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

Rosenberg, you've managed to both miss the point of the thread and demonstrate exactly what it's about.
Good for you that you WERE ABLE to power through and be such an amazing martyr though.

A properly free and informed choice about how to feed for me would have included accurate information about the realities of formula feeding, e.g. you can still bond with your baby while feeding, it's not just for council estate mums, there's likely to be zero difference at an individual level and it doesn't make you an inferior mother if that's the way you end up feeding. But no one said any of that to me. Now I know that, I will make the informed choice with future children to express colostrum but not to breastfeed because I won't put my family through that again, especially with another child already. But I fear the chances of my informed choice being just accepted and respected by the current NHS is slim.

I would expect you to have a little more empathy then Rosenberg

Im talking about face to face interactions with a HCP. A HCP should be able to see when a woman doesnt want to try anything else, when she's at rock bottom and actually support to move on for her own well being, the importance of which is often forgotten in the BF debate. Offer that support but no when to stop.

Just because someone doesn't bleed in public doesn't mean they aren't wounded. I was suicidal, also, during pnd. If I had had support from other women talking to me about breastfeeding, what helped them, empathising and helping me see that I wasn't the only woman to struggle with it, I may have struggled less with both the feeding and the pnd and suicidal feelings. Women should be consciousness raising around this issue, not telling each other not to talk at all in case someone else feels judged by ua discussing our own experiences or decisions being different to theirs. I wouldn't tell anyone who doesn't breastfeed to leave a baby group! Not all discussions at baby group are about breastfeeding. Join in where you like and don't where you don't. I don't participate in every conversation going at baby groups etc. When women around me talk about something important to them but which I cant relate to or find uncomfortable then I usually say nothing and listen quietly, or I wander away for a bit, or I think about something else until they've finished. I don't expect them to be silent for my sake and I don't accuse them of having sinister motivations as has been done here.

Where have I said it shouldn't be talked about? I've said it certainly should be at the right time when it can be helpful not once it's too late.

"you have saying I should have had more bf support or been prepared for the difficulties or tried differently to succeed"

I'm really not. I am saying that there are women who, with more support or with the information to enable them to "try differently" might have been able to feed. I am not saying that to you personally. How could I? I don't know anything about your life. I am saying that there are women who weren't able to make a proper choice because of circumstances completely outside their control. That's what I want-for women to make a properly free properly informed choice how to feed. And I think many women have that choice taken out of their hands for no good reason.

JJ I think everyone on the his thread has agreed that they wouldn’t talk to someone in RL about something that personal, unless they’re close to you. This is a thread discussing breastfeeding. People will post things they wouldn’t say in RL.As Rosen said even if someone did offer advice after the ship had sailed it could be helpful for if they ever try again. I totally agree you’d judge the situation, how open the woman seemed about it etc. I might offer advice to a friend who had ‘failed’ 1st time around if they were expecting again and expressed an interest in b/f. I probably wouldn’t launch into the subject at a baby group with acquaintances. However the crux of it is if you DONT talk about it poor info continues to spread, wisdom isn’t passed from women to women (advice and suggestions from others, not hp’s, is something that enabled me to b/f and several friends of mine too), and rates would probably fall even lower.

I think that a lot more, but certainly not all mothers and babies, would be capable of breast feeding if there was qualified, professional, in-person, support available 24-7 for the first four to six weeks.
My experience was that instead of the HSE (Irish) funding lactation consultancy their policy is to emotionally manipulate women at their most vulnerable, display posters and press leaflets on us, tell outright lies about how easy it is, and deny access to information about ff. HVs, MWs and GPs all pushed this agenda but actual practical help was almost non existent.

I seriously question the motives behind the breast is best movement because if it were genuine there would be better support, encouragement of alternatives like milk donation and wet-nursing. Instead the focus is on demonizing already vulnerable women for feeding their infants.

I had horrendous problems with my first and the highly qualified and brilliant lactation consultant supported me whole heartedly in moving to ff, but everyone else gave me a terrible time (before during and after) and the cost to my mh was profound.

In recent years i would have jumped at the opportunity to wet nurse or donate milk but neither are acceptable now. I have experience of the full spectrum of feeding, I even have time on my hands. It wouldn’t take a huge amount to organize volunteers in the community if the objective was to actually support women and babies.

@Bertrand It's not though. It's not what you're saying - you have saying I should have had more bf support or been prepared for the difficulties or tried differently to succeed. 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 (which was likely to have zero benefits for her compared to ff. The benefits are at a population level not to individual children).
As it is, I already feel appalling for dragging it on as long as I did because of my misguided beliefs about the negatives of formula feeding. I "chose" to stop, but the alternative was awful so it wasn't much of a choice. No amount of support or normalising bf or being in a pro bf environment or the things you rightly want to encourage would have made a difference to me because that's already the reality for me where I live and in my social circle.

It does but lecturing a woman who is several months postpartum and who has already regretfully stopped BFing about it is not helpful, in some cases it's harmful. If you're already depressed that you "couldnt" feed and are then told actually you could have so you didn't even have a valid reason to stop, I don't think it's a bit leap to see how that could make the mother more distressed.
The NHS has failed these women, they should be told the correct information when pregnant and immediately after birth. Not once its too late! At that point it does no good at all.

But I don't see why I have to repeatedly bite my lip and never talk about breastfeeding because it might upset someone else, or risk being referred to as a tyrant or a 'victim blamer' or part of a mafia fgs.

You don't have to do any of these things. For the umpteenth time, CHOOSE YOUR AUDIENCE. Why is the onus on me as someone who tried and failed to breastfeed and is extremely raw about that to remove myself from situations like baby groups, rather than the onus being on you as someone who tried and succeeded to show a little empathy and social awareness and realise that the conversation might be better had with the woman on the other side of you who is also successfully feeding?

JJ in the last few posts I’ve just read 2 startling bits of false info that highlights exactly what Bertrand and Rosenberg are saying.
1.milk should come it 24 hours after birth

1. Baby born early so milk ‘hadn’t come in’

You've read a thread full of women saying how distressing they've found being questioned over their choices, you've read how distressed they've been to be told "oh if only you tried harder", you've read that the OP was pushed to the point of attempting suicide over her struggles to feed and still decided to come in to complain that you're not allowed to tell these women that you struggled but still succeeded. I get it, you were amazing, you pushed through a ridiculous amount of hurdles to BF but that information isn't helpful to a woman who gave up last week because for whatever reason those struggles were too much for her, they aren't helpful.to a woman who's poorly baby needed more than she could give. There should be a place for you to discuss your success but a group of women with PND or other problems because they couldnt do what you did really isnt the right forum.

Also the repeated accusatory and aggressive comments the OP has directed at other women here, especially at Bertrand, are why I decided to share my own story. This discussion began with the OP accusing and insulting other women as being victim blamers etc merely for talking about breastfeeding to her. And avoiding that sort of aggression and lashing out is why women like me tend to stay silent about stuff we really should be talking about.

Yes but why do you need to talk to the women we are discussing in this thread?

I don't talk about it, offline, because I have no wish to hurt other women's feelings. But it does piss me off because I have feelings too, and I have stuff I want to talk about, and there may be women who would benefit from hearing that stuff (I would have) - but none of that seems to matter! I don't understand why, if someone doesn't want to be in a conversation about breastfeeding, they don't just stay out of the conversation. Go somewhere else, or do something else. Let women who need to talk, talk. If someone offers unsolicited advice, ignore it or take it, depending on its value to you. Not all unsolicited advice has no value. If someone asks you questions you aren't comfortable with, say you don't want to discuss it. There is a vast silence around breastfeeding, and feminism should be breaking through that. Women offering advice and discussing their experiences is not invalidating and it isn't disbelief in other women's stories. I don't disbelieve women who say they couldnt for whatever reason. I believe them that they believe that, iyswim, I'm not looking for holes in their stories or whatever - I don't judge them at all, neither do I judge women who just didn't want to, it's their body and their choice. But I don't see why I have to repeatedly bite my lip and never talk about breastfeeding because it might upset someone else, or risk being referred to as a tyrant or a 'victim blamer' or part of a mafia fgs. The OP claims that when women offer her their experiences/advice that it is because they don't believe her and they are victim blaming her. It seems more likely to me that those women had their own struggles with breastfeeding and are sharing what they learned with her. Maybe their advice has no value to her, but it doesn't mean they are tyrants!

"And it's fucking hard to "own" your choice when it wasn't really a choice, which in many cases it isn't"

But this is what I am saying.

hahaha yes I mean colostrum! I’ve got poo on the brain this morning after dealing with an explosion!

No woman should ever but judged on the decision not to BF, regardless of the reason. I had planned to breast feed my son and express so DP could help with night feeds etc. but my son was born 6 weeks early and my milk hadn't come in. I decided then it would be best to keep him on formula (he was tube fed formula for the first week) rather than try to make him breast feed when I didn't know if I could produce enough. In the hospital I was made to feel ashamed by the nurses and doctors for not even trying to BF but I was still distressed by the birth (and the fact I was told by the midwife that I almost died after giving birth) but family and friends supported my decision and didn't say anything about trying to give it a go, I'd made my mind up and it hasn't done my son any problems. For what it's worth, I believe you op - try to ignore people who act negatively about the subject.

Do you mean colostrum?

OurMiracle your statement that you didn’t have any milk 24 hours post birth is a classic example of what people on this thread are stating as misinformation. I don’t know your circumstances of course but your milk does not come in 24 hours after birth. It can take 4 days. Babies live on meconium until milk comes in. This is exactly the sort of comment that people are referring to as to why women are not believed when they say they couldn’t b/f, because no one has milk 24 hours post birth.

Rosenberg, I don't think anyone has said that women who breastfeed shouldn't talk about it. What is being discussed is the questioning and disbelief of women who say they couldn't.

I don't understand why you can't pick your audience Rosenberg.
I don't see how It helps a woman who has struggled but succeeded to breastfeed to announce all of her struggles to a woman who struggled and didn't succeed.
It's amazing that you persevered through all of that but what do you get out of sharing that woth a woman who had PND triggered by an inability to feed how she had wanted? Why is it grim that you're not able to do that?
That's what we are discussing here. How to approach woman who have tried and tried and tried but for whatever reason breastfeeding hasn't worked out. We aren't saying not to talk about it or keep it all his hush. We've been talking about vulnerable women and how to help them.
OP has said that it was very negative for her to have people disbelieve her and having to discuss her private issues with people who think there must be a magic solution - for her there wasn't. Your (albeit huge) struggles with feeding have no relation to her baby who need a high calorie formula. When she's feeling so devastated that her milk wasn't enough it is not helpful or kind to say well you know what I had a really shit time too but I did it regardless.

I would never refer to women talking about bf as tyrants or mafia. I refer to women pushing unsolicited advice, inaccurate scaremongering or judgements of a woman's parenting based on the way she is feeding her baby as tyrants and mafia. All my friends and family bf. All of them. I wouldn't call them a bf mafia because they have the social awareness to understand that I don't want their "helpful" suggestions about things I could have tried harder at or done differently.

If it's not ok to make endless comments towards bf women (it isn't), why on earth do you feel it's ok for ff women to experience the same. Many of them do, whatever your experience where you live. You may choose not to believe us but you are wrong.