Where are the 99%?!

[Popplemama]

Just a (fairly) light hearted query but, after six months of EBF I was quite proud of myself for making the 1%.

However according to MN I seem to now be the odd one out for making it this far and for now thinking that enough might be enough?! To make it worse my lovely DD has had bottles, has now had formula (it was our wedding anniversary and I fancied a night off!) and I'm even fantasising about being able to stop (and wear normal bras and drink white wine...)

AIBU in thinking that MN is where the 1% congregate or are the BF surveys a bit skewed?!

I BF, drink wine and wear normal bras (slide strap off the shoulder and pull boob out, as easy as that).

I think we've chatted about the hortors of it before? My midwives made me feel I was a shit mum for not continuing after 6 weeks. And they knew I had PND but still bullied me.

At the time it overshadowed everything. Now I never even think of it. In the grand scheme of things it's so small a factor. 12 years later DD1 plays 2 sports at county level and has always been gloriously healthy.

Yet my midwives told me I was willfully jepordising her future health by stopping BF at only 6 weeks. I cried for hours.

I ebf dd until 6 month, then introduced food, she has never had formula.

She had calpol / gripe water though, so surely that means no ebf...

It's a stupid clarification.

Medicines, vitamins and similar are not counted when it comes to "exclusive" bfeeding as defined by the previous infant feeding surveys. It's just the definition that was used to collect data, it's not a judgement or a target to achieve:

I HATE these smug threads!! I imagine I'm in the 99% of people who couldn't care less how anyone else fed their child!

For what it's worth I bottle fed my daughter, through CHOICE and would not even contemplate breast feeding. My daughter is healthy, so healthy in fact that she's probably only seen a doctor less than a handful of times in her life she studying for her masters degree meaning that she wasn't impacted upon academically by not being breast fed.

Let's just focus on feeding our own children and not trying to outdo each other by saying we are in an exclusive 1% club!

Why do you think people are trying to put do anyone?

Smugness is all in the eye of the beholder. How I feel about what I did has absolutely nothing to do with what you feel - that is entirely down to you.

I HATE that it is impossible to be at all personally proud of doing something that is actually very hard at the beginning without someone coming on to bleat about it being smug.

Agree Soupdragon.

Just because I'm proud of managing to bf my daughter doesn't mean I cast any aspersions on how other people feed their babies.

Thingsthatmakeugoummmm. You say you didn't even contemplate breastfeeding. Fair enough, each to their own. I went into breastfeeding with the opinion that if it didn't work out then I would ff and not feel bad about it because there's nothing wrong with choosing to do that. Does that not make me more open-minded about it than you?

I ebf my son, still going at 10 months although he's eating food as well now. Although just before 6 months he snuck up on me, shoved his hand in my yoghurt then put it straight in his. So maybe it doesn't count ha.

Am I one of the 1% or one of the 99%? I EBF to 6 months (and then while food was kicking in mainly BF with a FF pre-sleep to a year)

BUT... DD1 was a hint prem and had to have top-ups of donor milk, and when that wasn't enough to keep her blood sugar levels up she had a little FF. After 4 days of that we continued with EBF. Is this FF or medicine

I'm happy that I did it (very convenient when you're out or in the middle of the night; possibly I EBF due to laziness with faffing about with sterilising equipment) and I'm sort of proud that I did it despite undiagnosed lip and tongue ties (owww) and with pressure from the HV to FF so she could gauge DD1's food intake pissing the HV off might have been a secondary influence in my determination to EBF but I'm not smug about it. I'm pro-doing what you want, you are an adult, make your own choices. I was FF because it was my mother's choice and I'm hale and healthy.

' IIRC the 1% means no formula or solids of any kind before 6 months.'

Well I am out so.

They all started on solids between 4 and 6 months. This was back in the 90s when 4 months was fine. The human digestive system has apparently changed a lot since then.

I agree with that SoupDragon.
You can be proud/pleased/satisfied you have done what you thought was best for your own baby without reference or thought to anyone else's choices at all.

Here's where the statistic comes from:

www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB08694/Infant-Feeding-Survey-2010-Consolidated-Report.pdf

They did indeed gather data on many other measures, lots of different things. The 1% figure is one small part of a big survey, it's really not a tool to beat women down with.

I'm in the 99%, hi! Never wanted to BF,,the thought made my toes curl. Tried it for a few days, it was grim. Switched to FF and never looked back. My tiny prem baby with no real suck reflex thrived afterwards.

I have said three times, and others have said, too, that the one per cent does not mean 'never having had formula ever before six months'. I don't even know if we have a stat on that, but it's prob rather more than one per cent.

I can only think some people are not RTFT ....just want to come to say their faux outrage bit and declare how they are not in a club that doesn't even exist!

I had dd2 in England, and I remember the nurse walking us around the hospital saying " does anyone plan to artificially feed????" No one said yes!
I actually only know one person who refused to try... I am very surprised the figure is so low.
I EBF dd1 until six months and continued until 30 months and dd six months and 24 months. In my circle, this was very normal. I am happy with my decision, for us, it was the right thing to do.

Alligatorpie, from the Infant Feeding Survey 2010 that I linked to earlier, 81% of women initially breastfed. "Initially" in this survey means any breastfeeding at all from birth, even if just once or for a very short time.

Wasn't really meaning you, TeaPleaseLouise! :)

I agree it is a meaningless statistic.

I'm shocked that the figure is so low tbh. out of the mums I know I'd say the figure is more like 25%.

I did ebf for just over 6 months but reading this I don't think I count because I started blw a couple of days before DS was 6 months old. Not that he really ate anything until a lot later though!

It's not low, Eminy. It's exactly where you'd expect it to be when the majority of people introduce solids between 4 and 6 months. Some earlier, very very few later.

As said before: The figure for any breastfeeding at 6 months is 34%.

It's tiresome because the 1% figure gets trotted out by certain activists as though to prove that we need more support - which I GET. Totally understand the motivation. There does need to be more support. But it's dishonest to use misleading figures, and I don't like it.

Very similar experience to skandi and sparkling.

I am very happy to count myself in the 99%.

I had to realise that my mental and physical health was more important than how I fed my baby before I gave up. And given how fragile and guilty (pressure from HCP) I felt at the time, I am bloody proud of myself now.

Can any experienced breastfeeders tell me what this was?

I had excruciating pain deep in one boob after every feed. It lasted for 30-40 minutes from week 3 until I could bear it no longer and gave up (got progressively longer and more painful).

The doctor and HV were unhelpful and suggested thrush (also that I wasn't trying hard enough...) and gave me cream but it didn't help.

Sounds like it could have been vasospasms, does anything in this article sound familiar?

www.lalecheleague.org/nb/nbjulaug99p120.html