Aibu? to be pissed off at this: "The cost and social implications of using an infant milk should be considered when deciding how to feed your baby."

[Selyna]

WTF do Hipp mean by social implications?

Both methods of feeding a baby are acceptable so fuck off with the whole acting like ff is poison! my dd is perfectly fine but i hate this constant making me feel like a failure because i failed to bf although i tried so so hard!

"and statements about social implications and some of the assumptions that mothers who ff dont put their baby first really dont help."

the wording for that statement was chosen by a formula manafacturer...they intend it to be without clear meaning (and therefore open to interpretation, many will interpret it as 'if i FF can go out more..')

I googled this and someone on 'netmums' asked the same question in march. They said they asked the formula company and their answer was ' it means the bottles and equipment that you would need to take with you when out to ensure you could feed your baby'

I don't think that's the right comparison. If a car crashes the seat belt has a definite beneficial effect, but we can't measure bf in the same way because ultimately health is affected by lots of lifestyle factors and genetics.

I suppose I view ff as neutral - it provides all the nutrition but not the extras. bf is better in that it gives those extras. But sometimes ff is better, for women who don't produce enough milk, are on medication incompatible with bf, who find it incredible painful and so are distressed every time they feed or maybe if they have to return to work and don't have the kind of employment where expressing is possible.

I think it means that bf might provide an extra guard against certain things, but not that ff is more likely to result in those certain things happening.

I don't think it is at all good though for people to be made to feel like some of the posters on this thread. For that reason, I would not make ff to be seen as something not normal or shameful.

If a mothers risk of ovarian cancer rises because she's formula fed her baby, then FF is akin to not wearing a seatbelt. You are still at increased risk of an adverse incident, it's just your own perception of how great that risk is.

Also if you google the phrase you will see it on a lot of formulas - even those in the Philippines for example

karmabeliever: "I suppose I view ff as neutral - it provides all the nutrition but not the extras. bf is better in that it gives those extras. But sometimes ff is better, for women who don't produce enough milk, are on medication incompatible with bf, who find it incredible painful and so are distressed every time they feed or maybe if they have to return to work and don't have the kind of employment where expressing is possible."

It's a bit odd to see ff as neutral and bf as extra. Bf is the default option, after all. Modern humans have been around for at least 100,000 years, while formula milk has only been around for about 150 years. So it makes more sense to see bf as neutral and ff as slightly deficient.

When you say "sometimes ff is better..." of course that is often true for the women, and women in the situation you describe have my sympathy. But it's rarely true, I imagine, for the baby.

That's ridiculous. There are a lot of things that reduce the risk of cancer if that was the case across the board there would be health warnings on practically everything!

But some people can't bf so telling them that ff is akin to not putting a seatbelt on your baby is fucking RUDE and unnecessarily upsetting!!!!

It's all these things and the undertones that ff is neglect it's insulting!!!

Well there are at least two of us here where it would have been worse for the baby due to medical reasons. Although yes it's probably rare. Even with no medical reasons it's surely much better for a baby to have a happy well balanced mother if bf is really not working, and trying to feed becomes incredibly stressful for both mother & baby. Good for you if bf worked for you, but it dosent for everyone. There are plenty of women on here that felt bullied and it ruined my first few weeks with my baby. That's surely not right.

there have been other studies in which intervention was used to help more women BF in Group A, and then both random samples compared (Belarus study - ok a second world country)

I read the Belarus study, as it was hailed as being definitive proof of the supriority of BF.

So I did the maths from the findings, it works out that about 1 baby in 25 will have one less incident of diarrhoea in their first 6 months. That is so far within the standard deviation as to be statisticaly irrelevant, yet was hailed as Strong Proof OF BF Superiority. The data also varied a lot from clinin to clinic, so its very possible that BF was a co-factor, not a cause.

And that is in Belarus, where water sanitation is not up to most 1st world countries.....

hackmum, I suppose I am starting from a viewpoint that the purpose of both bf and ff is to provide nutrition. For that reason, I don't view bf as neutral because it does give something in addition to the nutrition. I don't view ff as slightly deficient because it is meeting the nutritional needs of the baby.

No but people can do their own research. I don't need to see the same info that
Makes
No difference
To me every single place I look. If I need to look up formula information and bf benefits I will.

It's the fact formula feeders already know the facts just as much as you, yet it's repeatedly shoved down our necks as though we must be ignorant or stupid ( or neglectful if it's akin to not using seatbelts) if we would even dare consider ff

No one has addressed my earlier
Point about the phrase 'breastfeeding provides support and comfort' for a baby being rude and insulting to ff by its
Implication we can't support and comfort. No one has addressed the rudeness of comparing it to neglectful situations. No one has addressed the rudeness of terms such as artificial feeding.

All the bf facts are out there and as plain as day that I don't deny. But WOMEN should be supported whatever their choices whatever they may be and for whatever reason.

Feminists surely didn't fight for our right to be pressured to do things a certain way and have images in the media blocked etc. women on this thread seem to have a very low opinion for other women's intelligence and it IS RUDE

Point about the phrase 'breastfeeding provides support and comfort' for a baby being rude and insulting to ff by its Implication we can't support and comfort.

Just ignore that, its deliberately misleading - holding, interacting with and feeding your baby provides support and comfort, the how you feed it is very secondary.

Oh, my darling one. Didn't I directly quote Stalin (referring to him as another bastard of the time) earlier? Yep, sure I did. Swing and a miss, there.

I would, admittedly, have found repeated comparisons to Stalin less surprising, given the widespread public ignorance in Britain. But I would still have pointed it out.

And no, I have not accused you of homophobia. I asked you if you used homophobic slurs to mean silly. I am damn sure your answer is no, but I thought you might think about why you don't just use that as a "figure of speech".

My suspicions are confirmed. (Did you think that I was calling you a racist then yesterday? I shouldn't have written that, anyway. Needlessly inflammatory. But my suspicions were that you will never ever get it. You just move the goalposts to say "oh, I was only likening it to the very early stages of Hitler's rise to power! I know I never uttered such qualifiers in the beginning, but it's what I meant all along! Why didn't you realise that?"

I'm done.

You are right Kayano. I pointed out way upthread that when I ff my babies they were held and cuddled, the same as when I was bf them. It is indicative of how ingrained it's become, to view mothers who ff as not quite as good at mothering as those who breast feed.

I think there are two different issues here. One is, is breastfeeding better for babies than formula milk? Answer: yes, probably.

Two: should women be bullied and harassed because they are feeding formula to their babies? Answer: No, obviously not.

I think it's quite easy to get the two mixed up and to assume that because some women feel bullied because they're using formula, therefore the basic message that breast milk is better is wrong.

I also think it's worth pointing out that some women who breastfeed also get bullied - by relatives, strangers and health professionals - who think that it's distasteful to breastfeed in public, or that it's "unnatural" to bf after six months, or that the baby isn't putting on weight, so needs a bottle of formula. Once you're a mother, you do seem to be subjected to unwanted advice from all around you.

I try to ignore it but I find it horrible and try to nip it in the bud when anyone says it because it is upsetting and such a stupidly redundant phrase

Yes it's better to breastfeed agreed. So the message should be just that, not all this extra tosh about providing comfort etc etc. even though I had a dreadful experience I would still try to breastfeed again. In my experience ff get shit for 6 months then everyone rounds on bf for doing it too long. That's not right either. And god help the combine feeders they get shit from all quarters. It shouldn't be this way. We should stick together but looking at this forum it's clear we don't. I would never give anyone beef about how they feed their baby and would just like to be afforded the same privilege.

Not comparing seatbelts or smoking to formula not in the slightest. It's the logic in the argument I am comparing. I ut a disclaimer on an earlier post, foolishly assumed i would no longer need to.

If every woman was able to bf, based on accurate information, not myth, not pressure from family or formula companies, if every HCP was able to help with bf difficulties and wasn't pf the "oh just give a bottle" mindset. Then a few women would unfortunately be unable to bf, and some would choose to ff. I would be loudly defending their right to choose.

Can people please confirm that they have noticed I am not comparing ff to not wearing seatbelts or smoking. Because that's really fucking unfair. I'd be furious if someone drove with my child not in a seat, or smoking around them for any length of time. No longer relevant but I'd have been OK about them having formula

stealth it was a different poster called ohanotherone who compared it to not wearing seatbelts but I have heard things like that spouted on MN before

I think we need to be very, very careful what we wish for. Before FF there were wet nurses for those who could afford them. Ever asked yourself why? And ever asked yourself why all these women flocked to buy formual milk when it was first invented and marketed, instead of saying 'why on earth would I pay a fortune for that suspicious looking stuff from cows when I have the perfect product here - for free?'

It's so easy for us now from our cushy, smug, privileged, first world, 21st century 2.4 children viewpoint, to forget what having NO CHOICE is really like. Women were sick of the pain, (sometimes) sick of the martyrdom, sick of the lack of sleep, (sometimes) sick of being like skeletons with no teeth in their heads, sick of underweight babies, sick of the time it took when they had several other children to care for.

The simple fact is that some mothers and babies take to BFing like ducks to water but some do not. And for them, at its worst, it can be hell on earth. Of course plenty of people would be fine if they were forced to make the effort, but others will never 'be fine' with BFing. And let's not even start on women who need to go back to work. I couldn't express a decent amount of milk if my life depended on it. There just were not enough hours in the day between actual feeds, when I stood half a chance of syphoning off enough for an expressed feed - what a joke that was.

If FF was banned tomorrow there would be all sorts of very real 'social implications' the like of which HVs haven't seen in a hundred years. Post natal depression and sleep deprivation would go through the roof for a start, as would babies who are stuggling to put on and maintain weight. Mothers who couldn't feed successfully would make themselves ill with the stress and the guilt, and some would secretly resort to using unsuitable cows' milk products out of sheer desperation so there would be health implications there.

Some mothers would fail to bond, or reject their babies altogether, like they do in the animal kingdom - especially if they found it excruciatingly painful to BF, as I did. There were days when I honestly do not know how I didn't punch the baby at my breast - it hurt so badly. I remember very clearly those times when I would sit there with my teeth and fists clenched, my toes curled, letting out long, low, barely controlled moans of pain, trying not to disturb my feeding baby, looking at the traces of blood mixed in with the milk around his mouth, and with big fat tears of desolation rolling down my face, feeling like an utter failure.

That happened to me with two out of three of my babies. The other one was much more bearable for longer - I managed three months with him, but it was still not the easiest or greatest experience, and I was delighted to stop. I could have soldiered on but by that stage I had lost my fear and guilt over formula - he'd had his colostrum and I opted for an easy life and a full night's sleep instead. So shoot me.

But I had that option thank fuck. The alternative does not bear thinking about.

oh sorry
rant averted
thank you
I did talk about seatbelts in a different context
I'm sorry, I just really hate anyone to think I feel like that about formula.#
I hate that many women want to bf and find they can't and that they are unsupported becaue hey, give a bottle.
I hate that many women think bf is not for them, their families want them to give a bottle and you can see how much they're getting.
But for those babies, who are given the formula, they are fine. The majority have parents and extended families who love them, want the best for them, and would cut off an arm for them. I feel happy for them. In general more babies being bf is a good thing, and I am unhappy that rates are low. That does not mean I'm unhappy about individual babies who on the whole are very priviledged. Some aren't - as are some who are breastfed :( That has nothing to do with formula.

Hospital staff do often explicitly try and make you feel bad though. There's a few examples on here. The best way to get help with bf if your having problems is to get out of hospital ASAP, and get some proper help. The way to increase bf is proper help and encouragement, and not making people feel shit.

TBJ, I would have thought it was obvious that I was using the term to describe a way of thinking and behaving that some people have wrt this issue. I cannot think of any other context for using the phrase, but if that wasn't immediately clear then I regret my lack of clarity. It's not moving the goalposts to attempt to explain my thinking or to point out that things ended up the way they did in Germany because rights and freedoms were removed and information in the press was not free. You say you would have 'pointed out' a Stalin comparison, but that's not the same as jumping on me for a Nazi one, and yet, by your thinking, both would have been equally bad.

It's not relevant to compare to a homophobic slur (which I wouldn't do btw, just to be absolutely clear). I can't even think of a situation where that comparison could be used. I stand by the view that some peoples behaviour in bullying others wrt this issue, wouldn't have been out of place in Hitler's society. It's insidious and nasty. Look at some of the experiences people have had at the hands of health care professionals, employed by the state. If the cap fits...