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.

Sparky not all HCPs surely? Some people on this thread have received support, plenty of postnatal women have had brilliant HVs, midwives, peer supporters and NcT counsellors. Unfortunately this is not true of all HCPs they've come across etc. and yes they should signpost but not everyone likes the wording on some of the impartial advice out there especially with references to breastfeeding.

Someone up thread posted a link to a guide to making up formula published by the NCT some of their counsellors are brilliant about supporting women whatever their feeding issues. Local peer supporters tend to be great too.

Sadie, I'm glad others have had positive Hcp experience in this area. My experience was utterly negative.

It's interesting that when bf is talked about people find it hard to rationally stand back and consider whether there is truth in what is said. I dont think it's true that mc always want to bf and wc ff, that's nonsense. I also own nothing from boden

However, I think there is some truth in what purdey says - highly educated women sometimes overthink things that are actually quite straightforward. In motherhood this isn't always a good thing, as tbf looking after a baby is a practical rather than theoretical task.

Its occured to me many times in my case! if I had ff from birth because I wanted to I would have been better off (and wouldn't have starved my babies for several weeks).

Thanks for telling me that my Ptsd was me over thinking things because I got a degree 30 years ago.

erm I didn't I am talking about my own personal experience of this topic. I overthink things, I can't be the only one.

If people really do need advice, support and counselling in order to Read The Fucking Tin, then they should get that, of course.

Um I am very much socio economically whatever and struggled massively with my inability to breastfeed. I found it really difficult to 'just get on with it.

That said, DD is very healthy and doesn't seem to struggle with illness... But not all us working class mums are immune to feeding guilt.

Now we've add "class" to the thread. How helpful and constructive.

I very much doubt any of you are from sink estates where none of us give a shiny shit about the tit stasi. Of course we tried to bf - some of us - but when it didn't work out we weren't devastated, nor did we feel we were lesser women. That kind of skewed thinking is largely suffered by middle class women who have only ever known success and cannot bear to be seen as a 'failure'. Lower working-class women tend not to wring their hands over an inability to breastfeed, and before you start howling that I am denigrating the poor I will repeat: I am poor; I live on a council estate, all my friends are working class, none of us breastfed beyond two weeks and I know what I am talking about. Anyone who bleats that breastfeeding does not have a class divide is stupid.

This thread is about the dearth of support, advice and help for the 'vulnerable formula feeders' who are so devastated at not being able to breastfeed that they can't read an Aptimil carton properly. Well, I came here to tell you that, where I come from, we can read instructions properly and do not feel the need for formula gurus to come and tell us to put the water in before the milk

No one deserves to have crucial mw or time wasted on being patronised and demonised. I'm glad you shrugged it off or never had it in the first place. PND can happen to anyone as can PTSD. Pity you think it's a "class" thing.

And I had no problems reading the instructions - this thread is about more than that. I hope mh problems never infect your life.

Purdey you are being ridiculous and cannot claim to know anything about our lives.

lower working class women tend not to wring their hands over an inability to breastfeed

Well I did. And I'm pretty damn lower working class (in fact, don't your family have to be working for you to be working class? In which case I'm below even that). I was devestated. I felt like a failure. So much for your little hypothesis.

Up until two weeks before DD was born I lived with OH in a room in a shared house. We couldn't even get on a bloody council list so we've had to beg and borrow money to rent. None of my friends know the first thing about infant feeding, let alone being breastfeeding fanatics, and yet I still felt hideous guilt.

To all the smug arses who said you don't need help to formula feed, I did when transitioning ds from breast to hyper allergic formula due to allergies. So sod off smuggies. That was a damn load harder for me than establishing bf which was a doddle. We all have different experiences.

The only useful and non judgemental advice I got was from the Mother care catalogue and SheWhoMustNotBeNamed books. A pretty poor state of affairs. Nothing on mixed feeding apart from a dismissive biatch of a midwife who merrily told me that she breastfed all her children on demand with no problems so what was I complaining about.

BTW what I was complaining about turned out to be an MS relapse caused by infection from dirty maternity unit. It's not one size fits all care we need, it is at least a half arsed attempt at individual care.

Well a very Happy Mothers' day

May we take a moment to remind you all, that Mumsnet was founded to make lives EASIER - and that regardless of where you live, whether you've been to university, what you feed your baby, or even if you have a baby or not, the one thing we can all do with is some moral support.
Our talk guidelines set this out neatly here
Thanks again

Red - I just don't see how HCPs can put the interests of individuals first in a group setting.

I do think its possible but you have to take a completely different approach to teaching. I'm trying to think of a good way to explain it, but its quite hard to.

At the moment we teach that breast is best for X, Y or Z reason and making it sound easy. This is done with no debate, which also closes off questions and exploration of concerns.

What we should be doing is teaching that breast feeding is difficult, but can be done and there are ways you can give yourself a break in order to try and continue with breastfeeding which don't mean ditching it all together.

One frames it as from the word go as more of a failure not to breastfeed whereas the other frames doing so as an achievement of something difficult to do so.

Btw, I don't think there is any shame in being middle or working class so I don't see why there is a snobbery or reversed snobbery about it. You are what you are.

Last time I checked poor mental health affect both middle and working classes and depression doesn't tend to check your bank balance nor your shopping habits.

I do think that social pressures can have a positive and negative effect on people and their mental health. Just because you might have different pressures than another group doesn't mean that mental health problems are more or less for 'valid' reasons or are more or less 'acceptable'.

My experience with support for mental health reasons connected to maternal health was interesting. I dealt with two Trusts/Authorities. During my pregnancy, I was treated by a specialist maternal mental health nurse in the hospital which was outside the area I live. I was then referred back to my local authority which has no special maternal mental health services a couple of weeks before I gave birth. The difference was vast. In the former I was treated as an intelligent individual, in the later all the paperwork and the way I was initially handled automatically assumed I had a lower education and wasn't particularly bright. When it became apparent that I didn't fit their normal profile, they didn't know what to do with me. It did seem quite obvious that they were used to dealing with certain groups and had no experience with others.

My experience did leave me wondering whether one of the problems is the assumption that middle class women don't have problems and are less likely to come into contact with support services during their lives for various reasons (indeed because there is a stigma to do so too) so are left without any support even though they might genuinely need it.

Interesting points, Red. It seemed to me at the time that NHS thinks only in stereotypes.

Don't tell me I don't know about mental health issues. I am currently taking 40mg of Seroxat and have been on-and-off these damned tablets for over two decades. In order to be able to birth at the midwife-led unit in my town I was told in no uncertain terms by my consultant (I was an old mum at 42) that I must come off the meds by the 36th week of pregnancy. This I duly did.

I felt happy enough in the final weeks of pregnancy but it never occurred to me how desperately ill I would become with PND without the support of my tablets. In my lowest moments I schemed and plotted to have my much longed-for IVF baby to be adopted. None of this blackness was down to my inability to breastfeed. I understand the physical pain of trying to feed your own child - and suffering with bleeding and thrush-ridden nipples, but I do not understand the psychological desperation to do what is 'best' according to the Breastapo. Where I live - and among my peer group - there simply is not that pressure to do what the propaganda tells us is life-or-death 'best'.

There is an 8% less chance of getting breast cancer if you breastfeed. Really? Wow! Thanks for telling me that; I will now ignore the blood flowing from my nipples and try even harder! Anyone who believes they and their child will have a superior bonding experience to those FF-ing their babes are so brainwashed it is terrifying.

Purdey, total bullshit. I'm from a sink estate and raised in poverty and I cry everyday about my failure to breastfeed my son.

Where I live - and among my peer group - there simply is not that pressure to do what the propaganda tells us is life-or-death 'best'.

Does that make you better?

No.

It only suggests that women can be influenced to messages within their peer groups and from pressure from HCPs and can be vulnerable.

It only suggests that these pressures are more influential than evidence which women don't tend to examine and look at great length.

It suggests that support networks are important to woman.

So why you were trying to beat women up on the basis of their class when you have experience of mental health issues and recognise the value of the none judgmental support is quiet beyond me.

I very much doubt Boden really have much influence on that.

I live in a poor area where breastfeeding initiation rates are around 85%.

The difference is is that most of them weren't born in the UK and raised in a culture where formula feeding is the normal way to feed babies.

Really, it's not about education or intelligence, it's about cultural norms.