To hope that I can ask about FF without being shot down in flames?

[Darksideofthemoon88]

I'm interested in WHY people choose to FF if not for medical reasons (ie they can't because of medication they have to take, or because their baby was very premature and is unable to suckle) - I've seen a lot of threads where people assert that FF was best for them/their family/their baby or that they chose to FF without trying BF, and I'm curious as to why. Genuinely curious I'm not interested in fighting with anyone about what's best or right; I'd just like to read about why people FF because I honestly don't know. In the interests of full disclosure though (I know how MNs feel about this! ), I am a breastfeeding mother.

I had a mw friend who insisted that BF would NEVER hurt if 'you did it right'.
She stuck to this line and wouldn't waiver.
He had two DC and had BF so did have some experience but that was HER experience.

I do not think we help women buy using that language. So if your 'virgin' nipples get sore when you have a hungry baby gumming them for hours a day, for weeks, that is because you are 'doing it wrong' Really?

If I put any other part of my body through a totally new punishing regime and it hurt wouldn't people expect that?

Instead they are told 'you are bf wrong' and women may think 'well I am trying everything so I obviously can't do it so I might as well stop'

And feel they have failed.

personally I compare it to the 'agony' of being dumped by a twattish boyfriend and being allowed to be 'heartbroken' and having sympathy. While if you fail to bf people tell you you're lucky to have what you've got and that you 'mustnt' feel sad better comparison than infertility for me.

Sorry you had pnd on top of everything else that was pretty shitty luck.

It doesn't help when FF-ers feel compelled to list the traumatic abscesses and husbands away fighting in Afghanistan as the reasons why they had to resort to formula feeding. It merely perpetuates the myth that some reasons for resorting to FF are more worthy than others. There are no medals given out for how hard you tried to BF before giving up. I would like to see ff-ers having the courage of their convictions rather than rising to the bait when bf-ers spout their often pseudo-scientific smugness. FWIW, I have not a scintilla of anxiety when I see that my decision to formula feed may have increased my chances of breast cancer by eight per cent. Perhaps this is because I am teetotal and don't smoke and am well within my optimal BMI weight.

I seriously believe that the very worst things you can do for your child's future health is to be fat yourself; to be in a relationship or marriage where there is little or no respect - or frequently-warring parents; to smoke around your kids or to allow them unlimited access to the internet whilst giving them negligible amounts of leisure time outdoors. Breast milk versus formula is insignificant in the grand scheme of ways you can fuck your kids up.

I honestly feel that some BF-ers are in denial of the difficulty and tedium BF-ing brings to a huge amount of women. They clearly are not aware of the statistics here: 80% of women have given up their attempts to bf by six weeks. EIGHTY PER CENT. Now why do you think that is? And, more importantly, are eighty per cent of the population seriously imperilled, intellectually or physically by their mothers' decision to switch to formula?

Toby the infertility ironically helped.

It put it all into perspective.

Perspective is what I think gets lost,through no fault of the mother I might add.When you're struggling it's hard to hold onto perspective particularly when everything you read(media,threads on MN,bfing literature)and are told does the reverse.

Great points from Pistol.

The reason FFers feel compelled to is that BFers say things say like 'apart from those with genuine or (my personal fave) medical reasons' i don't understand why women FF. Which just shows ..well... lack of understanding.

And Seagulls, you don't seriously think I think that people who switch to ff are to be judged for not 'trying hard enough', do you?

Women should try only as hard as they want to try!

For some women, this will be to the metaphorical ends of the earth and for other women it will be five minutes. That's ok. No judgment needed.

What I think there is no evidence for is that women struggle and become seriously depressed solely because they have seen some posters and leaflets, and because they feel under pressure (I think in some cases they do feel under pressure, because not all support is sufficiently skilled to avoid pressure - but of course not everyone who feels pressured goes on to be depressed). The sort of sadness and disappointment that contributes to depression is deeper and multifactorial - not the thread to discuss it here, really).

Just catching up on the thread since my last post. Forgive me if I missed anything.

just to point out (in case this worries anyone due to have a cs) that having a elcs does not necessarily lead to no milk production. Why would it? There were problems in your case but it is not universal.

Could I add my voice to this. Incase anyone is having a CS and wants to give BF a bash. I was BF in the recovery room following my ELCS. I had great support from the MW whilst in hospital when I needed it. I have no negative memories regarding BF support whilst in hospital. DD seemed satisfied so my milk must have been OK. I had been leaking for a few weeks prior to CS.

Thinking about it, I must be one of those really bad, ill informed, selfish or maybe just lazy parents because

1. I had an ELCS no medical reason for it
2. I only BF DD for 36 hours before thinking "I can't be arsed with this" and immediately started FF.
3. DH and I employed a very well qualified stranger nanny with 25 years experience. DD seems to love her and giggles as soon as she sees her

Fairy well done for helping that new mum out in hospital. It's ridiculous that anyone would flam you for sharing your story.

With regards carnation milk. My MIL said she fed DH (now 42) and DSIL (now 40) carnation milk and she also used to put rusks in their milk not sure if this was the carnation milk or normal milk Apparently this was as normal and as widespread as BF and FF is today.

Mini seriously are you always this invested in other peoples choices life? Do you really believe women aren't aware of the BF benefits? Really? Do you really believe that? Oh yes and I am a 38year old, half African Executive Director in a Global business . So my prospective on a couple of your points are:

1. Asian, Chinese and African mothers are massively more likely than white English mothers to breastfeed and to breastfeed past 6 months. My sister and I both bottle fed with complete support from our African relations. No one judged us! No one gave a hoot as long as we and the babies were healthy and happy.

2. Older women breastfeed for much longer. does 36 hours count?

3. Educated women breastfeed for much longer. my SIL has a Doctorate in Economics and she bottled fed both her DS. In fact she took the Aptimal ready made first milk into hospital and put her DS 2 straight on it.

Silver. Guess you will have a massive judgemental wedgeeeeee when you hear I decided not to BF for no other reason than I couldn't be arsed doing it.

I never ever understand why people are so invested in what other people do. If women want to BF then they should be support to BF, if women want to FF then they should be supported to FF. Its no ones business why any mother chooses a particular feeding method.

I bf both mine until they were nine months and weaned . I didn't think about it at all until joining the NCT who were pro bf so I just fell into it really.

I didn't mind whiling away time feeding and when they went not on to ff I found the whole thing a big pain compared to lifting up my top ! I remember the smell of formula was absolutely vile and messing about sterilising bottles etc a pain

Having women on threads testifying to the genuine contentment they and their babies have found through formula feeding is the only way we will ease the horrid depression some women find themselves suffering in the face of the 'breast is best' ideologues. It is never worth 'battling through' the myriad bf-ing agonies if your mental health is likely to become imperilled (or if you just want some fucking sleep).

Pistol, maybe you can ask on another thread if people agree with you that one of the worst things you can do for your children is to be fat :)

You say "I honestly feel that some BF-ers are in denial of the difficulty and tedium BF-ing brings to a huge amount of women." I think that may be true of a very few bf women - it is not the case for anyone who actually knows a bunch of bf women and certainly not the case for anyone who is trained in support of bf women.

You add " They clearly are not aware of the statistics here: 80% of women have given up their attempts to bf by six weeks. EIGHTY PER CENT."

This is just not true - where are your stats from?

81 per cent of women breastfeed at birth. At six weeks, 55 per cent are breastfeeding.

Hope the maths geeks will correct me if I am wrong, but I reckon that means 26 out of those 81 women out of a hundred have stopped breastfeeding....or about a third.

"more importantly, are eighty per cent of the population seriously imperilled, intellectually or physically by their mothers' decision to switch to formula?"

Clearly not, in the UK....but why do we only regard something as significant if the entire number who do/don't do it are 'seriously impaired' in some way?

Sorry Tiktok I disagree.

Women have 9 months of waiting,planning and wanting to do everything right.That is 9 months of literature,threads,articles,health professionals,magazines,leaflets etc.

Never in the above are the difficulties,unpleasantness and sheer hard work mentioned.Any difficulties are waved away with "not doing it right" which piles yet more pressure on.

When reality hits it's a huge disappointment and quite crushing.I was lucky enough to be sent to a group for counselling and the pre birth pressure was a big reason for the collective PND.It's ironic.The perspective is taken away prior to birth and then frantically given back after by those left to pick up the pieces after.Would be nice if it was never eradicated in the first place.The breast is best message has gone way too far.

Pistol, you are sounding dogmatic now! "Having women on threads testifying to the genuine contentment they and their babies have found through formula feeding is the only way we will ease the horrid depression some women find themselves suffering in the face of the 'breast is best' ideologues."

So you think internet forum threads recounting mothers' +ve experiences are the only way - the only way? the only way? - to combat depression? There's no research on this, there's been no pilot study, anyone who knows anything about depression knows it's a complex and often long-lasting condition that is often untouched by listening to other people's positive experiences (and can be made worse)....but you have somehow thought up the 'only way' to combat it.

Unless you have found the idea in the same place you got your incorrect stats, of course :)

There are so many other factors - genetic, environmental, plain old bad luck, that affect a person's health and well being throughout their life that it would be near on impossible to ever make a definitive statement that they way a baby was fed for the first year of their live has had a long lasting impact on their health.

Pistol, maybe you can ask on another thread if people agree with you that one of the worst things you can do for your children is to be fat

What's the point in asking if other people agree?

The possible risks to both mother and baby during and after pregnancy, are quite clearly stated by they NHS.

Hence the reason I rolled my eyes at my passive aggressive, overweight aunt, when she mentioned giving babies the 'best start in life' by breast feeding.

you see in terms of the reasons my personal opinion is in my case I would have been much happier and healthier if I had ff just because I wanted to. As a result I totally think ff as a choice is a good one ifyswim....

Pistol something like 35% of babies are still breastfed at 6 months so not sure how 80% can stop by 6 weeks?

Seagulls : "Women have 9 months of waiting,planning and wanting to do everything right.That is 9 months of literature,threads,articles,health professionals,magazines,leaflets etc."

Well ackcherly, the majority of women don't do a lot of reading about infant feeding. I know that sounds mad, because people on mumsnet probably do more than most, and I wish I could say my hands on the survey(s) that show what they do read.....with more time, I'd send you a reference. Women get most of their info about feeding from friends and family, anyway, whether they read stuff or not.

I do accept that most women (not all) understand that breastfeeding/formula feeding is different (honestly - not all women understand this. Some women in surveys believe that formula milk is powdered breastmilk or that there is no difference between the milks at all). Most women will know the health service favours bf.

I don't know why you say the difficulties are not even mentioned, and that when they occur they are waved away. I know the waving away sometimes happens, but it's not the only thing that happens. And even the most basic literature on bf at least talks about soreness and pain and the need for babies to feed often and how to cope with that. More than the basic stuff has more details.

I actually meant that women who patronise threads like these and are suffering from depression brought on by 'failure' to breast feed will be comforted by ff-ers simply being honest about how good they feel in light of their decision, instead of feeling the need to list the 'worthy' ways in which they tried first to plough through the pain.

I may have my statistics skewed but the majority of women have given up bf-ing by week six. Fact. It is the minority of women who find themselves in a utopic state of bliss, welded for months to their suckling infant.

And no, I don't need to go over to other threads to guage opinion about my statement regarding fat mothers being more serious a threat to their child's health than ff-ers. That's because I am not a 'fat-shamer' and I am merely offering my opinion on other ways of not doing the 'best' thing by your kids.

If it really was that 'natural' and 'easy' to breast feed there would be no need for La Leche League, Attachment Parenting cults groups, lactations specialists, nipple shields, Lansinoh or indeed those truly absurd facebook articles imploring formula feeders to 'come out and support your bf-ing sisters' whilst having their 'permission' to feel good about our decision to formula feed.

It was so important to me to breastfeed (having bought into the hype) that I insisted on exclusively bf even when ds1 wasn't feeding properly and my midwife was advising me to switch to a bottle. He ended up dropping nearly 2lb from his birth weight and was admitted to hospital - a very stressful time for all of us. I did end up bf till 7 months but with an early introduction to solids - he was on baby rice at about 10 weeks I think!
Some years later a friend's baby ended up brain damaged after losing a similar amount of weight after birth. I had no idea that I was risking my baby's health by my stubborn refusal to ff him.
He's now a strapping lad of 20, but I'm quite sure that he would've been just as fit and healthy on formula.

It is incredible the misinformation that some people have of bf/ff yes there is a need for information regarding bf/ff but sorry some on here just come across as patronising and judgemental. It's to be expected on a thread like this!

pistol- but these groups exist because we as a society have lost our breastfeeding skills.

I have a frtiend who is a Tibetan midwife, now working in the UK, and when she does work with the hill tribes in Tibet the women there are atounded that we have breastfeeding support groups or breastfeeding counsellors. They can't believe that so many women find it hard to breastfeed in the UK.
If we look at some of the Scandinavian countries where breastfeeding rates are high there is a similar picture- the demand for organoised support has dropped because the breastfeeding skills are now again self perpetuating within the community.

Breastfeeding support at its best is not a medical issue, it is a social one.

Pistol, if what you meant was that women may be comforted by others' +ve experiences, and boosted, then I agree, and maybe you should have said this in the first place - I would not have misunderstood you.

"I may have my statistics skewed" - not skewed, but massively wrong!

" but the majority of women have given up bf-ing by week six. Fact. " NO! 55 per cent of women are breastfeeding at six weeks. The great majority of those who start (because that 55 per cent includes the ones who did not start at all) are still bf at six weeks.

"It is the minority of women who find themselves in a utopic state of bliss, welded for months to their suckling infant." - :) :) No, they're just breastfeeding! No utopia, no welding :)

"And no, I don't need to go over to other threads to guage opinion about my statement regarding fat mothers being more serious a threat to their child's health than ff-ers. That's because I am not a 'fat-shamer' " Good to hear it. You just keep your fat-shaming statements to threads where no one fat will ever see them, then.....good news.

Pistol, you actually said being a fat parent was one of the worst things you can do for a child - don't minimise what you said.