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?

Put the daily mail down and get a life. It has nothing to do with you what Denise van outen chooses to do!!

Interesting comments - I don't doubt that there are women who do not have enough milk, but for many (most) of them (perhaps not all though) its because they:

• don't feed often enough at the start to stimulate the milk
• have the baby latched on badly
• don't rest enough in the first few weeks
• introduce formula hence reduce demand
• try to put baby into a routine (ie try to stretch out time between feeds)
• restrict the length of the feed

etc etc etc

Many women find it hard to breastfeed but, are sadly, encouraged by their mw/hv to give up at the first hurdle - if all women had the right support most would find breastfeeding not so difficult. That said for it to be successful bf must be exclusive in the first few weeks - meaning whenever, wherever and for how long baby wants to feed.

But whatever a women chooses to do she must be able to make that decision from a fully informed and supported point of view - regardless of whether breast is best or not, a happy relaxed mum is better than a stressed out one!!

The problem we have in this country is papers like the Daily Mail just want to control the public view according to their own agenda.

Women should and must be free to choose to feed their babies how they want to and when and where they want to - regardless of whether it is via the breast or the bottle, and regardless of what celebrities do. I don't recall a newspaper praising a celebrity mum for bf in public.

is it really impossible to produce watery milk? I did - had to take ebm to the doctor to look at as ds was losing weight and they said "ffs, that may as well have come out of a tap".... it had no substance at all and was barely even white so I had to ff to give ds the nutrients he needed

Sheehan syndrome, also known as postpartum hypopituitarism or postpartum pituitary necrosis

Most common initial symptoms of Sheehan's syndrome are agalactorrhea (absence of lactation) and/or difficulties with lactation

Lewisfan, what you were told was rubbish, sorry. No one can tell what you are producing for your baby by looking at a sample of expressed breastmilk and it is shocking the people whose job it was to support you were so ignorant.

Mothers' milk varies in fat content throughout the feed and from feed to feed. It is perfectly possible for a single 'snapshot' sample to look watery. When the breasts are full, the milk is proportionately more watery. If you'd taken a sample from breasts that happened to be a bit emptier the milk would have been creamier.

Babies' gain weight poorly when they are not getting enough volume of milk or are not removing milk effectively. Quality of breastmilk is reasonably consistent overall.

It's a real shame you did not find help from people who knew this very basic fact

porcamiseria - I went to a wedding when my DTs were 5 weeks. I expressed just before the wedding and my mum looked after them and topped up with formula.

ok - so my boobs were hard as rocks when I got home and I was already expressing the equivalent of 5 feeds a day for the two - so I was used to expressing large quantities and the DTs were used to be being topped up.

But it is possible.

I think by making women think that bf is all or nothing puts off a lot of women from bf.