Refusal to discuss formula feeding at parentcraft class

[obeliaboo]

AIBU? Ready for the fire!
I've been told that in order for me to have a tour of my chosen hospital's delivery suite, that i need to attend 'parentcraft' classes.
Yesterday was exclusively about breastfeeding, fair enough, didnt know that of course until we got there.
So, as the midwife goes on about breastfeeding and support, I enquire what is the support for those who fall into small percentage of mums who cannot breastfeed. Simple question.
"What do you mean?".
I had to ask again, and put it across that i intend to breastfeed, but what if i cant, what if my milk doesn't come in. It happens, it happened to my eldest sister, its nothing to be ashamed of so whats the harm in asking and what is the support in that situation.
"We don't discuss artificial feeding".
Seriously?? I understand the necessity to promote breastfeeding is a priority for the NHS, because it seriously needs normalising, but to just object to even touching on the subject of formula feeding really riled me. I felt like i was at a propaganda session! She instead continued to address breastfeeding and a specific brand of electric breast bump at a specifc well known retailer.
Is this what the NHS supports? Big business's and there overpriced products (the specific one mentioned was over £100, I am not in a position to be able to afford something like that for a start), under the guise that 'breast is best', its the best start for baby - and insinuating that formula is the devil when for some poor souls, it is the only option?
AIBU for finding this absolutely snotty and condescending? There are mums out there who are underconfident, or genuinely don't lactate, mums who have gone through breastcancer and mastectomies etc, so why are these midwives refusing to even consider discussing both options.
Why make it militant and harder for those who simply can't, to speak up without feeling ashamed?
FYI this is the 3rd midwife i've had ranting at me over this.

I FF DD and followed what the hospital did which was not to heat up the bottle, simpler to feed cold. And it was. Nevertheless it was a revelation at the time, and there was no interweb to browse.

Not sure if this appears on the instructions of FF as I'm twenty years away from all this.

So yes, FF does need to be discussed.

Oh, and for the posters who said just read the label, how acceptable would it be to say breastfeeding? just stick the nipple in the baby's mouth and away you go?

But there's only one way to suck from a bottle.

No there isn't.

There's different types of teats, different teat flows, anti-colic valves...

I found breastfeeding helped my bonding after a horrible experience the first time around. I ended up in a psychotic episode and my poor boy had to bear with it.

This wasn't because I was beating myself up about how I fed, because back then I had no idea of this concept that if you are told one thing is best, that the other thing is thus bad for your child. It was just an option there to take if I needed to, which I did, I mean I bought Huggies and then used Pampers, it wasn't much different. It was the illness after I gave birth that had a massive impact on my mental health. Being separated from my child was and awful experience, and I didn't have the natural skin contact that made it so much easier for me. Of course discovering parenting websites also made me find that there was this division between feeding methods, but that happened way after the fact.

My boy is a healthy little thing, formula was great, and it was necessary with being apart from him, then with all the medication that would cross into the milk.

With my girl it was simply that breastfeeding, slings and co-sleeping were the easier option, I had mobility issues, pregnancy worsened my physical disabilities, and I had a very fussy baby. The breastfeeding had a really handy side effect of combating the tendency to mental ill health thanks to those lovely hormones (which you still get cuddling them and formula feeding, this was simply easy and a big boost) and I also wanted to as my Auntie had just died of breast cancer and I knew BF helped to lower that risk.

I had the back up formula ready, I had bottles. I had been given lots of encouragement with the wanting to BF, but I never found it was divisive in the manner it was communicated. I think that may be staff allowing their personal opinions to cloud their professional duty. I know my midwife and HV wouldn't talk about brands of milk, but there was definitely plenty of support with bottles and sterilising and general how to.

If I felt a health professional was giving poor advice (which none is) with regards to feeding, I would talk to them, or another person on the staff about it, rather than walking away offended. I do get that being in a group means we are less likely to speak out, so maybe find her afterwards and ask why she can't give advice on bottles, that you felt you needed some information. If they are still refusing and they have no reason, then make a complaint.

It won't change without someone saying what about this, I need advice and support with this, and telling health professionals what we need. Right now I know they are encouraged to talk about BF support, because there was a lack and mum's were struggling, but that doesn't mean that you can't also ask for support for bottle feeding too, and if there is some sort of rule about not helping mums with bottle feeding, find out why and then stand up for your right to be supported too. If I were in your position, it's what I would do.

By the way, I wasn't trying to be goady with my last post, just trying to point out that with both BF and FF there's a lot to learn, and it SHOULD be taught. I don't understand why some posters are being so condescending, like it's a simple case of good vs. bad, right vs. wrong...

No - they should discuss ff.

Give you information on different types of formula, and guide you towards resources you can turn to if necessary.

It's wrong not to do this.

But would add, that mothers can see their HV for advice after about ff. Sometimes breastfeeding is already irrevocably damaged by the time a mum gets help. This won't be true of ff, as long as the mother follows the instruction on the tin. There is lots of advice which can make ff better and easier, but none which is necessary to make it an option in the first place. Not so of breastfeeding where lack of help and knowledge can actually make it impossible.

mini - the point is many hv s and mws won't talk about it.

In response to the nasty comments directed to the OP about the cost of the breast pump versus the cost of formula, newsflash, many of us live month to month, budgeting each month for what we have to spend. Just because we can't shell out £100 upfront, doesn't mean we can't budget £10 a month for formula

I don't see how they were nasty. Its a different option that's all. An option that isn't for everyone in the same way that BF or FF isn't for everyone.

If you read it as nasty then you are being over sensitive and not respecting the fact that other people might make a different choice or find a way to finance a pump (or indeed hire one) if BF is that important to them.

Sorry if it offended you, but really I was trying to be factual and give another option as it was information and something I hadn't considered until faced with the reality.

I was under the impression the thread was about getting information than might help with feeding rather than making a judgement about it.

Clearly I was wrong.

bassica I agree with you as well but the problem is that the very people who are supposed to support new mothers are the ones who are giving very negative messages or withholding support. Granted it is in certain areas but why is it not uniform across the country? We are supposed to trust our health professionals so when you are made to feel like a pariah for ff or not bf successfully enough (as it works both ways) it is an incredibly isolating experience. Midwives, HV, doctors, whoever are not supposed to push their personal beliefs and preferences onto women and it is a silly approach ime for some NHS trusts to take a blanket coverage of refusing to discuss formula in some misguided way of trying to stop formula usage. If someone is determined to ff getting all militant and cross about it and trying to guilt someone into that choice isn't the best way of going about things - same as anything in life. Can't midwives et al use a bit of judgment of the situation and then dispense advice? Perhaps there is a good reason why but I don't know what that is.

When full of hormones from a new baby and labour and all the rest of it, it is very difficult to be objective. I am nine months down the line now with a beautiful gurguly (shouty) DD and still I struggle with the emotion behind it and feel like a failure. It was a natural act that I couldn't provide for her and a completely irrational response. But to be permanently pushed with breast is the ONLY way or else all these dire things might happen can be very difficult for women in a vulnerable state to cope with.

seaoflove I completely agree with your posts btw. And to the poster about mix-feeding, agree as well. Friend in Sweden was told by mws to give formula until she could establish breast-feeding, to take her time and not worry which resulted in more relaxed mum and baby and she established bf successfully after around three days. It was the opposite experience she received in the NHS with her first where both her and her ds ended up in such a state after being bullied by mw about bf she ended up on formula due to the stress.

Good luck op as well and don't at all beat yourself up about it - it is impossible to know until you're there trying all these things out once your baby has arrived. I am such a control freak I wanted everything to be organised and of course with a baby it never works out like that does it :D

And no, for the upmteenth time there isn't much support for ff! The tin is not adequate advice!

I actually ended up suffocating DD a bit with the bottle I was trying to use as I was holding it wrong. I thought I had her nose clear but I obviously didn't. Thank heavens it was in hospital and she was on the monitor so the nurse was there straight away (we also then switched bottles pretty much immediately!) but a part of me died inside at that moment and I still want to cry thinking of it. Especially as I caused an extra 48 hours extra of monitoring for the poor thing. All the what ifs run through my head even now. So yes, it is very easy to get ff wrong.

What a frightening experience, Living, but you are not to blame. The health professionals should have been more helpful.

sparky it's that lack of support pre baby arrival again I think. Looking back, it is such an obvious thing but when you are surrounded by the marketing and sheer quantity of stuff for ff it is hard to know what is best. We had no information at all on bottles and how it could or couldn't work for babies even though we googled copious amounts. DD just didn't like it as a bottle either (she had the Aptamil starter ones previously so no problems there, just to be clear ). We switched to a bottle like that where I could easily see her nose was 100% breathing!

It goes to show how easy it is to make a mistake with formula, even with the best intentions. Exhausted parents fumbling around, and the mother coping with recovery on top of that. I so wished so many times I could have at least tried to get her to bf. In so many ways it felt safer so for me I had to deal with that on top of the guilt of not bf. It took around 3 months for me to feel comfortable and confident with ff.

Sorry I should have added that I am sure lots of women are confident with ff from the get go, that was just our experience. We just had loads of stuff on top which meant it took us a while. I refused to make up the bottles for the first month, that was DH's job!

DS arrived too early for me to attend any classes so don't have that experience but in SCBU the nurses were great and did a demo for all the parents on how to correctly prepare formula. I'm not sure if it was different as a few of the babies were on prescription formula so had to be ff or if they were just generally more supportive of everyone being able to choose what worked for them and then making sure there would be no issues with making it wrong.

They were also great at pointing out that certain bottles are easier for prem babies to suck, which we would never have known, and gave their experience of the different formulas i.e. they found SMA made the babies windier.

OP - YANBU and you've made me appreciate how lucky we were with the support we had.

Interested in what they do in Sweden re mixed feeding until bf established. Priority should be helping Mum recover and be comfy feeding her baby HOWEVER she chooses.
You go through all you go through in childbirth and then have target driven judgemental mws to endure. We've got our priorities wrong. I hope some mws and hv s have read the experiences set out in this thread.

There's a few posters on this thread that seem to think that because they had great support that everyone does. It really doesn't work like that in all areas of the country.
As I've said before I didn't see a HV until DS was 5 months old...practically on solids! They were too busy, then it was Christmas, then she was ill etc. Some areas are stretched thin in terms of any support for new mums. Even more worryingly, even though we are fine now, I had a horrendous emcs, premature baby, low birth weight and they were seeing people in priority order!

Although it was 13 years ago now I really struggled to breastfeed and barely produced any milk. My baby was starving and at his 7 day weigh in had lost 20% of his birth weight. My midwife was brilliant and really supported me formula feeding for the first time. I was devastated as I felt like a failure and often cried over the fact I coukdnt breast feed. I think there should be tons more support for mothers out there who find themselves in this situation. It's the emotional support you need and not the practical.

Murphy that's interesting anout your experience with scbu. We were on the postnatal ward but with prescription formula and the midwives were clueless about feeding preterm babies and quite critical of me. One did apologise later once she "had time to read the notes" and explained about preterm babies and feeding difficulties etc. This was about a week into our stay though and I was pretty clueless before then on why DS wouldn't feed or wake up for feeds

I've said to DH a few times, I do wonder if our experience would have been better if we'd not been on the ward in terms of aftercare. Although obviously we are grateful and lucky we didn't need scbu and wouldn't wish for it, so I hope that doesn't come across the wrong way

I found the support and advice offered by the NHS to be highly variable and utterly inconsistent, presenting an idealised view of things rather than addressing the real concerns and problems mothers and fathers will deal with.

During the course of 2 utterly pointless classes they didn't discuss formula feeding at all, despite the fact that the majority of women will end up formula feeding to some degree. The nurse refused to discuss complications of any kind, preferring to ignore the statistics that there was no way ever woman in that room was going to have a labour straight out of little house on the prairie. PND? Nope, here in our little utopia that's just a myth. It was ludicrous.

After the birth it was no better. Somebody, somewhere needs to take a look at how the NHS deals with all of this and inject some fucking realism into it, rather than aiming for a utopia filled with sunshine, rainbows and lollypops that just doesn't and will never exist. Childbirth and parenthood is a difficult, messy struggle and pretending that's not the case doesn't help anyone.

I support you OP and think the response you got from the midwife was disgusting.
I say that as someone who desperately wanted to breast feed but couldn't with dd1. I was given ridiculously conflicting advice, told it was all my fault my milk wasn't coming in(maybe the 24 hour labour and emergency Cs had something to do with that, but you'd have thought I was not producing milk dilberatley). It was my mum who after 3 weeks of dd losing weight and crying constantly, went out and bought all the FF equipment I needed, dd thrived after that. And it turned out, my dd was actually tongue tied, something which not a single professional checked out

Anyway sorry for the ramble but it still infuriates me 24 years later.

Mums deserve support however they feed their babies

very specifically the required help with ff is:
how to go out and feed safely
the importance of feeding baby correct formula (as the more it it's made out to be poison the less some people will think this important)
feed on demand, don't make them finish bottles
babies all feed different amounts dont get hung up about it
different teats and bottles
colic

I am always about saving the nhs money when my dd ended up in hospital because she was breastfed.

I was lucky enough to have a midwife 2nd time round who cared little about rules so when I was in despair over my lack of supply, constant pumping and incredible shrinking baby was there is an easy way round this. Most useful advice I've ever been given as it helped with the guilt. Doctors are generally more pragmatic on this subject I find. I nearly slapped a doctor friend who asked me about breastfeeding a week or so after and she was .

BF is all well and good, but women need to know what to do if they can't do it and not feel like total failures.

I am convinced back in the day women would have friends/neighbours feed their babies, as we were all much more communal, and do washing or something in return. Today we don't have that option, so we need to know about ff as another option.

It should all be explained together and in the same meeting as 1. Try to breastfeed...here is how you do it, how to avoid problems etc. 2. This is how to use a pump if you prefer bottle or need to give your infected boob a rest. 3. This is how you use formula if you prefer this method or the other 2 don't work for you. Should not be an agenda, should be giving all the information and allowing the woman to choose her route. Can't believe it's any other way in this information age.