'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

Of course the advertising matters.

Imagine if Huel started becoming so popular that more people were eating that instead of proper food. It's a meal replacement in the same way that formula is a breastmilk replacement. It's perfectly nutritious and adequate to sustain people but it still lacks lots of things that real food has. But it's great in certain circumstances, like people who can't eat real food for whatever reason.
Imagine it's marketed at kids/parents. Parents start using it because it's easier than cooking, and some kids will accept it more readily than vegetables. Then eventually it becomes the norm, rather than something to be used in specific circumstances.
Nobody is going to be able to advertise the benefits of whole fruit and veg as well as a huge corporation can advertise their product. So more and more people use things like Huel to feed their kids because that's what they see and understand.

Apologies if this point has already been made upthread, but people who continue to bandy about WHO guidelines without considering the purpose of WHO advice - reducing infant mortality worldwide, particularly in developing areas where unsanitary formula prep/food storage is an issue - really frustrate me. In the UK context, at an individual level, the decision to formula feed your baby is not a sub-optimal decision. ‘Breast is best’ suggests otherwise, and I agree with PP that the lack of nuance in the messaging is unhelpful when parroted by people who seem to want to make formula-feeding mothers feel bad about their choices (see numerous other PP).

Breastfeeding rates will never be 100% even with the best support system in the world - the current state of UK breastfeeding support is appalling, especially if you haven’t got the cash to pay for private lactation consultants. No parent should have to caveat their choice to formula feed, as though they owe the world an apology for a perfectly safe and responsible decision they’ve taken on behalf of their family.

Context - mother’s physical and mental health, baby’s ability to breastfeed, baby’s ability to thrive while breast feed ding, availability of support and intervention, mother’s freedom to choose what to do with her body and why - all mean that formula feeding absolutely can be the best choice, and to argue otherwise is, frankly, anti-women. There’s a distinct, misogynist ‘but why aren’t you prepared to suffer in order to do what I spuriously decide is best for your child?’ element to the entire debate that a lot of breast-feeding advocates don’t seem prepared to examine.

It’s because ‘breast is best’ means ‘breast milk is the best sustenance for your baby’ - it’s not intended to mean ‘breastfeeding is best for the mother’. It centres the kid not the adult.

There’s a distinct, misogynist ‘but why aren’t you prepared to suffer in order to do what I spuriously decide is best for your child?’ element to the entire debate that a lot of breast-feeding advocates don’t seem prepared to examine.

I often examine the BF/FF debate through a feminist lens.

I also think that a lot of attitudes to Bf are misogynistic in the way there is often disgust expressed at breasts being used for their natural purpose and not sexualised and women often say one reason they don't want to BF is because they find it "icky".

I also found that bf afforded me freedom from some of the domestic shackles although obviously not all!

That's not to mention the misogynistic exploitation of vulnerable poor women by formula companies.

I had a friend who ff her first baby and I bf mine, born at the same time. She made some quite bitchy comments to me about how it was easier for me because I had smaller breasts. She also made me feel self-conscious when I fed in public or even at her house.

When we had our second babies, also very close in age, she bf the second time, and we had a really good heart to heart where she told me she had felt really resentful and jealous of me bf the first time round, she'd felt like a failure, and that was why she'd been mean about it.

I told her I'd been quite envious of her ability to go out in the evenings much sooner than I could, to share the night feeds, to wear whatever she wanted, to start drinking again.

We forgave each other completely and it was a really good, honest, conversation between us. And then she bf her baby where we were, which was outdoors at a city farm with loads of people around

It would be nice if there was more of that, and less of the bitchy sniping. I think it's really obvious that a great deal of the anti-bf nastiness - and some of it is really extreme - referencing the Gestapo ffs? Absolutely shameful. - comes from a place of insecurity and wanting to lash out at others who you perceive as succeeding at something you feel you failed at

The comment i've posted related to who speaks mainly about USA , which despite having some poor areas it's quite a rich country, one of the richest in the world, so WHO does not only care about kids in areas where access to ff is so difficult but all kids because people like it or not BF is the best option for a child among all the options. there are alternatives because of course dying of starvation is the worse option,

bf also has got its benefits for the mother, not only the child, bf reduces the chances of a woman of having breast cancer for example

This will go down like a lead balloon. The government should fund formula. Its a feminist issue. By using formula my partner is an equal carer for our kids as he's been fully involved from day one. Night feeds. Shared parental leave. I was able to leave our babies for stretches of time. Formula is a modern miracle and more important that the washing machine in liberating women from the home. Now burn me at the stake!

Wow, were you this rude before you started breastfeeding or does it come as a "side effect"?

My partner is and was an equal carer for our kids from day one.

We rarely used formula.

In isolation breast milk is better than formula milk, don’t think anyone would argue that, but the decision is not made in isolation, so many factors contribute to what is best for baby, mum and family.

Amen to that @Italiandreams

That's one of the worst suggestions I've ever heard.
There's more to childcare than feeding.

bingo,

Some people really shouldn’t be parents!

Why would being away from your newborn be a good thing? Parenting of tiny babies is not meant to be equal, it’s basic biology that babies are designed to be closer to their mothers for the 4th trimester. Palming them
off on the other parent is poor parenting. There’s plenty of other ways to parent fairly and years and years to share the load. At birth it should be mother focused.

What a vile comment, @Rutland2022. It’s comments like this that make people who formula feed feel judged, and which have very real negative effects on their mental health.

I felt like enough of a failure for having to formula feed without anyone making nasty comments like yours - and that contributed to depressive episodes after each birth, where I genuinely felt I’d be better off dead, and everyone would be better off without me. If someone had told me I didn’t deserve to be a mother, that could well have been the final straw.

If you want to be thought of as a decent, compassionate person, you might want to be more careful about what you say to vulnerable women.

Your (dubious) opinions about other people’s parenting aside, this is exactly the kind of unnecessarily shaming bollocks that leads to women failing to seek/receive adequate support during the early weeks of having a baby. “Why would being away from your tiny baby be a good thing?” Well, speaking from personal experience… so I could have a shower and feel like a human being every once in a while? So I could have a bit of time to wrap my head round my traumatic emergency c-section? So I didn’t lose all sense of self and plunge over the precipice into PND? No one benefits from a mother martyring herself at the expense of she and her baby’s wellbeing.

Women have myriad experiences of early motherhood, just as they have many different experiences of breast/formula feeding - completely agree with @Franca123 and PP who said spoke about formula as a massive step forward for many women.

Absolutely right, @PulseFinger.

There is nothing remotely feminist about spunking public money into the formula industry

not going to burn you at the stake, just going to doubt your critical thinking skills

@Franca123 suggested that the government provide money to incentivise a public health initiative that would WORSEN the health of newborn babies.

Just unbelievably awful idea.

I think as so many others have said this is an education & support around bf issue.

There would appear to ge a disproportionate amount of women who couldn't bf compared to countries where bf is the cultural norm.

Also OP from your comments it seems you tried bf whilst in hospital over the course of 2 day? Baby had latching issues & you tried pumping but got no milk? So moved to ff? I think I have understood this correctly?

At that stage you would not have had milk in yet to pump. You would be making colostrum which is v different to milk. Babies need v little of it & lice for the ride 3 days or so on this - why did the nurses not explain this so you would not be expecting to pump milk on day 1 or 2?

I was the 1st in my generation of family to bf. My grandmother did but my mother & siblings did not. My mother 100% had a weird attitude about it.

I decided I was going to do it & I won't lie the first weeks were hard. It was painful & there was the worry that I couldn't tell how much baby was drinking at each feed. Compounded by my mother banging on anxiously about ozs this and ozs that.

After some tears (mine) I decided that my body had made this baby & delivered this baby & would now feed baby & I trusted that it would.

The pain was literally toe curling as she latched on it those early weeks but as others have said it settles & became second nature in time

The support & education about the whole process was massively inadequate & I'm not one bit surprised that so many give up in the very early stages

Would all those babies die of starvation if there was no formula?

There would appear to ge a disproportionate amount of women who couldn't bf compared to countries where bf is the cultural norm.

Because there isn't enough support in this country.

I was lucky. DD really struggled to feed when she was born and was simply not interested in latching on at all. Fortunately the midwives were very supportive and helpful and suggested I stay in hospital until she fed properly. If I had gone home a few hours after she had been born she would have been on formula straight away.

I completely agree.
Having the option to parent equally from day 1 was really important us. That's not saying it works for everyone but it was something we really wanted.

What support do you think there is in third world countries?

Ah this must be the feminism PP were talking about!! The mask slips.

Or maybe it's mocking 'hurty feelingz' in a topic and specifically a thread where mums have talked about how badly this careless and inaccurate rhetoric affected their postnatal mental health.

Imagine being raised by one of these people! All the breast milk in the world isn't going to undo that damage.

This isn't about breastfeeding mums vs formula feeding mums. Plenty of breastfeeding mum - myself included- support formula feeding mums and believe any initiatives to encourage breastfeeding should be non-stigmatising, thoughtful and accurate.