'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

When I started pumping with a newborn I also didn't get much and stopped at about 2-3oz. When I occasionally get the pump out now it is much easier as baby is over 6 months. I think those early months are super hard and especially if you don't have the power of hindsight. It's so tempting to give into the easier option when exhausted and being pressurised to do it.

Yup - there's one in the subreddit in the last couple of days with a 5 month old baby still in newborn clothes and the mum is proud because at least she hasn't given her baby formula. You start to notice the same copy-and-paste rhetoric being used again and again - inevitably and tiresomely it started to appear almost immediately on this thread - calling formula junk food and chemical laden (meaningless, emotive terms), suggesting breast milk is magical and optimal and formula is merely adequate at best and practically poison at worst, equivalent to giving your babies McDonalds, that mums who REALLY love their babies would just try a bit harder and then they could do it as the body is BUILT PERFECTLY to PROVIDE EVERYTHING and you just have to trust it and it's natural etc etc. Ya know what's actually natural? Dying in childbirth and high infant mortality rates. Modern interventions are great.

Look at how many women on this thread alone are saying how badly this rhetoric affected their mental health and the callous replies. 'Your feelings are your responsibility hun facts r facts 😘'. Empathy black holes. Bizarre to use such deliberately emotive language and then abdicate responsibility when it elicits strong emotions.

I tend to despise breastfeeding advocates on mum groups and mum forums. I think they are some of the worst people on here. Just horrible people. And I'm someone who is still breastfeeding at 9 months and do so publically wherever my baby needs to, am a great believer in supporting women who want to breastfeed to breastfeed and making public spaces breastfeeding-friendly. I just hate the terrible rhetoric these awful people use and all the harm it does.

Look at how many women on this thread alone are saying how badly this rhetoric affected their mental health and the callous replies. 'Your feelings are your responsibility hun facts r facts 😘'. Empathy black holes. Bizarre to use such deliberately emotive language and then abdicate responsibility when it elicits strong emotions.

Perfectly put!

@Allthestarsabovemyhead Oh trust me, I understand my own argument very well. As do the others that agree with me. I said that breastfeeding is scientifically better but when it comes to it, if a woman chooses to formula feed their child, then that is fine too. At the end of the day, a fed child is better than a starving child who isn't getting sufficient milk because the mother feels she HAS to breastfeed.

Not once did I say you needed permission but as we're all entitled to our own opinion, that is fine. YOU think breastfeeding is best, I do not.

@karmakameleon seems to have taken my argument the wrong way and constructed their own version of what I have said.

Considering men get a bloody good slating on here for bringing women down, some women seem to do a good job of doing that as I have seen on here!

Chilly, you describe my thoughts better than I do!

Some of the threads I’ve seen on here have been horrifying - a 10lb baby at 5 months old, admitted to hospital malnourished because the mum wouldn’t give formula. Another poster saying they only gave formula when their child began to get kidney damage from dehydration. A 6 month baby weighing 9lb whose mum wouldn’t even consider that breastfeeding was the issue.

these are people who think kidney damage is the level of harm that has to be caused before formula can be given, because they’ve lapped up rubbish like that spouted by Britney on this thread.

@Wouldloveanother That is so sad.

@britneyisfree Or maybe the mothers feel they HAVE to breastfeed, because of the term 'Breast is Best' and that is what they are led to believe?

Your last comment was unneccessary.

But you said bodies ‘know what they are doing’ and can adequately nourish a child. Is that the case or not?

You can’t heap emotional language into your posts like ‘chemical laden food’ and ‘fake plastic tit’ (particularly nasty) then shirk responsibility when women listen to it and take it to heart.

you can’t say ‘if everything I said to make women believe formula is awful resulted in them actually believing me and not giving it to their child when they were malnourished, then that’s not my fault.’

just pause for thought and maybe reflect on why you feel the need to use such unkind words.

This is so ridiculous. Breast is the best, and formula is also fine. How can you say 'fed is best' when formula is literally trying to replicate breast milk, thereby showing that breast milk is the pinnacle of food for babies (I.e., the best).

I breastfed my DD for a few months, and then chose to go onto formula so she was effectively formula fed. I did this for a few selfish reasons, but also because I knew that formula was absolutely fine for her. However, at the same time I still knew that breast milk was best, but just wasn't the right choice for me under my own personal circumstances.

Those circumstances were valid and I'm happy with my decision, but it didn't negate the fact that breast milk is best.

Your body knows what it's doing and will provide enough food.

I was going to take exception to the above post by Britney and try to explain why she is so unbelievably ignorant (because of the confirmation bias of her own straight-forward feeding experience), but having seen her later posts, particularly the one about God, I can see trying to explain human physiology would be a total waste of time.

Well said. But I suspect you’re wasting your time with that particular contributed to this thread.

If I’ve interpreted your argument the wrong way, maybe help me out. How would you run a public health campaign that promotes breastfeeding without taking about its benefits?

@karmakameleon Who said anything about not running the benefits? My main post was to reassure women who feel guilty that it IS okay to formula feed, despite the 'breast is best' campaign. It was you and other posters who took it upon themselves to turn my post into a story about me wanting the campaign banning.

If you don't think being 'fed' is best, that's on you. But I'd rather see a fed baby than a baby who isn't fed because there mother is perservering with breastfeeding.

I suspect I am, I just don’t want women reading her comments in future and seeing them go unchallenged. They’re so, so unkind.

@karmakameleon

1. Breast is scientifically better.
2. However, some women struggle to breastfeed. Whether that's because they physically can't, mentally struggle or just do not want to do it. All three of those examples are fine.
3. For those above, formula feeding is fine. Your child will be fine because 'being fed is best'.
4. 'Fed is Best' refers to breastfeeding, formula feeding, bottle feeding, tube feeding or whatever way the mother seems fit.
5. It is not down to you and the other women on this thread that seem desperate to push breastfeeding on women.

Hope this makes things clearer.

@Wouldloveanother Not a waste of time at all. The whole point of this thread was to encourage women NOT to get so het up on breastfeeding and that being fed by formula is also fine too. It seems to have been hijacked by some women who feel otherwise...

I think people can get understandably affronted that “fed is best” suggests breast milk and formula milk are equal.

But I think understanding it as “it’s ok not to doggedly pursue breastfeeding when it’s not working out” makes sense. I could have certainly benefited from hearing that when I was crying every week at the baby weigh-in clinic because however hard I tried I couldn’t get my baby to put on weight through breastfeeding alone. I felt like wherever we went for support we were just offered more things to try - different holds, different timing, expressing after each feed, galactalogues, tongue tie snipped, private lactation consultant…it went on. If someone had just taken me to one side and said “formula isn’t failing” we could have been a lot happier.

I'd rather see a fed baby than a baby who isn't fed because there mother is perservering with breastfeeding

Outside an abuse situation that is not going to happen. Of course baby is going to be fed. That is where "fed is best" just doesn't work.

Managed to BF with dc1 for almost a year. DC2 was very prem and poorly at birth. I also had a traumatic crash second c section. He was in the nicu for 3 months. First was “fed” through IV for a week then told I have to pump to start feeding properly. He was too small to latch on or even be handled at that point. Managed to pump tiny amounts for 2 weeks, but as I couldn’t hold him and he couldn’t latch on, my supply just didn’t pick up. They tried a very gentle formula for prems, but warned could cause a condition called NEC which is the number 1 cause of death for micro preemies. Within a day of starting formula his bowels became inflamed and he was immediately taken off formula and put on IV. We were told to give permission for donated breast milk. Of course we said yes and he thrived. A few weeks later they tried formula again, but he developed sepsis. Anyway, I will eternally be grateful for the kind ladies who donate breast milk for preemies. Breast is definitely best for very prem babies.
With DC3, I BF for 4 weeks, but couldn’t keep up and slowly transitioned to formula and baby was fine. She is 2 years old now and I do look back and think I should’ve tried harder, set alarms for nightly pumping sessions etc, but truth was I had 2 older DC who needed me too, as well as the fact that I was an older mum, just had 3rd section and mentally and physically I was knackered. I had pnd and was slap bang in middle of first lockdown. I made a decision that suited both baby and I and stated formula feeding. I do know formula isn’t better than breast, but 3rd DC coped ok with formula and that was the important thing at the time for all of us.

@MajorCarolDanvers Why does it not work? 'Breast is Best' is making some mothers believe that breastfeeding is the only option for their baby. Like I said, when I had my little one, the midwife refused to discharge me until I'd breastfed my daughter three times - despite me being unable to do so. Obviously my daughter went onto formula, otherwise she would have been very hungry.

'Fed is Best' implies that formula is fine, breastfeeding is fine, however you want to feed your child is fine.

I was responding to this bit of the previous poster's post, that you agreed with:

And the whole breast is best message can be hurtful for mums who want to but can't.

Lots of things are hurtful but true.

@2boysand1princess You did what was right for you and your family and that is the best thing to do.

The alternative to breastmilk is formula milk.

The alternative to feeding is not feeding - that is why it doesn't work.

I am sorry you had a bad experience but 'fed is best' is just daft and is not the solution to your bad midwife experience.

Fed is necessary. Breast is best. Formula is a great substitute.

So we can never just talk about breastfeeding? Every public health campaign around breastfeeding should reference formula feeding too?

Does this work for other public health campaigns too? Everyone should eat more fruit and veg and unprocessed food. But if you can’t / don’t want to, microwave meals and takeaways are fine too.

We should all get more exercise. Walk more, cycle if you can. But if don’t fancy it, driving is perfectly good too.

Can you genuinely not see why that’s not how they are run?