to be annoyed by this article

[badgerfan]

Today in the daily mail there is an article entitled 'why i had to give up breastfeeding' from Denise Van Outen in which she states that she didn't like breastfeeding in public and she didn't have enough milk. Ok, the first part can be understandable but saying she doesn't have enough milk is really sending out the wrong message to young, impressionable mothers some of whom may in two minds about breastfeeding anyway.I feel that her saying that she doesn't have enough milk is just a copout and a damaging one at that given her fame and that fact that she may be looked up to by alot of women. Why did she have to go public with this, why couldn't she have kept it to herself?

Perhaps she does not have enough milk. It is possible you know.

Another thread about it

She could actually be a source of reassurance to other people who have to give up for various reasons. The peer-pressure to keep going with BF, even when it's causing the mother upset or inconvenience, is often very distressing.

i was more upset that she had to "defend" herself. she is a first time mum and trying to work it all out (and all this in front of people) i know i know, she probably agreed to the story in the magazine and it has been picked up by DM. i had negative comments about not b/f with dd a few years ago from MW - turns out you may well have trouble b/f if they didn't remove all of the placenta after delivery! milk came in 8 weeks after birth - every MW i have spoke to since has never heard of this? any way back to OP - i guess her choice?

She has as much right to discuss her experiences as anyone else. Not everyone can breastfeed. Some people don't have enough milk. Why should she have to pretend that this is not the case? Some people have this rabid insistance that everyone must bf and I think it is important to say that this doesn't always work out for everyone. No woman should be made to feel bad for the choices she makes. I expect Denise Van Outen is just trying to do the best she can, like everyone else.

If she didn't fancy bf and didn't like feeding in public then fair enough, but it's really very, very unlikely that she didn't have enough milk, and is an unhelpful myth to peddle.

My XPs Xwife did not produce enough milk for their daughter.
The baby was always fretting and losing a lot of weight and ended up in hospital.
Mum was producing a lot of what she thought was milk but it was mainly water (this is how XP described it to me-I am sure there is a proper medical term!)
As soon as she switched to formula feed they had a happy bouncing baby, so it is possible that Denise experienced something similar.
My own mother breast-fed me but formula fed my younger sister as she was always hungry and fretful and breast milk just did not satisfy her.
I am 100% for breast-feeding by the way, and BFd my own daughter exclusively until she was 2.5 yrs old. It worked well for me but some mums aren't so lucky, and by speaking about her BF problems so openly Denise is not only advocating BF but showing that it is not always easy going.
I wish she hadn't mentioned feeling uncomfortable feeding in public though, the sooner this country gets used to seeing Bfeeding women out and about, the sooner we all feel more relaxed about doing it.

Bramshott, how do you know it's very, very unlikely that she didn't have enough milk. Without being in her house and having a good look for yourself, surely it is impossible to say. For me, my milk production varied with each baby as did my experiences of bf. With my first I expected to be able to bf easily, because that's the natural purpose of breasts. I was not prepared for the gallons of milk, that leaked everywhere, or the sore nipples. Things fell into place more easily with my 2nd and 3rd babies. I got mastitis (sp?) but recovered and carried on. Thought I finally had the hang of it, only to produce very little milk with baby no4. I truly think I did the best thing for her in feeding her organic formula milk.

Oh, and no-one mentions the excrutiating after pains that can come with bf. I would (and did) persevere through all that to do the best thing for my babies, but there's not a lot you can do if there's not enough milk or it doesn't satisfy the baby

If you read the article, it's not that she doesn't want to bf in public - it's that she doesn't want photographers all over her taking snaps and getting them printed in the papers - its one thing bfing in public, its another altogether to do it with the whole world watching.

I think it was actually a positive thing for bfing to have a celeb saying they bf, and say that if it hadn't been for problems she would have continued to bf her baby. But its like anything - you can spin it positively or nagatively.

When ds2 was 6 weeks old and exclusively breast-fed, he ended up in hospital diagnosed as failing to thrive, because he had lost 10oz from his birthweight and failed to regain. He was white and scrawny and fed constantly, but was too weak to feed properly.

I was deeply committed to breastfeeding him, having failed with ds1, but he only started to gain weight when I introduced formula.

A similar thing happened with ds3 - he never put on weight when exclusively breast-fed, only when formula was introduced. He was mixed-fed for 12 weeks - all me during the day, a bottle late evening and one during the night, to give my supply time to build up again - and this is the longest I managed to breastfeed, and the nearest I came to feeling I had fed any of my children successfully.

Threads like this make me feel like a failure all over again.

yabu
why shouldn't she.
this idea that BF is a success for everyone,is just another way to beat parents up

"If she didn't fancy bf and didn't like feeding in public then fair enough, but it's really very, very unlikely that she didn't have enough milk, and is
an unhelpful myth to peddle."

It is more of a myth that all women can breastfeed and that there is no such thing as not producing enough milk.

It is not uncommon for women to not produce enough milk. It is not uncommon for babies to end up in hospital with dehydration. But of course we must not talk about these things because it is harmful to breastfeeding rates.

I didn't produce milk. Not not enough, none. And personally, I don't give a stuff how aledgedly rare that is. If you're the person going through it, the fact that it's rare is irelevant, because it's real to you.

have to hide this one as well now

How dare she?

Quite, tethersend, quite

I don't know about you Mingg, but I'm shocked and saddened at this dramatic turn of events.

But it's the Daily Mail. Don't they regularly have a go at breastfeeding - particularly in public? She shouldn't have said that - it's does give the wrong (and mostly entirely incorrect message) about breastfeeding.

But that said, as posters have mentioned that not everyone is able to do it - for all sorts of reasons - and I do think it used to berate people sometimes.

Does anyone watch Eastenders? I was horrified about the bullying Stacey got from the midwife about breastfeeding her baby. I think that's an equally damaging message, too.

I didn't realise that it was a press intrusion thing, for her, too. Can't imagine I'd like that either.

why is it anyones business if she bf or ff, dont really see a need for article on it personally

Well - it is a bit of a non-story, really. Probably just printed to stir up discussions and make people feel bad.

Or to get a mention on the Jeremy Vine show!

its all bullshit, I bet you from day 1 she had a maternity nurse team doing round the clock care, plus she was at partys (ie Walliam wedding) when the baby was 4 weeks old

Most of us that BF a newborn that eats almost hourly know full well that expressing enough to go to a long wedding is nigh on impossible

hey if I was a rich celeb I'd maybe do the sdame, but I take this all with a HUGE pinch of salt

do what you want, but dont bullshit Denise!

I don't know why DVO went public on this.

She may well not have had enough milk though - it seems clear she was not bf exclusively and with a still-young baby this almost always lessens the amount of milk produced, so it's very likely by three weeks there was not enough.

brightyoungthing - yes there is a medical term for the phenomenon of producing 'mainly water' instead of milk.

It's called 'rubbish'.

Whatever she was told, this is just not possible to do.

Without commenting on DVO, I always felt with ds1 that I 'didn't have enough milk', and he was mixed-fed (he was plummeting down the weight charts). Dd was borderline, but we managed, ds2 was a NIGHTMARE but again, with tiktok's help we managed (eventually) to up the supply, with lots of expressing etc.

Ds3 is a different kettle of fish. He lost lots of weight, certainly, but then, started putting it back on! This never happened with the other 3 - they CREPT up the charts, whereas ds3 not only was putting on decent amounts of weight, he was totally not of any concern to the mw or HV!

What was the difference with ds3? There were 2 differences I could see - firstly that he DEMANDED to be fed constantly for the first 3 or 4 days, which the others didn't do (and with ds1, who did do that, the hospital said he needed formula to settle him and I was too naive to argue). Secondly, I felt TERRIBLE after ds3's birth, in that I couldn't really walk anywhere! So all I felt comfortable doing was sitting on the sofa and feeding. With the others I was up and about, dashing around, and I'm sure that's a major difference in how successful feeding is. Perhaps it would have helped DVO to take a bit more time to be quiet at home, and not worried too much about Starbucks and the post office!