'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

What's the betting that there are accounts on here that promote 'fed is best' from formula companies? They make shed loads of money out of mums. No one makes any money out of breastfeeding.

You seem to have taken a national health campaign as a personal slight.

I breastfed mostly because it was cheaper and more convenient. I have a relevant science background and when I actually looked into the evidence I wasn't massively impressed, I don't actually think it makes much difference at all in the long run. So I agree fed is best. I hate the sanctimonious unpleasant breastfeeding evangelicals. I remember one on here saying smugly after the invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent chaos in supply lines something along the lines of: 'I bet the formula feeding mums in Ukraine regret not breastfeeding now'. Psychopaths. The mum group drama subreddit practically every week has a story of a baby starving because the mother refuses to abandon breastfeeding for weeks and even months when it clearly wasn't working. I has to stop reading as I was finding it too distressing.

If you want to promote breastfeeding, it should be done in a positive and encouraging way, with lots of support. Putting down formula is not the way. 'Breast is best' is a shit slogan imo as it implies competition and hierarchy and winning/losing rather than being positive.

I hate this argument.
The breast is best slogan was actually penned by a formula company to say that they were giving the next best thing.

I couldn't breast feed, ds couldn't latch, i found it painful, I was so incredibly engorged that even the midwife couldn't milk me until I was attached to a pump, even then it was a piss poor amount mixed with lots of blood from sore cracked nipples. But I was determined to breast feed ds, in the end I expressed for 6 months, I used a manual pump and gave myself rsi in both thumbs. But it meant he could be fed by his dad, by grandparents I think it was the best choice for our family.

We've already agreed that if we have another, we're investing in a good quality electric pump and I'll express again.

I think there needs to be better support for women out there, but equally, there needs to be more information about choices and options.

Professor Amy Brown from Swansea Uni is doing a lot of work around mums being failed by the system. Here's an article she wrote a couple of years ago. welldoing.org/article/why-breastfeeding-grief-trauma-matter

Here's her website professoramybrown.co.uk/

I think the short term benefits are good but long term there's no difference. In my DDs class who are 9 , nobody can tell who is and isn't breastfed. I don't think people should get hung up on it so much.

@ChillysWaterBottle You have worded it perfectly!

What a nasty person as well to say about Ukraine!

The breast is best slogan was actually penned by a formula company to say that they were giving the next best thing.

They're still using those techniques. "Made with 50 years of breastmilk research" or whatever.

Breast is best.
You are attaching your emotional 'failures & guilt' to your opinion, not facts.
It's absolutely a mothers choice to feed her child how she likes/has to. But breast milk is better in every aspect & that is fact.
Hence why they are so many regulations on advertising formula. It is illegal to advertise from birth formula, only from 6+months.

You’re my kind of woman, Chilly 👏🏻 my thoughts exactly.

there are many threads on here where baby plunges through the centiles but mum can’t bear to give them a bottle of formula. No ‘basic needs’ being met there.

The problem with fed is best is that it isn't true. It's there to ease the guilt of mothers who have been let down. Most breastfeeding issues can be overcome with support and guidance. So to say fed is best, sack off the breastfeeding qns formula feed is avoiding the problem. Informed and supported is best.

I did BF stopped at 3 months as wanted a break from cluster feeding . I feel no guilt my DD is on 95 percentile in height , healthy weight , strong immune system at 9 years old. If I had another one I wouldn't be so bothered or have guilt. You can't tell the difference between a BF child and FF one.

. I remember one on here saying smugly after the invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent chaos in supply lines something along the lines of: 'I bet the formula feeding mums in Ukraine regret not breastfeeding now'.
That is truly awful.

Having issues latching on doesn't mean you "couldn't" breastfeed. You chose to give up working on it, went home & put her on formula. That is your choice but you can't argue that breast milk isn't best for babies when that is what it is for!

Lots of women who choose to ff don't feel guilty though.

I made an informed choice. I liked being able to share feeding responsibilities with my husband, I didn't like breastfeeding, my baby was lactose intolerant so my milk actual made him ill.

I made an informed choice that worked best for my family as a whole.

Possibly re the tongue tie. I didn't leave hospital till they snipped it. Up until then I expressed and supplemented with donated milk from nicu. I fed using cups and he lapped it up or sometimes a bottle too

If you look through my other comments, you'll see that I couldn't express milk either. So yes, I did 'give up working on it' because my baby was hungry, I was depressed and had no support from a midwife who should have helped me. Breastmilk clearly wasn't best for my baby because if I kept going on breastmilk, she would have been very hungry.

It’s breastfeeding week! Breastfeeding is great. It’s natural, wonderfully bonding, helpful when they are ill or not eating. Formula is great, it’s nutritious, wonderfully bonding, helpful when they are ill or not eating.
I don’t know why we have to have threads bashing breastfeeding on world breastfeeding week. I know you don’t mean it & personally I hate the slogans, but there’s no denying breastmilk contains more than formula, living changing nutrients. You can’t buy that.
I have formula fed and breastfed, my first experience sounds identical to yours. He wouldn’t latch & midwife’s we’re awful & wouldn’t let me leave if he wasn’t feeding so resorted for formula to get out of there. Tried at home but couldn’t get him to latch & the crappy pump didn’t seem to work. I wasn’t informed & beat myself up badly that I couldn’t bf, in reality I would have been able to if I had received better advice or support. Harvest colostrum & syringe feed it, use a better pump medela, forget visitors or getting out of the ward just concentrate on skin to skin & putting baby to the breast. The golden hour after birth. I didn’t do any of these things. I could have breastfed if it was normalised, if I saw more women breastfed & if breastfeeding women weren’t so afraid to ‘broadcast it’ or offer advice as they feel insensitive.
Even after bf my middle son for over 3 years & my youngest for over a year so far, I still cannot celebrate breastfeeding because I’m afraid of looking insensitive as I KNOW the pain of not breastfeeding when it’s something you want to do. It hurts.
Lets just concentrate on normalising breastfeeding & making sure new mums who want to breastfeed get appropriate advice & support!

Breast is best. Formula is fine.

I was FF, DD was EBF. I am a perfectly healthy, happy person. But I would never pretend that formula milk is as good as breast milk, it isn’t. It’s made from milk intended for cows, not people and is then modified. It’s an ultra processed food stuff.
We don’t have to pretend that Formula is the same, it isn’t but it is perfectly ok.

Breast is best was around when I had mine 17 and 19 years ago.
Still, in my maternity ward, out of 8 of us only three attempted to breastfeed.
I think the campaign is aimed at those who don't even want to out of disgust (yep heard that) or that breasts are 'for my husband not my baby'). Not aimed at people like you.
You know the facts, don't let an advertising slogan get to you.

fed isn’t best. Fed is the bare minimum. Formula will never be breast milk. Even formula manufacturers explicitly acknowledge this.

people need to separate the two issues - the product(s) and the process. Then we wouldn’t get these rabbit hole threads about it.

As I said previously, if 'fed is the bare minumum', why are we celebrating breastfeeding?

While the maker of this comment sounds nasty, getting worked up about this means we ignore the very real fact that formula companies (only interested in their own profit) have caused untold damage to mothers and babies in poorer countries who used formula, had their milk dry up and then got into difficultly trying to feed their babies.

I combo feed - Breast most of the time, maybe a bottle or two of formula, sometimes I express and take a couple of bottles of that out… my baby likes it all and is packing the weight on, sleeps ok and is ahead of milestones. I went to a breastfeeding ‘cafe’ recently and omg … full of women ten years older than me, idler mums who thought they knew everything about everything because they’ve got a bit of money and fancy jobs they’re on extended leave from, literally sat with their boobs just out because they could, preaching about how bottles are the devil. Never went back. Some of them talked about breastfeeding as if they deserved some sort of Nobel prize. It won’t be normalized unless we stop putting it on some sort of pedestal and making out like it’s the be all and end all, and that you’re not doing it right if you’re not also dressed in organic hemp dresses and have your baby in gender neutral clothes and wear your six year old in a ring sling whilst you do it.

Yep, totally agree.

I love breastfeeding because it's better for the environment than formula and it's free. I also found it empowering - though your mileage may vary. Isn't that enough? Why do people insist on relying on outdated, dodgy science to make FF mothers feel bad? Why do people insist on saying "fed is the bare minimum" knowing full well the implication of that unsufferably smug phrase is that FF mothers are only doing the "bare minimum". I refuse to believe that so many people are so lacking in empathy that they don't realise how badly that sentence could make a struggling new mum feel.

The majority of U.K. mothers want to breastfeed. I am feel strongly that we need to improve support for breastfeeding - if you all feel so strongly, why don't you focus on that instead of trying to convince mothers who wanted to breastfeed something that they already believed anyway?

The reliance on junk science is honestly so counterproductive in the breastfeeding realm. So many of these breastfeeding "advocates" also peddle dodgy unscientific info that actually hinders breastfeeding. It's absolutely mad.

Ugh. These breastfeeding threads raise my blood pressure. I don't know why I engage to be honest.