To feel so awful that my newborn is going to have to have formula

[Givinguph0pe]

Dd was born by c section six weeks early and I wanted to breast feed. However a stay in hospital and the fact I was so stressed about how much milk she was having meant that I swapped to expressing and bottle feeding fairly quickly.
However because I've been so stressed and hardly eating anything (now weigh a stone and a half less than I did pre pregnancy) means that although I'm expressing every three hours I'm not making enough milk for her and she's eating more.

The thought of putting her on formula breaks my heart. I know a lot of babies are ill with you first switch them over and I can't stand the thought of her being ill again. Also I wanted her to have the antibodies from my milk as her immune system must still be vulnerable. She's not quite three weeks old. I have some milk frozen to last maybe another week and then that's it. She will have to have some formula and it will be something else I've let her down on.

The formula smells disgusting too. I keep imagining her little face when she tastes it and realises it isn't breast milk. How do any of them drink it?

Aibu to be so upset about this?

[MyFavouriteClintonisGeorge]

go look at all the horrible things formula does to a baby

Oh yes, do. Especially, go and look at practically 70% of every British-born adult between the ages of 35 and 50, who was fed on the evil formula and see their horrid, misshapen bodies and stunted brai...oh, wait!

This part is very, very hard. I know, I went through something very similar when DS was born. And I went through enormous efforts to try and continue breast-feeding. In the end I did stop, when family members expressed concern about me. And you know what? He's fine. Better than fine, he is a stunningly handsome, strong, healthy genius boy (I'm biased, but the genius part is actually true). In the same way that I am my siblings are fine and healthy, and were formula fed.

I did manage to breast-feed DD, because I got an appointment with a breast-feeding consultant right away and she saw me a few times until I got it going. And because DD was a gentle, efficient feeder unlike her T-Rex brother who actually seemed to be part-Masai, so much did he want my blood mixed in with the milk.

Hang on to this thought above all else-your baby will be ok however she is fed. And you most certainly are not failing. You seem to me to be fighting pretty hard to get things right for your daughter. Remember that one rarely feels like a good parent, and feels it least of all at the times one is probably being most hard-working and selfless.

[manamanah]

What an awful example of humanity shaylahahn94 is. Luckily when you're researching all those awful things formula does you can also research the rule that states all advice from a woman who can't spell guarantee is instantly null and void. You're trying to do the best for your baby OP and that's what makes you a good mum. Make sure you have some support, and go easy on yourself. I suspect very few of us anticipate the difficult bits. x

[bumbleymummy]

Sadie, your post had a lot of lovely things in it but I did want to just say that what your pharmacist friend told you isn't true. I'm sure she was trying to reassure you and that's great but I think we can reassure people that formula is an ok way to feed a baby without undermining breast milk and the struggles people may go through to establish and continue breastfeeding by saying there's hardly any difference.

[PacificDogwod]

GivingUp, big hugs to you - you are doing The Hardest Job On Earth and reading your most recent post, I have far more concerns for you than for your DD.

You are the centre of your baby's universe and you are the only mother she needs and loves.
The fact you are so upset about this shows that you love her; that is without a doubt the most obvious thing from your posts.

However - you have lost all sense of proportion. Have you spoken to anybody else about just how strongly you are feeling about failure your DD and how severely down you are about yourself? Please seek some RL help - you are not alone, you will not forever feel like this and it does not have to be this hard.

Are you managing to eat? Sleep? Are you enjoying your baby?
Please don't forget to look after yourself in the midst of all this

[NicoleCrappleton]

I often think that if minifingerz didn't exist, formula companies would've found it necessary to invent her.

[BeaufortBelle]

How are you OP? Many of us care about you and are worrying about you.

[Pyjamaramadrama]

Yes how's it going? How did the midwife visit go.

[minifingerz]

nicole

Eh?

[SauvignonPlonker]

Hope you are ok, OP

[CampariSpritz]

I had to switch to formula only at 6 weeks (I just couldn't produce enough to feed DD). At the time, I felt sad as breast feeding was a bonding experience and we are constantly told that breast is best. However, at nearly 14 months, DD is absolutely thriving. She has gone from 9th percentile to 50th percentile and is beautiful, alert and bouncing.

I feel quite angry at the politicisation of breast/formula feeding. The health visitors and community midwives can be so insistent on breast feeding, but I am not sure it is necessary. One of our NCT cohort started off on exactly the same weight as DD and was exclusively breast fed up to one year, but has stayed at 9th percentile. She has also been in hospital several times. So it really doesn't always follow that breast is best.

[Focusfocus]

Campar you've got the percentile issue wrong I'm afraid. It is not like grades/marks on a test. So 98th centile isn't better than say 75th. 50th isn't better than 9th.

Usually children are expected to gain weight along their own centile lines. If they jump in either direction upwards or downwards too suddenly it's flagged up. So a child born on 25th centile who gains weight along the 25th is doing exactly what is expected of that child's growth no more no less.

Jumping up to another couple of centiles is usually not the norm. So your friend's baby is actually doing very well - she has made steady progress along her natural position on the charts. Which is precisely what HCPs are looking for.

Secondly - weight gain - it is clearly established that breastfed babies weight less than formula fed babies at the end of the first year. This is because they consume less. And it's impossible to get a BF baby to finish the feed because there is no measurable feed

Third weight gain is only one of several indicators of well being. No HCP looking at two babies will ever conclude that the baby that has jumped weight centiles is by default doing better than the baby making steady progress along their own centile. If that's what you've co clouded I'm afraid it's wrong.

As far as breastfeeding being politicised to what end? For whose benefit? The real politics of Infant feeding rest in e hands of massive international formula makers who distribute sachets of samples to poor women in my home country in the early days of motherhood who then use them till their own supply dries up and then realise they must feed formula when they cannot afford clean water or gas. That's the politics of infant feeding.

None of this is relevant to the op. Op you have done your very best, formula is a fantastic and safe alternative to breastmilk and your baby will do fine on it. It is important that we find ways of reassuring formula feeding mums that are factually correct and not misrepresenting wrong things about other methods of feeding.

[BeaufortBelle]

I did have a health visitor who told me very authoritatively that the 50th centile was the average though . It isn't surprising that women don't properly understand the growth charts when supposedly highly trained experts don't. That's when I stopped paying any attention to mine. She also told me that breast feeding mothers put their babies first and bottle feeding mothers put themselves first! Pushed me into PND that did. I hoped support for new mothers might have improved.

[Focusfocus]

Yes unfortunately understanding charts is often poor with hvs

The charts basically say - if you lined up 100 healthy babies (the one on 1st centile is healthy and the only on 99th is healthy) then the baby on 7th is as healthy and normally growing g as a baby on 82nd. One bigger one smaller. Bigger size does not equal healthier baby. Smaller size does not equal unhealthy baby.

Excessive dropping/jumping of lines too quickly is the concern not a baby's innate position!

[bumbleymummy]

Hope you're feeling ok today giving.

Good posts Focusfocus

[BertieBotts]

Some of the posts on this thread are bonkers. Sorry you've been exposed to so much crazy.

Is it worth starting a new support thread over on Infant Feeding so that people won't come barging in with their unwelcome opinions not having bothered to read the thread?



Here are the numbers for the breastfeeding helplines in the UK:

0300 100 0212 - 9.30am - 9.30pm 7 days a week. Run by Association of Breastfeeding Mothers and the Breastfeeding Network.

0300 330 0700 - 8am-10pm 7 days - NCT Breastfeeding helpline. If they have BFCs in your area they MIGHT be able to send someone to you.

0845 120 2918 - 24 hours, 7 days, but goes straight to volunteers' home phones, so be aware (I once called and the husband answered!) - La Leche League helpline.

[BeaufortBelle]

This makes me think that there needs to beva support line or charity for formula feeding mums. I still feel the demonisation of being unable to breast feed 21 years ago. 21 years to the day I think the big problems started. That I should remember it. It was a freezing cold day, the baby was in his blue blanket, my breasts ached so much I could barely move between feeds, the hv told me to phone the nct not her because she wasn't an expert. Could tell me I had to do it though! I remember feeling so cold and a little crack on my heel bleeding in sympathy with my nipples.

[minifingerz]

"This makes me think that there needs to beva support line or charity for formula feeding mums"

All of the formula companies have helplines staffed by health professionals.

If feeding issues are causing PND then mums need help with PND through their HV or GP or through one of the charities like PANDA's foundation.

The vast majority of women in the UK are formula feeding, and doing so out of choice. Formula feeders are not an oppressed minority.

The point of breastfeeding support lines is to help women who are having difficulties with breastfeeding and are at risk of stopping before they wish to. This is not an issue for women who want to formula feed. There is not the same need for specific support with feeding.

[minifingerz]

More - do you think it's anyone's job to tell a mother how she should feed her baby if there is the possibility of her being able to sustain her child either way?

It's not. It is her decision and hers alone to make.

[BeaufortBelle]

Sometimes mini the mother needs to be facilitated to make that decision because she is unwell and doesn't have the ability to do it on her own or has been so guilt ridden by hcps who spout mantra that she feels she can't,make it. I was a 30 something successful business woman with DS1, very articulate, had every asset and privilege. I couldn't do it on my own - I even ignored the breast surgeon who drained my breast abscess because midwives were expert and women.

If you can't understand that breadt feeding has never made you clinically and mentally ill and therefore you are unqualified to comment from the perspective of your own experience.

[minifingerz]

"Sometimes mini the mother needs to be facilitated to make that decision because she is unwell"

What about those depressed mothers who are struggling with breastfeeding who ignore advice to stop, continue to breastfeed, resolve their difficulties, and are profoundly grateful that they continued? There are many women like that.

There are also many women who stop breastfeeding on the advice of a HP who realise with the next child or further on down the line that they probably could have resolved their breastfeeding difficulties, and feel deeply distressed at having effectively been pushed into stopping?

How do health professionals make that decision? If a mother says she wants to breastfeed but is finding it incredibly hard and is experiencing PND? Or should they just advise all mothers who are struggling with breastfeeding and difficult emotions to formula feed? Accept that some women will experience this as coercion to bottle feed when what they need is support to continue breastfeed?

I don't think there are any easy answers to this.

I personally feel that it has to be the mum's decision and hers alone. Probably the most helpful thing is to encourage her to own her decisions, to honour the love and care she is showing her baby, that she's not alone, and that when her baby is settled with feeding - however she's feeding life will be much, much happier.

[minifingerz]

Would add - that if a mother is mentally ill then surely she needs expert support and counselling, not just random health professionals she's in short contact with telling her to stop breastfeeding.

[BeaufortBelle]

Or to carry on breastfeeding minifingerz.