'Breast is Best'

[OddSocksandRainbowDocs]

It's National Breastfeeding Week and I've seen the phrase 'Breast is Best' banded about quite a few times.

Whilst I agree breastfeeding is scientifically better, some mothers (myself included) physically could not breastfeed so chose to formula feed instead. I was made to feel like a failure by a midwife for choosing to do so.

My little one is now one and a half. She is happy, she is healthy.

I don't know who needs to hear this but 'Breast is Best' isn't always the case. 'Fed is Best' is most definitely the case. It doesn't matter how you feed your baby, as long as the baby is fed, that is all that matters

If anyone is still reading this, I just wanted to say that applying pure lanolin to your nipples for the last month of your pregnancy protects them from getting cracks.

Neither I nor my adult dd had any pain breastfeeding.

I think one of the issues is that you have little support in hospital as it’s so overstretched
lucky my baby latched amazingly well and fed for ages, it’s sheer luck of the draw. All the research in the world before birth and throwing money at courses and nct etc (see how breastfeeding becomes a middle class thing) can’t help if your baby doesn’t get the memo

if you have a partner or someone who can help you when you’re in hospital, make sure you get your tea and toast, go to the hospital shop for snacks for you l, help you shower and dress etc then great, if not you’re just desperate to get home and get out so loads of women I know have just said look baby won’t feed I’m bottle feeding let me out

The OP has stated she physically could not breastfeed so chose to formula feed instead. This doesn't make any sense. If you 'physically' can't do something, then there is no choice. If she had not 'chosen' to formula feed, her baby would have died. So, yes, of course 'fed is best' is true for her. She seems to have started an inflammatory thread to make herself feel better about a decision that was taken out of her hands anyway. And now women who say that breast IS best are being called militants and bores who witter on. I honestly can't say I have ever seen any breastfeeding advocate start one of these threads. It's always someone defending their decision to formula feed. There's a whole world of psychological unpacking right there.

Fed is best is nonsense. Better than what? Is anyone seriously weighing up the pros and cons of feeding vs not feeding their baby and thinking 'meh, maybe I won't bother... oh wait, but fed is best, maybe I should!'

I don’t think that’s the reasoning behind it.

I think it’s more, a properly fed baby is much better than a stressed out mum who is still trying to bf even though the baby isn’t gaining and is failing to thrive.

ClinkeyMonkey Many of us have breast fed just don’t feel the need to tell others about the benefits.
it doesn’t matter to me or anyone else how a baby is fed as long as the baby gets what they need and is thriving

there are women that bore others about breast feeding they also tend to bore others about sleeping patterns. their attachment to their child, their child’s capabilities, their parental choices some women are competitive around parenting they bore others

But this isn’t a campaign by mothers extolling the virtues of breastfeeding. It’s a public health campaign that the OP wants to shut down.

Read on how the thread has evolved

as I said some will bored you with their parenting and baby stories and a few years down the line it won’t bother you

there are women that bore others about breast feeding they also tend to bore others about sleeping patterns. their attachment to their child, their child’s capabilities, their parental choices some women are competitive around parenting they bore others

I guess I'm lucky I didn't meet anyone like that, perhaps because the uptake for breastfeeding is so vanishingly small in this country that I didn't know anyone who breastfed, apart from my cousin who lived in another country at the time. A friend, who is a nurse, blithely announced to me that breastfeeding was 'disgusting'. Another friend loudly made reference to 'bitty' with regard to the fact I continued to breastfeed and embarrassed me in front of a group of women who were strangers to me. I was also put under pressure by DP's family, endlessly chipping away, to stop breastfeeding and give someone else a chance to feed DS(!) So my personal experience was the complete opposite to what you are saying. I know there are women who bang on about their breastfeeding 'journey', but the world is full of general bores who feel the need to announce their right way of doing things and go into endless detail, be it about breastfeeding, their dietary choices, bloody lentil weaving or whatever. I don't think the fact that some women yammer on about breastfeeding should be sufficient reason to shut down a campaign aimed at informing women that breastfeeding is best. It is solid, scientific information.

I don't know how long it takes to sterilise bottles, make them up and then feed baby but my breastfed babies were

DS about 10-15 minutes every 4 hours
DD about 5-10 minutes every 3 hours

the uptake for breastfeeding is so vanishingly small in this country that I didn't know anyone who breastfed

80% isn’t vanishingly tiny.

I don’t think breastfeeding is as shockingly rare as some people on this thread want to believe…

The campaign is just as useful for educating those who are now grandparents who had the opposite and were encouraged NOT to breastfeed. In turn, they then make others feel awkward (even family members) when they do.

I've also had well meaning members of the public telling me well done for bfeeding. Although that's nice, it is slightly patronising and reminds me that it wasn't always this way and makes me more self conscious when I don't normally care about feeding in public!

Of course posters are defending the campaign and some will use their personal experience of breastfeeding to do so. An equal number of mothers who formula fed are using their personal experience to support their opposition. Are they “bores” too?

@Wouldloveanother my mistake. I meant those who continue rather than those who start out breastfeeding and I should have said that. Over half of that 80% have switched to some/all formula by the end of the first week. The number of women still breastfeeding when their babies are 3 months old is around 17%. I don't know who stopped on day 2 and who stopped on day 90, but that's a small percentage.

I don’t think breastfeeding is as shockingly rare as some people on this thread want to believe…

No it’s not, but the more people who do breastfeed the harder it is for some breastfeeding mums to pat themselves so enthusiastically on the back for it. So it’s good to keep idea alive. Don’t get me started on ‘booby awards’… yes they are a thing! I’m still loosely in touch with a mum I met at a baby group who tells me she is now on her ‘platinum boobies’. She posts her ‘certificates’ on social media. It’s definitely her ‘thing’ and she feels very special for it and it gives her sense of importance. I just smile and nod. I breast fed too, but thankfully it didn’t take over my identity and sense of self.

That’s not true either.

As I said before, even one bottle of formula in hospital and total breastfeeding thereafter won’t count as ‘exclusive breastfeeding’. Most people that I know who breastfed gave one or two bottles in the hospital while they were waiting for their milk to come in, usually because the baby was jaundiced or similar (so the responsible thing to do in those circumstances).

I gave my daughter a bottle in the hospital on day 3, none for about 2 months after that, and for the 6 months after that she had probably one or two bottles a week. Just when I was really exhausted and couldn’t face a pumping session 😆 I would say I ‘breastfed for 8 months’. But those statistics wouldn’t.

So if you count mums like me, over a third of babies are still breastfeeding at 6 months old. Which is a very different picture to the 1% often trotted out.

@karmakameleon How many more times do I need to say that I am not trying to shut down the campaign? I am telling mothers who cannot/choose not to breastfeed that it is perfectly fine not too.

If a woman cannot breastfeed, it is perfectly fine to formula feed. Or would you rather women just continue to try to no avail just to please you?

@karmakameleon The formula feeding mothers tend to be the ones who agree with my original post. But no, in typical MN style, because it doesn't fit your way of thinking, we must be wrong.

Yawn.

You don't have to give formula while you wait for milk to come in. Your body knows what it's doing and will provide enough food.

Formula is not needed in most cases. My baby had jaundice and was in special care. I pumped like fucking mad and she got what she needed and we got rid of the jaundice and then we learnt how to breast feed again.

The nurse did tell me it would be easier to ff as then they could do it all while I rested, but I said no. I know what I signed up for and part of that was/is feeding my child.

@HRTQueen Thankyou for actually bothering to read my post and see it for what it is - to say to mothers that it is perfectly fine to formula feed if that's what works best

Can I ask why your baby was in special care Britney?

@Wouldloveanother jaundice and unexplained bleeding. It was very distressing. Pumping for her and not being able to feed her and hold her is the hardest thing I've ever experienced

@britneyisfree I'm sorry to hear that Is your little one okay now?

So if you count mums like me, over a third of babies are still breastfeeding at 6 months old.

Where did you get 'over a third' from? Honestly not being rude, am genuinely interested.

I find the booby awards thing a bit cringe, but if it helps some women through the hard bits and they want to use it as motivation I don't see the harm. They're not forcing me to use them.

People pat themselves on the back for aspects of parenting they've struggled with all the time, nothing wrong with being proud of breastfeeding. People who are proud of having a natural water birth aren't taking anything away from mothers who needed or wanted interventions 🤷

I never thought I would be this person because before kids I thought you just breastfed for 6 months and then gave them solid food and cow milk. But I breastfed my DD for 2.5 years as she had multiple food allergies and even the prescription allergy formula was no good except for one with awful ingredients, so I cut her allergens out of my diet and carried on. It was hard so I'm proud of myself.

UNICEF, here’s the quote:

The rate of any breastfeeding at six weeks was 55% (rising from 48% in 2005), while at six months it was 34% (rising from 25% in 2005). These improvements coincided with a marked increase in engagement with the Baby Friendly Initiative