The ABM, ideologically captured.

In the context of the NHS supporting shared feeding within the first couple of days post-birth as per the policy quoted upthread, it absolutely could lead to breastfeeding failure. It’s one thing for a couple to work out in their own home what’s best for them once breastfeeding is established; it’s quite another for shared feeding to be potentially encouraged right from the outset while mother and new baby are still in hospital, and therefore interrupt and jeopardise that vital bonding and establishing time.

No, you explicitly wrote it, rather than implied it, when you wrote;

pretending that both parents can feed the baby is a quick trip to ending breastfeeding for the baby.

How can you now claim that you didn’t mean it? It is not a quick trip to stopping breastfeeding the baby, you are spouting absolute rubbish here.

How ironic the we have to say ‘chest feeding’ because of trans men being upset by the thought of their breasts, while trans women want to have the function of breasts.

They are not going to get engorged breasts, and all that goes with breast feeding.It will be a make believe experience.

@ShamedBySiri ySiri · Today 10:49
Those NHS hospitals that have signed b up to the NHS Rainbow Badge scheme are required to answer this questions as part of the assessment.

"Does the service have sensitive guidance in place to support a non-carrying parent to breastfeed/chestfeed?"

I assume this means that the NHS now has to support men who want to "breastfeed" their baby

When I was a midwife such a man would have been reported to social services. Now it looks like becoming NHS policy.

I suppose it could be a trans man partner who hasn’t had a mastectomy, but it must mean trans women too.

What evidence is there that male, induced breast milk is either adequate or of the right kind for a baby? Or the motive of the right kind?

Time to get off this world.

I used to know a mad breastfeeding zealot (and please bare in mind, I fed both my babies till 18 months, but feel there's a line between supporting women and judging them, and she properly crossed it). Anyway she was was a full on TRA. Funny how she would judge women about what they'd eat/ drink whilst breastfeeding but was all
TRANSWOMEN CAN BREASTFEED TOO DIE BIGOTS ETC

She would post bollocks about rights being pie etc etc, she was full on crazy with anyone who disagreed with her in anyway. I got binned for saying i supported JK Rowling.

Shame, watching her dramas was better than tele.

But no-one was suggesting going for eight hours without breastfeeding. Having the father cover one feed can be an absolute lifesaver for an exhausted mother. Trying to discourage this seems wrong.

By reading your posts. You made the unsupported assertion that involving the father would be a route to stopping breast feeding. You know that that’s not true, using expressed milk occasionally doesn’t do that, so if it wasn’t about shutting fathers off from feeding what was the actual reason for the post?

I bet many many women have just left these organisations. I would have - the point at which I’m going to them is when I’m up every few hours at night, spending large chunks of my days settling a baby, and I don’t have the time or motivation to fight a battle. This is my 3rd baby and the first time I’d actually say something but I don’t need breastfeeding support this time around either.

Sure GC heretic, that can be done and is done but it certainly shouldn’t be advised by the NHS. Feeding during the night is particularly important for supply due to hormonal responsiveness at night, and whilst some women have an abundant supply and perhaps will not be impacted by it for many women this will cause problems. Going for 8 hours or more during the night without breastfeeding is particularly likely to reduce supply.

That’s not true at all. The mother can express milk for the father to use for bottle feeding overnight.

You seem to think that fathers should not be involved.

I agree with you all and yes the main point is about what the NHS is promoting. Promoting shared feeding is not evidence based best practice when it comes to supporting mothers who want to breastfeed. Combination feeding from birth clearly works for some but seems that it will cause problems for the majority and so the advice is wait until breastfeeding is well established especially if you are really keen to breastfeed. I think it is really important that the mother and baby are centred and the dyadic relationship protected and that fathers and co-mothers see themselves as supporting that relationship while finding other non feeding related ways of bonding eg, nappy changing, baby massage, baby wearing, bathing, singing, rocking etc etc

In fact I think I meant to say dads feeding!

*dads breastfeeding not DA's

One day I'll learn to proof read!

That's absolutely fine and great that it worked for you @BlueMumDays but @Filomene is right that the promotion of DA's feeding is basically about promoting bottle feeding. Promoting another parent to feed is undermining the breastfeeding parent. It's one thing for couples to find a solution that works for them in the way it did for you but hospitals and midwives have most influence within a short postnatal period and if they are to promote breastfeeding then they need to concentrate on that and supporting the breastfeeding mother not undermining her at a time when she is still new to mother hood and her lactation is not yet established.

New mothers are extremely vulnerable and suggestible - I had no doubt about wanting to breastfeed and fortunately it came easily to both me and my babies, but if it had been suggested that I had to include my husband and help him I don't know what I'd have thought.

And also none of this centres the baby. I know how cross DD got when attempts were made to get her to take a bottle, imagine a screaming baby refusing to fix on a hairy nipple that might deliver a few scant drops of some sort of exudate. Meanwhile mothers become acutely distressed when their baby is crying like that, it physically hurts as your breasts fill, it's all extremely undermining of mothers, babies and healthy family relationships.

Not always. All my babies had one bottle in the late afternoon (when I just couldn't bear having a grumpy baby gnawing on my empty boobs!) from newborn til about 6 weeks, and I breastfed each of them til 12 months +

I agree with @ShamedBySiri . I've seen a lesbian couple talk about this: their baby was exclusively breast fed so since the carrying mother did all the feeds, the co-mother did the vast majority of nappy changes. She did it very intentionally and always described to baby what she was doing, gave lots of eye contact, used the "baby signing" sign for "nappy" so that baby began to recognise the process they were about to start. It was a real opportunity for bonding.

Of course parents can bond with their child by other means than feeding.

Oh 100%, I don't agree that trying to make "non-carrying chestfeeding" a widely accepted thing is in anyway beneficial to a baby. But I don't think that sharing feeding between parents is automatically detrimental. And I can see that using a non-productive nipple "as a dummy" could probably provide some comfort to a baby.

Actually ingesting hormone laden milk should be very carefully researched, and with a proper newborn I would worry that they could tire themselves out suckling without getting any milk.

Me neither. Of all the institutions I just cannot understand it. It seems as though women's services are the most fanatical and captured.

If it works it works @BlueMumDays and I would agree with you but it's an individual choice and that is quite different to the NHS promoting breastfeeding/chest feeding by a "non-carrying parent".

I don't think a newborn baby should be used as a prop to further perpetuate a fantasy. This kind of "feeding" is only for the parent's benefit.

But I don't think it's fair to say that an untouchable mother-baby breastfeeding bubble is the only healthy way to care for a newborn. For lots of nothers it works very well having a baby who is happy taking a bottle from the other parent. Not for "convenience" but for mental health, and 4th trimester survival.