Infant Feeding - Massive Straw Men with Ambivalence & Gaslights

This is interesting. I joined the human milk for human babies fb group to donate my unused freezer stash, a woman travelled about 50 miles to collect it and was so grateful. She had to take my word for it that I'd kept it frozen properly and sterilised what needed sterilising, as it was unregulated.

It seems to be fashionable to demonise formula milk

Way to derail the thread. No one said any such thing, there was an interesting discussion about human milk banking, but instead you had to go and repeat the same points that we can read in any other thread about BF/FF. Like, can we get past this for some real discussion?

To be fair she wasn't premature or tube fed and we did manage to establish breastfeeding eventually but I remember feeling really gutted thinking I'd missed my chance to breastfeed.

What are the criteria for donor milk. When DD went to NICU she was just put straight onto formula, I remember being asked what type we wanted but no discussion of donor milk. I wasn't well myself so didn't challenge it.

“I should also point out that breast milk is deficient in vitamin D and iron. Breast fed babies need vitamin D supplements from the start, and iron supplements from 4 months (when their own stores run out) if they haven’t been weaned onto solids by then”
Hmm- well at least this is easy to spot propaganda on behalf of the formula industry. Usually it’s much more subtle.

Not deficient in iron; the iron is more bioavailable.

Only 'deficient' in vitamin d if mother isn't getting enough, highly likely in the uk if not adequately supplemented.

Haven't read it in great detail but I read a WHO report on vitamin A supplementation for lactating mothers around the world and it said the fat soluble vitamins do change a lot according to maternal diet / intake.

I should also point out that breast milk is deficient in vitamin D and iron. Breast fed babies need vitamin D supplements from the start, and iron supplements from 4 months (when their own stores run out) if they haven’t been weaned onto solids by then.
Formula milk contains the correct amount of both, and no supplements are required. It’s designed to provide full infant nutrition.

It seems to be fashionable to demonise formula milk.
My generation were majority bottle fed, and are the longest lived and healthiest generation in history. This is an inconvenient truth to the breast feeding zealots!
By all means breast feed if you want to and are able to. But it is not the end of the world if you don’t. Your child will still grow up hale and hearty. I feel so sad, seeing demoralised women who feel failures for simply not managing to breast feed. All the pressure is likely to cause or worsen post natal depression.

I'm just not convinced given the relatively low number of women who breastfeed in the UK that they could realistically be expected to provide enough milk to feed all the babies currently formula fed. Maybe it would be different in a country where most mums breastfeed.

"Inthe UK, milk banks used to exist in every hospital that delivered babies"

Can that be evidenced? Because it really dienMt ring true for a number of reasons, and o does not match my (albeit limited) direct experience.

Thank you ed

I managed to leave a bottle of milk that I expressed this time round in the cupboard not the fridge. It was pretty gutting (although dd2 is stubborn and won't take a bottle anyway so didn't really lose anything!)

Littlebelina sorry to hear about your DD.

Pumping really is hard work. I don't think I ever managed to get more than a few ounces at a time.

Anybody who says "no point crying over split milk" has never spilt a bottle of hard worked for expressed milk.

Great post Edthebear.

Breastfeeding is fucking hard work and yet it’s sold to new mums as the perfect ideal, with very little real advice and help. So when new mothers inevitably fail they feel doubly shit because it’s the gold standard.

We need to repackage the whole thing. Breast isn’t best, it’s NORMAL. And like childbirth and child raising it is hard and often painful. Babies don’t sleep through the night and they will want to feed constantly in the early days. Mothers should have the opportunity to just hunker down and feed for the first few weeks at least. They should know to expect pain and soreness and be helped through this. Taught properly about latch and position and tongue tie and mastitis and supply and all of the things that are likely to crop up.

We’re all sold this idea that Bf is natural and calm and if you don’t take to it immediately then there’s something wrong. And formula had had billions invested in making it the obvious choice.

Donor milk is not an option beyond the current milk banks for sick babies. It's effectively asking mums to produce milk for two or more babies, theirs and a random baby. Even cows don't try and feed their baby and give milk away. Current farming techniques the calfs are removed at 2 days old, males are shot, females raised on a formula before switching to a feed mix.

The UK lost breastfeeding experience
and knowledge in WW2 & post war generations. The government pushed formula to get mum's back to work. They even produced National Dried Milk. Being able to buy formula was a seen as a status symbol, why go to the effort of BFing if you can affort to buy milk. All of that damage needs to be undone.

New mums are told breast is best, without real information on what breastfeeding is like. Struggling with a cluster feeding infant and you keep hearing 'I tried and couldn't', 'My GP told me I wasn't making enough milk to just switch to formula', 'I could help if you gave a bottle' etc.

It takes encouragement to keep going and not cave into the pressure. Much of my support came from a lady on another forum.

In some cultures around the world new mums only care for their newborn for first 40 days. The grans and aunties look after older children and run the house.

In the UK partly because of lack of BFing experience and knowledge new mums are expected to get on with running the house, shopping, caring for older children, doing school / nursery runs. But remember the newborn wants to feed during the night to build mum's supply. So poor mum's been awake half the night and still expected to function normally during the day. Then mum feel like failures and cave into formula.

So instead of thinking donor milk is the answer we need to be looking at getting proper support for BFing mum's to get themselves to the 6week mark.

Breast milk donated to milk banks is pasteurised too (part of the reason you need to give a litre to make it worthwhile).

I had to exclusively pump for dd1 as she was very sick and donated most of it to a milk bank as she didn't take much when she was alive and meant my stash went to a good cause when she died. I had to have additional blood tests to check I was healthy (they wouldn't take the results from my pregnancy ones).

Pumping was hard work, 30-40min sessions 5 times a day and I was a fairly good producer compared to some of the other mums I met in intensive care. Some folks would struggle to get an ounce out in a session (although suspect the stress everyone was under didn't help). I'm currently feeding dd2 and not sure I would find the time to pump enough to donate the required 1litre (although I might like too but my nearest milk bank is too far away)

Although human milk banks for all babies might seem like a nice idea, I'm not sure it works in real life. The blood tests and day to day grind of pumping would put a lot of women off. I also suspect some mothers would not been keen on their babies having another mum's milk. I think we should be greatly that a viable, good alternative to breastmilk exists for those who don't want to or can't breastfed and try to promote breastfeeding more (whilst still recognising that it's not for everyone and no one should feel guilty about not doing it whatever the reason)

there ought to be scope to discuss how formula companies manipulate the market and the narrative around breastfeeding without it being taken as a personal insult

For sure; I also don’t think donor milk is going to ever be large-scale enough for most babies. We should be able to discuss the politics of BF without people taking it as a personal attack against mothers who choose to FF. Many more, IME, wanted to BF but were let down by the system. We should be able to talk about that

I find it interesting that people are always so keen to worry about the age of the nurslings for donated milk. Do we only use milk from cows who gave birth 6 months ago to produce formula? I doubt it.

Cows only lactate for 9mths before being rested for their next calf.
Cows milk is altered during the process of turning it into formula for babies.
The nutrient balance of older babies milk is different to younger babies milk. Hence it can't be donated for prem and ill babies.
The nutrient balance of cows milk may change, I don't know however the milk that is formula is made so its the same.

I found it astonishing that throughout pregnancy and antenatal (NHS & NCT) and then in immediate aftermath of a pretty grim labour and birth, still nobody had wanted to really discuss alternatives to breastfeeding. Even the paraphernalia on the walls in the hospital were all about breastfeeding. As it was, I couldn't do it because baby had a rough time and so did I. I felt disappointed like I'd failed or something. Awful.

There's plenty more interesting historical and academic discussion for this topic but on a really basic level I just wish women weren't treated like idiots, were given full information on all forms of feeding (donated b milk included) and not made to feel like awful mothers if breast just doesn't work or isn't their thing. I'd quite like it if women were just left to make their own damn informed decisions actually. (In consultation with partner as appropriate yaddayadda)

Formula is a perfectly good alternative to breast milk.

The issue is the way women are being pushed 'breast is best' and made to feel second best if they struggle to properly get going.

Mums are asked 'is he a good baby?' What's meant by a 'good baby'? One who sleeps during the night, sleeps between feeds, goes 3 hours between feeds, takes a feed very quickly and give mum lots of rest.

Well unfortunately breastfed babies, like to cluster-feed, start feeding 10mins after they finish the last feed, they like to feed at 3am when mums milk making hormones are highest, will go a max of two hours between feeds, feeds can take 30mins or longer, so actual time between feeds is 90mins therefore they don't fall into the category of 'good babies'.

Expectations of babies (and new mums) needs to change. Donor milk is not the answer as expressing is hard work esp on top of a breastfeeding baby. The milk banks will only take milk if the mum gave birth less than 6mths ago because milk changes to suit a 6mth old and isn't suitable for a tiny prem.
Some donors would be put off if they thought their milk was going to healthy full term babies who could happily use formula rather than poorly babies born too soon and before their mum can make milk.