to think that NO, not every woman can breastfeed!

[meltedchocolate]

OK basically a friend loves BFing. Great. I am happy. It is a wonderful thing indeed! So much so that she wants to be a BFing counsellor and is going to start training. Lovely. Glad she is doing something she wants to. Now though she seems to think she knows all there is to know about BFing and is driving me nuts with it. Basically she thinks that EVERY woman can BF and there is no reason why someone couldn't and is totally unsympathetic to anyone not BFing.

I BFed my son til he was 6 weeks old. I stopped then because I couldn't keep up. He was a 9 lb baby and was huge by that point. I was exhausted and wasn't eating well and my boobs had shrunk back to an A cup while I was still BFing. I was constantly leaking and was swapping my tops several times a day. I would soak my t shirt in half an hour if I didn't swap pads every ten mins or so. When he wanted to feed I could BF for an hour and he would still be very hungry after so I had to give in and give him a bottle. (this started around 4-5 weeks) I was so so upset. I cried about it a lot. Two years down the line and she still makes me feel like it was my fault and that I could have done things differently, and would have suceeded. Despite the fact that we started brilliantly, had no problem latching and was very successful for the first 4 weeks.

I told her about my mother who tried in vain and desperately to BF all three of her children and was eventually told to stop trying. She had very flat nipples and none of the things to help this problem were working. Despite her best efforts none of us would ever latch. Friend basically said mum was wrong and she could have BFed.... My mother has always been upset she never got to do this. I feel very defensive of her.

I should say that we fell out nearly a year ago and have put it behind us now and that the falling out was mostly my fault, though I have appologised on many occassions now. I think she is doing/ saying these things on purpose to annoy me now though.

Sorry for whining on. It's just been grating on me. Sad I know :o

AIBU to be upset and think friend is wrong and could be more tactful?

"anyone working in potentially emotionally fraught circumstances needs supervision,reflection and awareness of own motives.in order to regulate self and intervene"

Well - if she's accepted for training as a bf counsellor she'll get all these things.

onlyone
Just goes to show bfing doesn't make you a good person.

Some people like to make others feel bad. When ds3 came out of NICU/SCBU I had to feed him constantly to get my supply up. MIL suggested I should give him "some other kind of milk" with a face that suggested she thought I was starving him.

When SIL ff and had a colicky baby, MIL's suggestion was that SIL should start trying to bf when baby was 12 weeks old and had been ff from birth! While knowing SIL has to take meds which mean she really can't bf.

If you need to make someone else feel bad to make yourself feel better, you must be a very unhappy person.

worth asking as doula and bf counsellors are unregulated and not subject to compulsory registration and rigorous supervision other hcp are

anyone can set up and call self doula for example

Just wanted to chip in and say thanks to you all who have made me feel so much better just by reading through this thread!
I tried to bf for the first few days and can now (DS is 7 months) see clearly that had I had more confidence/better support etc etc etc then I most probably have pushed on through and continued. But I didn't. And the guilt is awful! However, at the time, I made what i thought was the right decision- assuming that I didn't have enough milk and the fact that I spent the whole day in tears.

Personally, like another previous poster, I really feel that more talk needs to be about the pitfalls themselves so that mothers are at least prepared (in theory!) for what will happen. Looking back, I think I could have at least combination fed, but I was a very nervous new mother and desperately wanted a happy/content baby. Those first few days are long and hard aren't they!!!
At the end of the day, I'm an intelligent woman who knows that 'breast is best', but I didn't. And I'm still mortally embarrassed when I get the formula and bottle out in public....
p.s i think all the time spent scrubbing, sterlising and making up bottles and having to carry all the garb around is some penance!!!!!!!!!!

congratulations on baby.never feel bad about mode of feeding.love your child and dont beat self up

cleo78 - do yourself a favour and get rid of the hair shirt. Why should you feel embarassed about feeding your baby?

Cleo, don't worry what other people think of you feeding in public - I can guarantee that as many people will look down on you for b/feedig in publiuc as will do so for formula feeding.

I've mixed fed both my DD's - with DD2 (11 weeks) I breastfeed then give her a bottle and do so in public do - I get to offend/confuse everyone in the process

cleo, as someone who spent many an hour feeding ds1 in a smelly changing room because I was afraid of what other people would think, I would say never, ever worry about what other people think when you are feeding your baby! At least if you are ff no-one will comment if you have a cappucino which is what happened to me once on ds3!

'purlcity - she would tell you that you could start now'

I know she would!!

After I finally got out of ICU, I asked for a breast pump and tried to establish BFing but I was so ill I just couldn't produce milk.

Your friend would probably insist I hadn't tried hard enough whereas all the doctors and nurses told me they were so relieved when I admitted defeat as they felt sorry for me but said they weren't able to advise me not to try to BF eventhough they knew it was almost certainly futile.

If your friend had walked in at this point and told me that all women can BF I would have lost it, big time.

I think that it is worth remembering that, for a lot of people, a single negative/critical comment can have far more effect than several positive comments - I know that I remember a criticism, and give it far more weight and credence, whereas people can say lots of positive things to me and I find it really hard to accept what they are saying.

So a single thoughtless comment along the lines of 'Everyone can breastfeed' and its implication that one hasn't tried hard enough will niggle away and will far outweigh all those comments from people telling you you have tried your best and that you haven't failed.

StayingDavidTennantsGirl- so true!
One of my most supportive friends made a comment along the lines of 'I don't know how I made it till 9 months of breast feeding- must have been sheer determination' one day when we were discussing it. Little does she know that I turned it round and assumed she meant that she felt I hadn't been determined enough! Actually though, looking back, I think she was right! But I just didn't have the energy or the confidence at the time.

Have to say that I do get angry inside when I hear people being really flippant about not going to breast feed. Not least for the health implications (for you AND baby!), but even for the fact that we've probably spent a small fortune on bottles, teats, brushes, formula, sterlisers etc. It's a MAJOR hassle! Had I had more wits about me at the time, foresight and some really good, professional support (NOT op's 'friend'!!!) then maybe I could have pushed through a short period of time and avoided what seems like an neverending life of bottle brushing!! Worst thing is that we live aborad and every time we travel, the customs people think I'm a nutter because of all the sterlised bottles in my bag! :)

Thanks for all of the later thoughts and posts. I feel so much better. SDTG that is so true and exactly what happened in my case. I heard the comment (despite all the comments of how I am a good mum/ DS is lovely? doing so well etc, THIS is the oone that played on my mind because I felt as if she was saying that I could have done more and tried harder. EVen if there was something I could have done, in the very beginning I had practically no support. Quote from midwife that was assigned to check in on me everydat for first ten days 'Oh you seem to be doing great so I wont bother popping in a for few days. She came round twice. HV took NO interest in me and DS until H walked out on us when DS was 9 months!! Grr..

Anyway, thanks again everyone. I know for next time :)

onlyone Don't take seriously what a tart says :)

YANBU people like her are one of the reasons that who 'can' BF, don't.

YANBU

ProfessorLayton hits the nail on the head.

The vast majority of women can physically breastfeed. There are of course issues like breast surgery, hypoplastic breasts, galactosemia, chemotherapy etc. which can make it very difficult or impossible but these conditions are very rare (except breast surgery).

However a lot of women do find it very, very difficult or challenging to breastfeed for whatever reason, whether it is because their baby cluster feeds all night making them tired, they lack support or advice when it is most needed, they are misinformed about normal growth spurts or probably the most common one, worries about milk supply.

It's not for your friend to say which of these reasons are valid. It's your choice how to feed your baby and if it becomes too difficult, upsetting, tiring, painful etc. then you are within your rights to say the benefits of giving up breastfeeding are stronger than the benefits of carrying on and you shouldn't be judged for that.

At the same time, I can see how it is frustrating for your friend to hear over and over again, women saying they 'can't' physically breastfeed. Probably less than 2 percent of women medically are unable to breastfeed, yet a huge percentage of women claim it to be so which then plants seeds of misinformation and anxiety in other new parents. I'm all for honesty if you're going to talk about why you quit, but in real terms, you shouldn't have to justify your choices to anyone.

It's all about tact, really. There's no sense in making a woman feel ashamed of her past choices as it's an emotive enough subject, but at the same time, we want to promote good information and education with women who still have the choice.

(She's right about the third world thing though - they've tested women from famine areas against average American women and found no nutritional difference in their milk. A friend of mine also managed to restart lactation when her own child was an adult, in order to feed an adopted child but this is very unusual, so the 'starting again' comment is technically possible but not necessarily what you would want or choose to do.)

SCENE: Me and another brand new mum in the breast-pumping room [1991]

Both our tiny, newborn babies are 6 weeks premature.

What Other Mum produces in 5 minutes takes me an hour.
And her milk just bloody looks more...creamy and nutritious!

I did it for 6 weeks. That was enough.

Years ago a friend gave birth and expressed enough milk for 2 other babies!
Some of us can, some of us can't. My kids still think I'm alright.

She wont make a good counselor if someones milk stops and she is unsympathetic. My Milk stopped since found out it never came in properly due to retained placenta. So no i couldn't do it. And some people have other problems such as large children or they are in too much pain to carry on!

I hope she is taught about things like this as she obviously has not been able to get it on her own.

You know I did find breastfeeding fairly easy-aside from sore nipples and hideous night sweats for the first 5 weeks (literally left my outline on the bed and had to change and towel myself dry several times a night- yuck).
However, thinking about it I received a HUGE amount of support/advice. I'm sure I had much more than most and that this made all the difference to my experience.

I had lots of negative comments from my MIL and my baby woke every 2 hours till about 5 months BUT the support I had allowed me to continue (obviously there were no medical/physical issues either).

My mother BF 3 children till 10 months.

I'm a HCP and a HV friend/colleague spent a whole hour after work doing their breatfeeding talk (when I was about 36 weeks). She commented how nice it was to have time to do so.

I got the BF DVD in my notes and watched it.

My DP and I both had a 2 hour BF session on our NCT course- covered milk composisition, latch, what can go wrong/solutions, cluster feeding/lack of timetable...

Straight after the birth had help getting baby on and midwife said it might hurt a bit and was like 'wearing in a new pair of shoes'- really helpful cause I kept hearing it shouldn't hurt at all!

The postnatal staff were not v helpful, BUT my community midwife had told me that the 1st latch is often very good but babies then struggle with subsequent latches, told me to make sure I stayed in long enough to get a few good ones checked.

In the 1st week after leaving hospital, the hospitals newly appointed BF counsellor rang to check all was going well. I rang her back too at about 3 weeks with a few questions.

At day 5 the midwife visiting me at home corrected my latch again as I was tending to force my boob into baby's mouth- as I was finding other way hard. She also commented on how well I was doing and said- 'you'll still be feeding when I next see you'- which increased my confidence.

When the HV visited at about 2-3 weeks DP was at home and she spent a long time talking about all the benefits of breatsfeeding (though also said that modern formulas are excellent). This was useful as DP would quote these facts when we doubted our decision to BF in face of opposition from ILs.

Later on when I queried things- such as frequency of feeds/nightwaking she always just said 'normal'. Rather than suggesting top ups which I've heard some HV do.

DP was v supportive and would get up with me to keep me company for some night feeds, pass DS to me sometimes and wind him sometimes. I couldn't have done it without him as would have been so lonely and soul destroying. He also kept reminding me how well I was doing.

Yanbu i tried breast feeding ds and dd but it was just too painful.i think some peoples boobs are made for some aint.flat nipples don't help