To think it really wasn't necessary for Myleene Klass to mention the 'Breastapo'?

[UnknownGnome]

I was watching Lorraine this morning during which there was a feature which showed Myleene Klass visiting a third world country promoting the benefits of breastfeeding and raising awareness of the goodness of breastmilk, particularly colostrum. Formula is often watered down, or made with unclean water, therefore not the best option for many women, but they are not always aware of this.

Cut to Myleene in the studio with Kate Garraway and she is, again, talking about the benefits of breastfeeding but qualifies this by saying she is by no means a member of the 'breastapo'. Was this completely necessary? Surely it's ok to talk about the benefits of breastfeeding without making a negative comment about those who promote it?

Just realised that I haven't posed this as an AIBU, so, AIBU to think this was an unnecessary and unhelpful comment?

What offends me is the fact that since this thread has started 190 babies have died, who wouldn't have done, if they were BF,because of a lack of information.

What MC point was that the part that shocked her was that many of the mothers that she visited, who had lost babies, didn't know that they can BF, they only knew about FF.

Which is pretty astounding.

Teaching these mothers about BF and giving them the confidence to BF, in this context, is very different to those described by "Dials" and others and MC wanted to avoid from being assocciated with them.

I haven't ever seen anyone on here trying to make people feel bad about their feeding choices

You've missed quite a lot of threads, then.

There are some fabulous posters on the BF/FF boards who go out of their way to offer support and advice. There are also some nasty, vindictive and self righteous individuals who jump on any thread about feeding a baby some milk to make people feel bad.

No, I really haven't seen it.

Maybe notadragon has a point...

NotADragon, I've never noticed that - what I have noticed is the slavish repetition of every pro-bf article/stat/etc that proves that bf babies will become Olympic athletes while their poor ff peers will be left wheezing and dying on the sidelines.

Much of what is espoused on here about the benefits of bf is ridiculously OTT and some of the stuff said about ff-ers is unbelievable.

Nothing wrong with being pro-bf - believe me I was pretty evangelical about it before I actually tried it .

The thing is, on MN you aren't allowed to be too positive about breast feeding or you'll be accused of being breastapo/mafia/bf-ing nazi.

I disagree entirely.

In fact I'd go as far as to say that the majority of posters on MN are quite positive about BF-ing...even if they chose not to themselves/couldn't BF.

The breastapo/mafia/bf-ing nazi labels are normally given to those for whom the cap fits.

And that is usually self evident in their posting.

I'm also not a fan, but YABU it looks Luke you're just trying to find something to get worked up about.

(and I actually feel s bit sorry for her, even though she is rich and pretty because wasn't her ex a cOmplete dick?)

I recently posted on the BF/FF forum re my lack of milk when I had my son and asking for tips to try and bring my milk in for this baby, due next week. The response was a mix of helpful tips and blinkered idiots who refuse to believe a woman's breasts function anything less than perfectly. I can't imagine they'd berate a visually impaired person on the basis that they can see fine so therefore everyone's eyes must be perfect. I'm afraid for my boy it was formula or death. Deal with it mofos.

Mind you, Myleene is a self-promoting twat and really needs to piss off now. She makes me feel stabby.

Yabu, context is everything op.

I watched Myleene when she was on 'I'm a Celebrity' (I know, I know) and she came across really well,always cheerful, up for anything and nothing fazed her.
Didn't she come second or something?
I realise I'm a lone voice in support of her on MN though

Bit of a mixed bag of opinions then which is always nice

I don't know, I just thought it would have been nice if she had gone about raising awareness of this issue without using such a negative and offensive term.

It's like talking about the benefits of reusable nappies whilst assuring people that you're not one of those 'hippy dippy weirdos', or 'lentil weavers'. It sounded like a negative terms to describe a group of people she has no respect for. Fair enough to have no respect or to plain dislike them; just don't mention them on national tv!

Think you should just string her up really. Seriously, why so much hate and pick, pick picking - sheesh !

It's like talking about the benefits of reusable nappies whilst assuring people that you're not one of those 'hippy dippy weirdos', or 'lentil weavers'.

See but I think that makes perfect sense

LBE you're not alone. I saw her on I'm a Celeb and thought the exact same thing. She's also a talented musician.

I don't read gossip mags/celeb columns or tabloids, so the whole MC 'hatred' thing appears to have passed me by.

I don't get the Mylene hate thing,always seems to come across as intelligent and quite nice.

The fact is these type of women exist and she was simply trying to reach out to all women,truth hurts I guess.

I quite like MK. She is an attractive, intelligent woman doing a good thing. I am at the vitriol leveled against her on this thread. I just don't get it.

Oh and YABU OP. The breastapo do exist and are damaging to BFing rates. My DSiL couldn't BF her first DC. She is now pregnant with her second and has decided not to try BF again because of a member of the breastapo made her feel inadequate and guilty then and she doesn't want any contact with a BFing advisor this time round.

The whole discussion about breastfeeding always ends up with these brestapo/nazi thing. If they are so bloody powerful how come formula is what MOST people in this country use to feed their babies?

As someone who couldn't breastfeed their first baby properly and who had to use mostly formula I agree that there is pressure to breastfeed - it came from myself. The only person in the entire world giving me pressure about it was me. I DO remember reading the bf/ff threads and feeling got at in a major way. Until I realised that this was not the intention of those who spoke, and an objective look at breastfeeding does in fact tell us that it is the optimal way to feed your baby.

Those people I started off resenting are those whose advice I took and thereby ended up breastfeeding my next baby. I couldn't have done it without them.

The breastapo do exist and are damaging to BFing rates. My DSiL couldn't BF her first DC. She is now pregnant with her second and has decided not to try BF again because of a member of the breastapo made her feel inadequate and guilty then and she doesn't want any contact with a BFing advisor this time round.

Same here - don't blamer her at all if I were to have another, I would actively avoid the BF bullies 'advisers'. And, as ChairmanWow said, it was FF or her health suffering: "deal with it mofos" is bang on. I struggled on for 4.5 months and was quite poorly as a result, hardly sleeping etc, as I felt under so much pressure to BF as much as humanly possible. My DH was forever telling me to let him FF at night (I couldn't sleep at all in the day, as we had builders banging and crashing all fecking day)... It was really tough. It's made me quite angry, actually.

(Of course it's wrong that women in some parts of the world don't know about BF. But that's a different issue.)

*blame

Personally, I couldn't help but notice the amount of goo she had slapped through her hair. And the lack of effort in dressing for the telly.

It seems extraordinary to me that the very people who do most to help and promote breastfeeding are those vilified by those who don't manage to breastfeed. I was one of those women, so I feel I can comment here.

I think we are visiting our deep grief at our inability to breastfeed on these women. I am sure some of them are tactless, I am sure some of them don't give optimal advice, I am sure that lots of people could do more and learn more and help more. But comparing them to Nazis? The gestapo? It is out of proportion.

As I said before, I truly believe the pressure comes from ourselves.

yanbu it was an idiotic use of an idiotic term from a class 1 idiot mk.

The new petition from Save The Children is wonderful. If it gets publicity for the bastards that Nestle and Danone are, then I'm all for it.

The problem is because bottle feeding is so ingrained in our culture now, you can no longer state a scientific fact without people being offended.

The fact is - breastfeeding saves lives. I don't hate formula, but I fucking hate the companies. They aren't stupid, they know these people do not have access to safe drinking water, to sterlising equipment, never mind the fact that their outrageous costs equal a quarter of some of these peoples salaries. They care about profits.

Formula is not sterile. Even here in the UK where we can prepare it safely, babies still get ill. Handing it out to people knowing that it will risk their children's lives when their situations are worse than ours, and not giving a fuck as long as their profits increase, makes me sick.

Because you can't be seen as pro-breastfeeding without people automatically marking you down as hating formula feeders, you have to declare you're not. It's a frustrating comment for her to make, but I completely understand why she had to.

"Grief" "inability" think you're surmising a lot here.

Humphrey the breastapo are most definitely not the people who do most to help and promote BFing. Being tactless and giving sub optimal advice is not on when dealing with women at their most vulnerable.

The people who do the most to help and promote BFing are sensitive, know their stuff and if, for whatever reason, a woman chooses to FF, they wish them the best. Had my DSiL had such an advisor, she still would have FF DN, but most definitely would be more open to BF this time.