising discussion is feminist. It is totally antithetical to a feminist and woman supporting atmosphere to tell women that they are victim blamers, mafia, martyrs etc when they raise their voices about their own experiences of breastfeeding. We live in a culture of silence around breastfeeding, not a culture that supports it. For every NHS representative that claims breast is best I guarantee you there is another who is frowning and negative about breastfeeding. And overall the NHS is far from supportive of it. So individualising this to 'horrible women who are being judgmental' just for talking about it makes no sense, it's just another way to have a go at women rather than listen to them.

In my first few weeks of bf, which were very difficult (long long birth, cascade of intervention, 'early term' baby who, judging by the lengths of my later pregnancies, came a little earlier than would have been ideal, sleepy baby, jaundice, breast refusal, expressing, formula top-ups), pretty much everyone wanted me to give up. My PP midwife wanted me to give up. The hospital wanted me to give up (and made me go to a 'pumping room' to express and had me test weighing my son before and after every breastfeed. This was 13 years ago!). It was implied that I would damage my son by continuing to bf. I was told I was making life difficult for myself on purpose.
I kept going, we eventually overcame the breast refusal, he had his last formula top-up aged 4 weeks and we went on for 4.5 years. My middle ds bf for 3 years and my dd has been going for 2.4 years and counting. In that time I've been told (categorically) I would need to stop bf if I wanted ADs (I didn't, meaning I didn't get them); told (by an obstetrician!) that if I kept feeding ds1 up to the birth, ds2 would get no colostrum; had all sorts of hassle with 'slow' weight gain that had everything to do with having small, light (and perfectly healthy) children in general and nothing to do with bf, but had my milk accused of being 'inadequate' and all sorts.

And all this in a society with significantly higher bf rates and a more bf-friendly culture than the UK.

Some of this thread touches a nerve because had it not been for some great online support (notably including MN), I would probably have been someone who believed she 'couldn't' bf. I might have blamed the tiny size of my breasts or my 'inadequate' milk or goodness knows what imagined inadequacy. It would have devastated me to give up. I was lucky, but I've experienced how skewed the conversation can be against bf, and I think this is part of what Bertrand is trying to say, and being quite unfairly treated. She doesn't seem to me to be saying anyone is lying, but rather that they have been persuaded into thinking a certain way about their bf experience and/or bf in general - and the cumulative effect of these persuasions is a continuing sense at a societal level of bf being some horrifically high bar most women will inevitably fail to clear and be vilified for it. Bf can be bloody difficult. Sometimes a decision to stop will be the right or only possible thing, and really it's nobody else's business when that point comes. But sometimes not making that decision can be just as lonely a course of action.

“We all sit around criticising women because it’s so much easier than challenging the medical and scientific establishment and saying this is important!! Study it!”

I have consistent said that the problem is the medical establishment

Mygast - I wasn't paraphrasing, I've had multiple women say that to me, usually while I was actually breastfeeding, and sometimes while it was actually hurting. What I was trying to say is that there is this assumption floating around in these conversations that women who do breastfeed haven't experienced pain, exhaustion, infection, problems with latching, sick babies, etc. And that's not fair or true. Many breastfeeders experience some or all of the above and could do with the space to talk about that and offer their experiences and advice of what helped to other women without being called tyrants and victim blamers.

The stats for bf are hugely out of date.

Scientific / medical understanding of lactation is woeful.

The feminist issue is that people talk in certainties about such a vague and uncertain subject.

No one knows anymore what proportion of babies are ebf to 6m.

I could come up with all sorts of theories off the top of my head why woman in western countries with western diets and medical care might have more trouble breastfeeding that women in Bangladesh (which is were I think the ‘only 1-2% of women can’t produce enough milk’ stat comes from).

We all sit around criticising women because it’s so much easier than challenging the medical and scientific establishment and saying this is important!! Study it!

Rosenberg I'd be much more willing to accept your take on this if you hadn't passed judgement on other people who stopped BF 'because it hurt' If I've misread your post and you didn't mean it like that then I apologise (been up all night with a vomiting 5 year old)

Accrual - statistics are cold and do not take into account the variety of different factors in our individual lives. I dont think you failed, but I do feel that I succeeded in my own route, I don't think that these should be treated as conflicting (failure vs success) because ultimately we trod different paths and no doubt both had a number of successes and failures. The NHS never treated me as doing the right thing at all, at best they ignored me or treated me like a piece of baggage on a production line. At worst their treatment during pregnancy, labour, birth and post natally caused me enormous traumas that it took me years to recover from. We shouldn't be setting up as opposites, we need to make space for all our stories. And that means when a woman's story makes some of us, personally, uncomfortable, we should be quiet or withdraw as best fits, to give that story space. We shouldnt assume that women who did differently and talk about that had it easy or are up themselves martyrs or have sinister motivations.

And we have a clear winner in the competitive suffering now @RosenbergW
My first born was hospitalised at 5 days old because he wasn't gaining any weight and had severe jaundice. Because he wasn't getting enough milk. End of story. I'd have given anything to have breastfed him but my body was having none of it. I'd pump for hours only to produce a measly 15ml, if that. In the end seeing my beautiful baby having light therapy with a cannula in and an NG tube trying to get his weight up resulted in me having such severe PND that I was heavily medicated and unable to BF. My eldest is 8 now and I see nothing has really changed with the pro-BF army.

Blue I get that you're upset but you're taking what Bertand says about feeding in general personally and twisting her words.

@Rosenberg So it was really important for your mental health to continue bf. It was really important for mine for me to stop bf. But only one of us is considered by the NHS et al to have done the "right" thing, and only one of us is considered a failure in the statistics.

I despair. Breastfeeding rates will never improve when people think this approach is helpful. Its shameful.

I can't believe how spiteful some of the comments are on here. BF is a very emotive issue and I read individual stories with great sympathy. I can't believe what some people have been through.

The fact that some (not all, by no mean all, definitely not all and not speaking about any individuals) women could be encouraged to BF or BF longer with a bit more support is something that cannot be argued with. How that is ever going to happen when women are being so unkind to each other?

Well of course it would be pointless for a hcp to try and push b/feeding when the mother has already switched to formula. I got the impression this was more about other women/acquaintances that had made comments to the OP in R.L. In which case I think it’s purely practical advice to suggest that the op extracts herself from theses conversations rather than suggesting people shouldn’t talk about it. Where I live hpc fully expect you to ff or switch very early on so it seems very much like some women feel pressure from them whilst others don’t. My gp had to check that I knew what I meant when I answered that I was ebf at 8 week check she was so surprised.

That's an interesting point, accruel.
Many years ago when I breastfed my first baby as a young mother, I persevered even though it was literally breathtakingly painful, I had mastitis which was verging on sepsis, I was being prodded and pulled with no top on by health visitors turning up every morning to 'help', I was certainly not sleeping and what I really needed was permission, almost, to stop. When I finally got the permission, the fog lifted.
Looking back, I do believe there is a direct link to PND and breastfeeding. Not breastfeeding itself, but the feeling like there is no option, the pressure and the being made to feel shit by others, not feeling good enough, fretting about your screams of pain traumatising your baby, being indoctrinated that your suffering is for the best and that you're merely a means of nutrition, the lies that it only hurts if you're doing it 'wrong', the sleep deprivation.

I have bipolar, I was recovering from c section and general anaesthetic, and I had breast abscesses and pnd. I was unable to most of what is expected of new mothers. Breastfeeding was actually one of the only ways I felt like I could do anything as a mother, tbh. I wasn't 'being a martyr'. I was a woman struggling through in the best way that I could, in my way.

But if it is and I've hit a nerve then I apologise.

@Rosenberg Yes. If I prioritised bf over ability to care for my baby that would make me a terrible mother.

That doesn't equate to you having mental health issues therefore being unable to care for your baby.

If you're saying that you were left unable to care for your baby and that was as a result of your determination to breastfeed then yes l, I don't then that makes you a good mother. As far as I can see from your posts, that's not what you're saying.

"I actually think I'd be a terrible mother if I'd opted to continue trying to bf at the expense of my mental health and ability to care for my baby for the sake of bf"

If you're referring to me here @Rosenberg how it is child abuse to keep feeding through mental health problems then that is absolutely not either what I said or meant.

I think choosing to continue trying to breastfeed to the point where a woman can't properly care for her child or herself would be the wrong decision. This does not mean I think all women with mental health issues can't properly care for their children or themselves.

People accusing me of being a martyr and talking about how it is child abuse to keep feeding through mental health problems are proving my point. Silencing women through passive aggressive attacks which completely invalidate and attack some women under the guise of supporting others. That isn't feminist, at all.