To think the bf flash mob thing that is happening on Friday is a bit smug?

[Piggyleroux]

I bf my 15 mo ds and found bf quite straightforward from the off. I am aware that I was extremely lucky and I know a lot of women really struggle with it. I am also aware that bfing rates in this country are among the lowest in europe.

However, I think bfing needs to be normalised and I feel that this demonstration only serves to sensationalise bfing and imo, make the women taking part seem a bit smug and 'look at me' iyswim and just make people who ff feel even more shit.

Wouldnt it be better for bfing women to openly bf in public rather than do a mass gathering on one day? It really doesn't sit ring with me and I don't think that it will change attitudes or help women who really struggle with bfing.

Aibu?

I really don't get what is trying to be achieved here.

We know that countries with high rates of BF often have strict laws and cultural mores on modesty...women are not sitting in parks with their breasts on show.

We also know that in the UK the low rates are often due to poor support. There seems to be no evidence that women don't breastfeed because of lack of numbers of women doing it in public.

So a flashmob of lots of women breastfeeding successfully tells us what exactly?

Confuddled, do we really need any laws to protect care-givers feeding a child? Would the existing ones not cover any harassment or discrimination, be that Section 5 Public Order, Protection from Harassment or whatever?

I was unaware that it's breastfeeding awareness week, btw (and forgive the pun/grammar). You see, crapola, it's not a topic which everyone's talking about!

Completely as an aside and without intending to derail the debate - and I'm going to be slated for saying this- it grieves me to think that while hospital wards continue to be closed across the UK that one could spend so long occupying a hospital bed just to establish breastfeeding. Or do I have that wrong and you're in hospital for another reason of more serious need and are establishing BF as a side issue? (In which case, get well soon :) ).

Hmm. I think this sensationalises BF tbh but I am not offended by it in the slighest.

Personally, I think the help at hospital has to be increased. If every new mother stayed in the hospital for maybe 2-3 days and there was a specialist on hand to help and you could leave hospital confidentally BF and not having to wait till whenever your MW turned up etc then I think more people would last longer. There will still be people who choose not to which I think is fine and some people who will find it difficult once they get home. I know we dont have the resources and many many people wont want to stay in hospital but I really think that sustained support from the very beginning in an environment where you can get it instantly and not have to wait until you fee l ready to go out to a BF group etc. would make an actual difference.

"As someone who does take an interest in breastfeeding it's not current parents that interests me nor swaying people from their personal choice. What interests me is that women have informed and supported choice, whatever that choice is."

Choice is already there. You can't honestly tell me that there's a (NT) woman in this country who is aware that she has the option to BF if she so wishes. I do get the feeling that some pro BF-ers are unwilling to accept and respect it when women choose not to BF (not aiming that at you personally, Confuddled).

That leaves support, where I agree with you.

But how the bloody hell does a group of women BF on the concourse of Paddington Station increase levels of support for BF? It won't buy more counsellors or nurses, it won't make Joe Public think of BF women in a better light, quite possibly just the opposite.

Good God mixed no! :o

I discharged myself from hospital 7 hours after DC1 was born and only stayed for 3 days with DD2 because I had an ELCS! Stay in hospital willingly? Perish the thought!

Why the obsession with naturalness?

If we're going down that road, why would someone deliberately let their milk dry up so they can feed their baby with a fake nipple and milk from another mammal?

We are complex, social creatures. Wanting to take part in a flash mob is no more or less natural than going shopping or spending all day at work.

Mixed I very much agree, hospital support is key.

I'm biased, but I wish in particular there was more support for BF after a CS, as you're probably more likely to have problems and also not be physically able to go out to groups etc when you go home.

Nice characterisation there, She

I'm not obsessed with naturalness actually. I was contradicting an earlier poster who implied a BF flash mob at Paddington was a natural thing. I'm just saying it's inherently an artificial event and thus not really the best way to promote BF as a 'natural' thing to do.

The picnics last weekend sound like a good idea, in that yes, that is something a lot of people would actually do, go on a picnic and breast feed.

I don't think anyone would purposefully go to Paddington just to BF their baby, that's why I think it's a weird event, if your stated goal is to emphasise how normal BF is.

But people are going to Paddington to feed their babies, so what does it matter whether it is something people "would do"?

Who says the point is that it's natural?

I would have thought the point was that lots of women do it, lots of places, and they're all around you doing it all the time.

It's quite refreshing that breastfeeding mothers are doing something that isn't all about what is supposedly natural (and for natural read "stone age").

Well, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. To me, the event is so random that it has no coherent message at all, but to each their own.

SheCutOffTheirTails... I've posted five times on this thread and two of those posts were about the value of the statistics. I'm sorry that you feel that I'm venomous here, I didn't realise my words were so potent. Perhaps I should change my name to 'BlackMamba' or something?

Anyway, I can post whatever I like and I generally do so without vitriol, name-calling anybody or being personal. I have an opinion on this subject and if you don't appreciate it perhaps you could avert your gaze from my posts. I really won't notice your contribution or lack thereof. :)

Haven't managed to read all of thread, but imo, most women don't even reach the stage of bfing in public, so I don't see the point of this demo.

Women need support right from the start with latching on, maintaining a supply and coping with pain and discomfort.

Sorry, but I do think this will just make these breastfeeding mothers look like theyre up their own arse a bit.

Also, I have regularly bf in public without any comments or stares whatsoever. I think most people just don't give a shit if a woman is bfing her baby in public.

Thankyou, SheCutOffTheirTails, for defending my comment about 'the primary use of the breast' so beautifully.

I was stunned into silence by Milamae's outrage at the suggestion that that is what they are there for.

Now, it's your body, absolutely. You decide what you want to do with it...you choose how to feed your baby and what you want to do with your own breasts. However, it is an inescapable fact that YOU ARE A MAMMAL. Mammals feed their offspring using (there's a clue in the name) MAMMARY glands. As humans, we may have developed alternatives to this, but it does not change what breasts are there for (ie. their primary purpose)

A number of people seem to be bemused by my comment about 'force-feeding a baby'

To clarify: bf babies regulate their own feeding . I Completely agree that it is impossible to overfeed a bf baby. They will bf when they want to. Therefore, the concept of a bf flashmob, which by definition means a large group, hundreds or thousands, of people suddenly on a given signal simultaneously bf their children (particularly in a noisy, unfamiliar environment) and then equally suddenly fading into the background, seems just BIZARRE. Surely bf should take place when the child wants it, not to fulfil any other agenda

You mean that it could be argued that children are to be used as pawns in an game of breastfeding politics Janey?

Hmmm.... children being used in any other pointmaking exercise normally brings out much indignation on MN.

Well, it is using them isn't it?
If you decide "I am going to go to paddington station on Friday, and at (say) 12 minutes past two I will, simultaneously with hundreds of other women, bf my child' then you can hardly argue that you are following your baby's lead about feeding!

I thin the idea about feeding on cue is that if you don't feed them when they're hungry it'd affect your supply etc etc.

Giving them a bit extra before you head out to baby group/MIL's house/walking the dog/the shops or indeed during a flash mob (annoying phrase) is not going to bother them much. They'd feed or they wouldn't.

Most people don't give a shit

I work in a cafe where mums bf all the time ...no one cares or comments

now thats normal

Exactly.

yabu - why is bf in public and trying to normalise it smug? why??

no one can force you to bf but we should support mothers rights to feed anywhere regardless of our own feeding choices.

Hmmm well then Sungirl maybe there should be a ff flash mob so women can ff without judgement,or as somebody says a mass Fruit Shoot pour off then.

Sorry I bf twins for 6 weeks in public and never once had problems.I was hardly discrete and had the mother of all buggies cluttering up cafe space.I know absolutely nobody that has experienced problems bf out in public.This wasn't my experience with ff,far from it.Cafes can be very unhelpful with heating up bottles or allowing hot water on tables.

Usual raises a good point.This is just a group of women using the occasion as an excuse to go woo hoo look at me I'm bf-errrr so.

www.lactivist.co.uk/

oozing smuggness, lactavist merchandising tack. Who wears this stuff!

who gives a toss

www.lactivist.co.uk/100-mummy-milk-bottle-sticker-p-65.html

some of the marketing stuff is downright offensive and putting people down to make themselves look good is not promoting bf at all, the lactivists must be very insecure to purchase rubbish like this.

God some of those are offensive

The cow one and the formula sucks one,women actually wear this shit,I'm staggered.

It would be like putting my kid in a T-shirt saying "screentime sucks" "fruit shoots are for loosers".