To have commented in class about this bf dvd?

[mosschops30]

We had a fantastic talk today about BFI, very informative and some great info for us about weight gain in babies, supplementing feeding, attachment etc.

However at the end they showed a lovely dvd about newborns who crawl up the mother and latch on after birth, it was great to watch but ruined by the text over it showing babies from 'medicated' births not being able to do the same and saying women should be encouraged to have an unmedicated labour

it really annoyed me and i said to the lecturer that i hoped she didnt show it to pg mums as i felt it was critising those labours.
The lecturer was excellent and said its just to show how important skin to skin is and that you can still do this if not hours, even days later.

But i just thought the tone of the dvd was inappropriate. Some of my colleagues thought i was BU. challenging the dvd message

Had an epidural and dd did this.

shagmundfreud I completely agree with you but until those changes are in place society/NCT has to stop making women who fail to breatfeed because of inadequate clinical and practical support as though they are failures as mothers and women. I shall never forget my hv saying "mothers who put their babies first breast feed, mothers who put themselves first bottle feed". At that time I was recovering from my first bout of mastitis, she didn't have the skills or aptitude or interest to help. The NCT breastfeeding counsellor was expecting people for lunch the first Sunday everything went wrong and couldn't help, the other NCT counsellor told me to take paracetamol to take the edge off the paid of latching. After developing infective mastitis and a breast abscess and continuing to feed after it was excised with a tube inserted and draining into a bag, I eventually phoned the NCT again. They suggested a monster breast pump to give my nipples time to heal - the lady who came with it took one look at me, she was a former a&e nurse and a very experienced mother, humoured me and went and bought be some bottles and a tin of milupa and showed me how to do it. My son was then 9 weeks old and they were the most miserable, painful soul destroying weeks of my life and heralded clinical post natal depression. At my son's first visit to the dentist I was told he had an unusually wide and shallow palate - further research showed this was one of the few reasons that would make breast feeding very very difficult. Of course I wouldn't have continued feeding so long 200 years ago, I would have died and so would he.

I repeat childbirth and breastfeeding are very small parts of motherhoold and in the 21st century should not be regarded as they holy grail by which women succeed or fail at the beginning of what is a very long journey. My early days with my son would have been immeasurably better if I had been shown how to make up a bottle and told it was OK actually. Still makes me very cross even now - not least the lack of help. And I didn't sit back I became a non exec of the local health trust and ensure a dedicated breast feeding counsellor was employed to help educate midwives and hv's.

"but until those changes are in place society/NCT has to stop making women who fail to breatfeed because of inadequate clinical and practical support as though they are failures as mothers and women"

As long as we air our views about the value of breastfeeding it's going to make women who can't or won't do it feel guilty. I honestly can't see any way around this. That's not to excuse unkind or downright nasty comments like the one from your HV.

Re: your experience of mastitis - from reading your post I'm not clear about how much input you had from a breastfeeding specialist? Did you have any? I mean from someone who actually watched you feed? Or was it just the nurse (who as a nurse and a mother is no expert on anything other than nursing and her own children) who saw your breast and told you to bottle feed?

"should not be regarded as they holy grail"

I think it's sad you think they are. I don't think they are seen this way, though they are seen as important, and I think that's fair enough.

"My early days with my son would have been immeasurably better if I had been shown how to make up a bottle and told it was OK actually."

If you said you wanted to bottlefeed you should have been told how to make up a bottle.

If you said you wanted to continue breastfeeding and didn't express a wish to bottlefeed why would you need someone to show you how to do it? Most babies in the UK are bottlefed. 90% by a year. Isn't that figure high enough all ready, without mothers who haven't expressed a wish to bottlefeed being encouraged to do it?

I struggled mightily with feeding my first and I was told by everyone that it was OK to mixed feed. I really wanted someone to sort out my breastfeeding problems rather than encourage me to use formula. I think this is what most women who struggle with breastfeeding want isn't it?

But of course if you say you want to bottlefeed then someone should help you do it if you need advice on making up bottles and making the switch from breastfeeding.

What an unspeakably insensitive post Shagmundfreud. Have you any fucking idea at all how hard it was to continue breastfeeding. I didn't ask because every hcp told me breast was best and formula was bad and felt unable to do so. Not one health professional was able to offer any practical advice. 17 years on that failure - perceived or otherwise - still hurts and people and attitudes like yours do nothing to help women at what is often the most vulnerable times of their lives.

If they really want to help they should ask women what they need and not show DVDs making out it is simple and down to nature-when it is not.

I wish my baby was like the one in the breast feeding videos. They do make it look so easy. Mine bobs on and off and needs burping loads and doesn't just relax into feeding but guzzles as if he is never getting fed again, whilst scratching my boobs and grabbing at my clothes and hair. This was not shown in the videos strangely enough.

Newborn babies have newborn reflexes for several weeks after birth.

If a baby has a low apgar score for whatever reason then they may well not be able to do breastcrawl straight away. A traumatic birth might result in a low apgar score. However not all medicalised births are traumatic. I don't know whether it would be practical to do breastcrawl with a c-section because the mother is recovering from surgery. However a baby born by c-section would be capable of breastcrawl.

My old neighbour's son had to be whisked away to specail care due to breathing difficulties for the first few days of his life. However my neighbour managed to get him to do breastcrawl at five days.

Breastcrawl/ biological nuturing is a really easy way to get a baby to latch on. Admitally biological nuturing/ breastcrawl is not practical if you are out and about.

The nhs often encourages the cradlehold for breastfeeding and women end up with painful nipples as the baby simply doesn't have the head control to make this position work well. The cradle hold is good for babies who are a month old or older.

If you are out and about with a newborn then the cross cradle cold is better.

This article describles positions better.

www.llli.org/faq/positioning.html

My births were quick and easy-with no intervention-they certainly didn't crawl and latch on-they were as clueless as me!

exoticfruits have you seen the video.

breastcrawl.org/video.shtml

Did you actually try breastcrawl. Newborns don't crawl massive distances. However they can edge themselves towards the breast. Their head bob up and down and the baby can latch themselves on.

I found it staggering when dd did breastcrawl. Breastcrawl is a great way of getting tummy time.

All 4 of my DC's did that, had G&A with all 4, and pethidine with 3 of them. What a load of trot that information is...

Mosschops - you said you saw the video in a class with a lecturer present? I presume from that information that you are a student - maybe midwifery or HV? If that is the case then it was appropriate to show you the video and I would imagine and hope that whoever runs antenatal education for classes is sensible enough to only show the relevant parts of the video during classes and also explain how this technique is useful for all types of births and at all stages, not just the first few hours after birth.

Maybe if things like that make you feel bad about your 3rd labour then you need to debrief this with someone so you are able to take this sort of information on board without feeling 'touchy' about it. I say this in the kindest way, and with the utmost respect. I have 2 children, both medicalised labours, no skin to skin or breast crawl and one a big struggle to breastfeed. However I am also a midwife and a lactation consultant and I have to put my personal experiences to one side when I am supporting women.

The work on biological nuturing by Suzanne Colson is fascinating and is very well backed up by evidence. In an ideal world all babies would have uninterrupted skin to skin for at least an hour after birth, whether or not the mother intends to breastfeed. Other posters have already explained why this is beneficial so I won't repeat it all again. It is also a great technique to use with babies who are very unsettled or struggling to obtain a good latch. Mum and baby can lie down on a bed or in the bath and have a relaxed skin to skin time, in an attempt to help bonding and to make the feeding experience less stressful. I have helped women do this kind of laid back breastfeeding at home and for some babies it really makes the difference between a poor latch and a good latch.

I have seen it now and I think that it is one of those things that make women feel failures-much better to say that it can be difficult and then give help. The latching on was the problem. I was fine with 2 and 3 because I had done it before-the instinct I thought would be there wasn't. DS1 also wasn't the least interested-he came into the world wide eyed and just wanted to stare around. They are all different. By all means show it, but with the proviso that it might not be simple and there is nothing wrong with you or your DC if it doesn't work.

I had my ds at 26 weeks crash c section after a car crash and my placenta ruptured. Skin to skin contact when possible calmed him no end and I went in to breast feed for 3 years. The most medical birth ever I didn't even see ds for 2 days as I was very ill myself. I dislike these videos that advertise the necessity of everything being natural as naturally ds and I (without massive medical intervention) wouldn't have stood a chance. And as j said I managed to breast feed easily for years.

Glad it all turned out well Mama. I hate them too-they are just another thing to make women feel guilty rather than being helpful.

It's videos like that which have me in counselling following the birth of my daughter (I wanted a water birth. What I got was pre-eclampsia at 40 weeks, induction after 30hrs waiting for a free space in delivery suite, failed ventouse, failed forceps, failed manual rotation, EMCS.) My daughter managed the breast crawl but breastfeeding 'supporters' still take it upon themselves to tell me about the 'terrible start' she had (10 10 10 on her APGARs, thank you very much) and how it will have jeopardised our breastfeeding relationship - despite us cracking along still at 6 weeks with hardly any problems. We don't fit the mould and the agenda and therefore I'm made to feel like I'm lying.

Small wonder that I can't shake the feeling of having 'failed' birth and motherhood and have to see a trauma counsellor (and on that note thank god for the Infant-Parent Perinatal Service in Oxford - so few people have heard of them but they are fantastic). My daughter's birth was so far from what I'd hoped for and yet so many people make me feel like I 'asked' for it and that I don't deserve to have a baby who breastfeeds like a champ.

:(

Everyone needs to bear in mind that it is just luck, or bad luck, CommanderShepard and you can't fail. DVDs like that make you think that you have failed. How you ended up was important.

commandershepard you most certainly are not a failure. See my post above. Birth and breastfeeding are a miniscule part of becoming a mummy. Nothing usurps love and in time you will know how much more important that is along with hearing the first words, seeing the first steps, bathing the first grazed knee, surviving the first trip to a&e after something minor but ghastly, waving goodbye on their first day at school and shedding a tear, realising they can read, dealing with a dodgy teacher or spot of bullying, their first sports day, their first goal, screaming from the sidelines making them strip in arctic weather before they get in the car covered in mud encouraging their sport, soothing their first hangover and broken heart. And all of the good things too like their first certificates in reception, their concerts and their plays. They are things that a make a good mother; not a perfect birth or a charmed first six weeks.

Good luck - be kind to yourself and stuff the mantra.

"I have seen it now and I think that it is one of those things that make women feel failures-much better to say that it can be difficult and then give help."

I think that issues of women feeling a failure is very difficult. I suspect that almost anything would make some women feel a failure. The link that I posted just shows what is biologically possible for a healthy mother and baby.

If you can't do X for fear of making someone a failure or you can't do Y then how do teach someone how to breastfeed? I am not sure that telling mothers that breastfeeding is really difficult helps either. If breastfeeding is seen as painful and impossible will that put people off? Where do draw the balance?

Prehaps there needs to be seperate breastfeeding classes for first time mums and those who did not manage to breastfeed for whatever reason. Certainly women who had a traumatic time with breastfeeding prehaps deserve more help and support. Prehaps CBT would be helpful in helping women process their feelings, I don't know.

I agree there is no point in giving women the impression that everything needs to be natural. The most important thing is that the mother and baby needs to be alive. Biological nuturing does work with all kinds of birth and even then its not complusory.

I was taught how to breastfeed by staff who took the time. Classes would have been no good-it was the one to one, when I needed it. Once I got it, it was simple but showing DVDs of how it comes naturally isn't helpful. I think that it is one of those things that should be seen by bfeeding counsellors and health professionals. If it is shown to pregnant women in classes it should come with a firm warning 'this might not happen with you and your baby' and it is completely normal if it doesn't and you can still successfully bfeed.

"I didn't ask because every hcp told me breast was best and formula was bad"

Well they shouldn't have told you formula was 'bad'. I'm surprised that EVERY hp was so blatantly rude and nasty. Especially since the majority of women they would have come into contact with would be at least mixed feeding if not fully formula feeding. This was 17 years ago as you say, when exclusive breastfeeding was even rarer than it is now.

But you can't expect them to read your mind. If they went around suggesting mixed feeding or fully ff to every woman who was having problems bf as a solution to the difficulties she was experiencing, you'd have even more women dropping out early from breastfeeding than currently do.

shag when I rang my hv in tears I was told "well, I'm not an expert, phone the NCT". When I phoned the NCT again, they told me "we are only allowed to support breast feeding". I wanted to breast feed; I thought it was best; I had been told by every hcp that it was the thing to do; indeed at the C&W where I had antenatal classes one lady said she would formula feed and the midwife teaching told us all that was her decision but it wasn't something a midwife would recommend. I needed an expert to tell me I hadn't failed and the alternative was acceptable. By that stage I had had two bouts of mastitis, three courses of antibiotics, a breast abscess, had had minor surgery and insisted to a surgeon that I had to continue and that was why he had to insert a tube to drain existing puss, I was in severe pain between feeds (I think this now was due to thrush within the breast tissues) and more or less incapacitated by pain and distress. I continued like that for 9 weeks and nothing in the system helped me. Had I had too little milk I'm sure it would have but my baby was getting fatter and fatter and my J cups were not diminishing.

I was watched feed by a midwife, by NCT breastfeeding counsellors, by the milk machine lady and all agreed the latch was perfect. What they couldn't see was the baby's palate - and it was that that stimulated the excessive milk flow and lacerated my nipples letting in infection. But none of them had the expertise to address it or to think outside the box. All I heard was perfect latch, fat hungry baby and there was a week when he gained 17.5 oz!!!! I did my utmost to make things better for the women after me. I still feel that I got very little help or support at the time when I was going through it. It was a time, that in my mind was a total disgrace, and no woman should have to go through that. Even now, I cannot begin to describe the pain. Afaiac childbirth remains a rite of passage to prepare one for the pain of breastfeeding.

With a great deal of help I fed our daughter until she was 10 months old. I had one bout of mastitis but knew what to do. I refused to see more than two community midwives. I refused to allow a health visitor into my home. I had the help of the breast feeding counsellor I had ensured was appointed to the trust. It was still hard and painful upon latch. Many years later when I was diagnosed with cystic breast disease (I had had two lumps removed before ds was born) I discovered that also may have been an underlying factor that contributed to my difficulties.

Of course breast is best but providing all other things are equal. In the west where we have access to good water and facilities for boiling and the ability to adopt good hygiene, formula can be godsend for women like me and there needs to be far greater recognition of potential difficulties and genunine help when they are encountered.

"When I phoned the NCT again, they told me "we are only allowed to support breast feeding".

What were you hoping for? Did you want someone to listen to you? Did you want advice about how to wind down breastfeeding? Or how to begin to give formula while continuing to breastfeed? They should have offered help with all those things. It's lamentable that they didn't.

"I needed an expert to tell me I hadn't failed and the alternative was acceptable."

Did you want your decision to stop breastfeeding validated? Did you want someone to tell you that it was better for you not to breastfeed? It's very difficult for any health professional to tell you this - only you can know what is best for you and your baby.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but I'm interested in the issue of your son's palate and the physical difficulties you experienced breastfeeding. From what you've said, your son was thriving and putting on weight? The problem was the mastitis? Or something else? I'm not an expert but I've never heard of a wide and shallow palate causing difficulties with feeding. Maybe one of the lactation consultants on the thread could set me straight. I've always heard that a wide and shallow palate is often the result of prolonged breastfeeding, and that a high and narrow palate can cause many difficulties with feeding.

In any case, it sounded to me that what happened to you was despite all your efforts, you never accessed really good help, which actually probably should have come from a lactation consultant.

And that's the lesson I take from your story - that women who are saying that breastfeeding is crap and painful should be listened to PROPERLY and that if they continue to have problems, should be referred to a TRUE specialist (ie a lactation consultant) if mw/hv/bf counsellors can't help. Obviously this would only be in the case of someone who had expressed a wish to continue breastfeeding.

I don't take from it what you have - that breastfeeding doesn't really matter and that if women are having a really crap time of it we should just tell them this, and encourage them to use formula instead. But that's because breastfeeding really did matter to me and I would have been very sad if I couldn't have breastfed my babies. Other people telling me that it makes no difference wouldn't have helped.

Just to add in something from my own story, you saying bf isn't important - I have an autistic child who I breastfed for nearly 3 years. I feel HUGELY grateful for that time of intense closeness, which was fostered by the prolonged breastfeeding. Given the challenges he is facing, and that I'm facing in parenting him, I'm so glad that he's had that start in life. Breastfeeding DID make a difference to us. It really did. I wouldn't EVER tell someone that breastfeeding doesn't matter. That is for them to decide. That is not for health professionals to say or to hint at.

i had to most natural labour ever,

a hypno-birth with no painrelief at all, and went from not sure i was in labour (I was 7cm) to a mummy in 20mins

DD still didnt do that.... ( i always imagined she would, and we did have immediate skin to skin etc, but she chose not to)

after my stitch the midwife latched her on.

So having a non medicalised birth does not make it happen either.....

however by a few days old she could do it and did it almost daily until she was about 3m old... she was great at breast-crawl, just not immediately after her (super quick) birth!

For goodness sake, breastfeeding does matter. Do you think I would have gone through that level of pain and ill health for 9 weeks if I thought it hadn't mattered. Sometimes women need help in making the right decision for them when the mantra is entirely one sided. Can you really not see that. Can you not see how difficult it is to get the help one needs when one is at one's wits end with pain.

What I am saying, is that if it is proving so difficult, the pain and distress may not be worth it and there are very good alternatives in the West. I'm sorry your child has ASD, but when my child was 9 weeks old I coudl not have know that and neither could you about yours. So you are in effect saying that by not continuing to breast feed I might not have done my best for my child. Thanks - I'm 17 years down the road and I know that I have done my best. Many women with tiny babies don't know that right now ands should not, under any circumstances, be made to feel they are failures because bf isn't working for them and their baby.

I did my very best 17 years ago - thanks even now for trying to undermine it. I really couldn't have done more women in this part of London - I did at least get them a lactation/breastfeeding consultant to ensure the local midwives/hvs were properly trained.

At that time I was not an expert and YES I REALLY DID NEED SOMEONE WHO CLAIMED TO KNOW MORE THAN ME AND TO BE MORE EXPERT THAN ME TO LISTEN TO ME. Why is that so odd in your little world?

And finally it should be very difficult for any hcp to validate stopping breastfeeding. Yes I did expect someone to advise me to stop or at least to have sufficient knowledge to be able to give me information about the relative benefits/disadvantages of bf as compared to the quantities of antibiotics I was taking. And yes, if someone tells me something is best and can't advise about an alternative I expect them to be experts and to be able to advise me in an expert way about what they are advising me to do rather than reading aloud from a leaflet.

I stopped feeding my ds when he was 9 weeks old. He is 6'2", a talented rugby player and cricketer, has 11 A* GCE's (and 1 A - that must have been the lack of breast milk) and is hoping to read Classics at Oxford. He goes to one of the best schools in the UK and is very very sociable. He wasn't breast fed it was a shame but it doesn't appear to have held him back. His sister was - she is adorable, small for her age, not quite as bright but exceptionally musically talented. As I have said childbirth and feeding are very small parts of motherhood.