Infant Feeding - Massive Straw Men with Ambivalence & Gaslights

What NewAccount said

You wouldn't necessarily expect countries with traditions of lying in to be otherwise feminist paradises - and snuggy never said they would be. That's one of the problems that childbearing in general poses for feminists (like myself) - you can either go for the 'women need lots of extra support and to be released from normal duties during pregnancy/early motherhood', which plays within a patriarchal society as 'women are weak and less useful than men', or you can go for 'women aren't at all limited by biology and can chair a board meeting four hours after giving birth', which pleases a patriarchal society but puts an unacceptable burden on individual women. Either way the problem is actually the patriarchal society.

I'm not hugely convinced by the sweeping and vague generalities in that link. One of the references is to India-

This is the first result for "women's rights in India"

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/27/india-abuse-women-human-rights-rape-girls

@Lass, here is the first thing that comes up after googling babymoon www.gentleparenting.co.uk/kc/the-postpartum-period-babymoons/

Definitely a far cry from the "you aren't the only woman who has given birth" culture in the UK.

You are free to start a thread about the topic of your choosing?

What do you want to hear about PineapplePower? Lots of posts going on about how marvellous breast feeding is? And what a super duper idea wet nurses are?

"Supporting women" in the context of feeding children seems for some people no more than a synonym for pushing breast feeding no matter what.

What groups? Sorry I'm getting lost. If I was allocating the BF budget I'd scrap anything which amounts to persuasion and plough it all into practical support. If someone doesn't want to breastfeed I don't see the sense in trying to

Yes on a population level it makes sense to try and raise breastfeeding levels but when it comes down to the individual we are in a high income country meaning there is very little difference in health outcomes and other factors (convenience, sharing feeds, medication, routine, simple preference) may well be weighed higher in an individual's choice meaning formula is the better option for them - in fact that's exactly why HIV positive mothers in high income countries are advised to formula feed, but in low income countries the advice is to breastfeed and be extremely careful not to give any non breastmilk substance before exactly 6 months.

Also, if you want to raise something, it makes sense to look at why things are as they are, and there is a very clear picture, most people want to breastfeed, start off, but stop. If you've ever done any kind of breastfeeding support you know that the same things come up time and time again and that women are being failed by the front line professionals they turn to for support.

I don't think good support is going to make every woman love breastfeeding, and if someone finds that they are happier with formula/bottles then great - glad they have something which works for them. What I hate seeing is women who desperately want to breastfeed and who don't have any significant issues being sabotaged by poor advice or misleading info and then becoming distressed because they think the problem is them! That's crap and not something which should be marring the newborn period for anyone.

Of the women who give up BFing I'd be really curious to find out what made them give up.

Lack of physical support, ie couldn't manage house and BFing That wasn't an issue. Husband and cleaner dealt with house.

Pressure from other people. FFing easier we could help no - but the pressure from health visitor and the idiot "feeding counsellor" from the NCT to carry on with bf no matter what and the refusal of either of them to even discuss ff was certainly pressure.

Tired of cluster feeding. I couldn't leave the house- getting on for 3 months. Idiot NCT woman suggested pumping. All that happened was that I spent the time not feeding was spent pumping to produce a tiny dribble of milk.

On top of that It made me feel physically sick. I hated it. The nausea is something they never tell you about. It is supposed to last only a few weeks but some cases are longer.

I hated bf. I was pressurised into it from the start and that pressure continued unrelenting. I was reduced to being a milch cow, not a human being. It didn't create a bond and if anything I was starting to resent my son.

Health visitor knew all of this and that I was going back to work full time fairly soon yet a query about how I would introduce ff was met with the same idiotic advice about pumping and a refusal to give any advice on ff.

I found it interesting reading about other cultures where mum and baby are sent to bed for 40 days after birth and other people cook and take over housework

Which cultures?

See, I'm not sure there's necessarily the bright line between the two groups that's being drawn here. Or rather, I think we'd need more information in order to draw it.

I found it interesting reading about other cultures where mum and baby are sent to bed for 40 days after birth and other people cook and take over housework.

Our culture of showing off how little having a baby has impacted you is completely different.

Incidentally i also recall coming across the theory that cluster feeding forces new mum to rest / recover from the birth.

Of the women who give up BFing I'd be really curious to find out what made them give up.

Lack of physical support, ie couldn't manage house and BFing.

Pressure from other people. FFing easier we could help.

Tired of cluster feeding

Feeding going ok but other reason to stop, Own free will.

I think both groups (FFeeders who wanted to BF and FFeeders who didn't) are worth a conversation but there is a time and a place for both and I don't know if lumping the two categories together is all that helpful.

They do, but I think it's worth critically examining whether women who actually have a different reason feel able to give it. There is quite a well established trend of people often giving the 'right' answer in some research, after all. So much of the discourse does start from the well meaning but not necessarily accurate assumption that what all women want is to breastfeed, and the solution is facilitation of more breastfeeding.

I'd have thought 'support' that involves pressuring women who dont want to breastfeed/continue with it could come under the umbrella of poor feeding support generally? So many women do want and need assistance, so it's poor resource allocation.

I think they are simply different conversations. The statistics do suggest a significant proportion of women who wanted to breastfeed but couldn't.

If any one is shutting down a conversation it is you

You are free to start a thread about the topic of your choosing?

Someone upthread said that many women said they didn’t feel supported to continue, but actually just didn’t want to continue. That was actually an interesting thought and perhaps deserving of its own thread.

What I find sad as that these sorts of nearby families could be offering practical support for a cluster feeding mother with cooking, housework or childcare instead

That x100.
Even when we were moving house. The offer was "I'll take baby and let you get on with packing" no thanks but you can come and help pack.

Seriously a baby under 3mths is not going to get in the way.

There are many, many interesting aspects to this topic, and posters like you derail it with the same old shite. Don’t want to or can’t breastfeed? Great, but it’s not relevant to every and all discussions about BF. You are shutting down a conversation, essentially

Well as for "same old shite" I'm seeing the usual mantra about how if only mothers were given support to breast feed it would all be fine on here. Goodness know what form of "support" that would have taken for me If any one is shutting down a conversation it is you.

No idea to be fair, it's something I've only read about on here though. My late paternal DGM was a difficult MIL and even she didn't expect regular overnights with her baby grandchildren.

What I find sad as that these sorts of nearby families could be offering practical support for a cluster feeding mother with cooking, housework or childcare instead.

I do know of some women who have has a big supply and donated to neonatal unit. I guess this is different than a more widespread donation/ marketing(?) of donor milk for babies.
Not sure how I feel.

Is the wanting sleepovers a new thing or has it always been the case?

That strange trend of extended family wanting to take babies for overnight stays and general sense of entitlement of family members have isn't helpful.

Interesting point about abuse. I’ve seen something similar in an extended family dynamic where the mothers attempt to breastfeed was seen as ‘selfish’ as it prevented the MIL from taking the baby for any period of time. MIL and extended family have taken it as a personal affront and saight to undermine BF.
I’ve seen that play out more than once and it always leads to great resentment

you can't have a productive discussion without giving voice to the millions of women who simply don't want to breastfeed or can't, or have adopted/foster children, and admitting there is no good reason to insist on donor milk and the many reasons why women don't want to do it and shouldn't feel required

There are many, many interesting aspects to this topic, and posters like you derail it with the same old shite. Don’t want to or can’t breastfeed? Great, but it’s not relevant to every and all discussions about BF. You are shutting down a conversation, essentially.

Controlling the way a woman is allowed to use her body can absolutely be abusive.

It's a very subtle kind of coercion. Even the thoughtless, "he can't be hungry again, you mustn't have enough milk," is going to undermine someone who isn't yet confident about breastfeeding.