formula

[Emma2506]

Ok so I don't want to turn this into a whole ff vs bf war but I find it highly offensive to ff mums who can't collect advantage points/clubcard points, shops aren't allowed to have any offers on etc for formula. I understand it's the LAW but why is it acceptable to have deals on alcohol yet ff mums are penalised for choosing to ff or not being able physically able to bf? I know the excuse is shops promote breast feeding but I'm struggling to get my head around why a bf mum would buy formula just because it's on offer if she is doing well bf and it's FREE!

I think the NHS need to acknowledge that there's a lot wrong with their breastfeeding 'support'.

Lots of effort (and money spent) into establishing breast feeding as the 'right' choice.

Very little effort and resources put into actual practical support. And that includes midwives with wildly varying levels of knowledge, lack of funding for breast feeding services, no interest in prioritization of diagnoses/treatment of tongue tie, complete indifference across the medical profession as a whole (my GP at the 6 week check informed me brightly that she didn't have 'the first clue' about breastfeeding), no interest in managing mothers expectations around the difficulties they will encounter.

They are setting mothers up to fail. And I'm sure that has an impact on the high incidence of PND amongst mothers who want to breastfeed but don't manage it.

I say all that as someone who breastfed for 11 months and loved it. Thankfully, I had access to excellent private help.

The promotion of breastfeeding that I have seen so far (I'm 16 weeks into my second pregnancy) includes posters promoting it in the waiting rooms of the antenatal clinic (these are the same posters as last time I was there, 3.5 years ago, exactly the same ones), plus leaflets handed out with my maternity notes, and a sticker on my maternity notes advertising a breastfeeding workshop that I can attend if I want.

The leaflets will cost a certain amount to produce, and I imagine the cost of the breastfeeding workshop is not small, for all the women who might want to go to it. The initial cost of the posters should be included, although they obviously don't replace them often so the yearly cost will be quite small. So I am wondering which of these things should not happen so that the money can be spent on supporting women post natally with breastfeeding? Do people object to the posters and leaflets?

Culture no, I do object to a leaflet on baby feeding that's 9 pages about bf and one tiny two line section about ff. I'd have to look at a breakdown of what money is spent on but clearly it isn't working!

"The fact that most women start bf and stop tells me it's extremely difficult and there's not enough support"

All women have access to free support through the NHS.

That your age, your education and your ethnicity appear to have vastly more influence on the likelihood of you continuing breastfeeding than any individual physical or emotional factors speaks volumes about the impact that culture has on breastfeeding rates in the UK.

Formula feeding is the normal way to feed babies in the UK. Most people formula feed. We have massive, pretty much uncontrolled and pervasive formula promotion across broadcast and print media. Breastfeeding is largely invisible outside of the NHS (and even in the NHS you don't see much of it).

You can watch an entire SERIES of OBEM which is filmed in a maternity unit and is full of mothers and newborns, and scarcely see any babies at the breast. That tells you something doesn't it?

Scoop up a big handful of baby magazines and flip through, looking for normal images of breastfeeding. You may find 1 or 2, or maybe none. You will however, find literally dozens of full page ads for formula and bottle feeding equipment.

That's why we have such poor rates of breastfeeding in the UK. It's a cultural thing. Many women are not strongly motivated to continue breastfeeding through difficulties because they are more comfortable and familiar with bottlefeeding.

Support has improved (it's not great, but it's a damn sight better than it was 10 years ago) and yet breastfeeding continuation rates haven't really. Not at all. Despite the increase in initiation rates. Promotion seems to be having some effect, but support - even though it's improved, it doesn't seem to be keeping women breastfeeding.

Go figure.

Spot on TheCats - spent this morning having yet another x-ray for yet another suspected dislocation (and a break this time too, lucky me ). Oh how I wish breast milk would have helped!

mini I said support, not treatment. It'd be great if more money was spent on supporting people who want to lose weight and are struggling, to exercise. In my area, I know of people who've gotten onto dietician and exercise-by-invitation programs quite easily, so they're managing it there.

Same for smoking. Plenty of people in my area getting lots of practical support to quit as well as leaflets and posters.

So why is it that breastfeeding support is vanishingly rare, but the posters and leaflets are everywhere? And so I assume from the tone of your post that you disagree - that breastfeeding support isn't needed, just a few more posters will make women magically overcome latch issues, inverted nipples, supply problems etc?

"I'd have to look at a breakdown of what money is spent on but clearly it isn't working!"

Breastfeeding initiation rates have gone up.

Promotion of breastfeeding is encouraging more women to start breastfeeding.

Ovaries it's a pain isn't it. It's only now they're starting to realise why I've had so many injuries all my life. Even now I'm still getting fobbed off. With EDS it's little things that on their own don't look like much but together

I completely agree about support, the NHS spends a lot on telling people they're crap for ff, smoking, being overweight etc but very little on actually helping people address it...

mini but at 3 months most have stopped. Beginning in hospital doesn't mean anything if they quickly give up. It suggests that

A) they didn't want to bf in the first place and felt pressured

B) they wanted to bf but encountered difficulties

"So why is it that breastfeeding support is vanishingly rare"

It's not.

Hospital wards have lactation consultants and breastfeeding counsellors working on them.

There are 3 breastfeeding helplines which are open 7 days a week. One is 24 hours. There is a national breastfeeding helpline.

In my area there is a breastfeeding clinic on every single day of the week somewhere in the borough. There are breastfeeding clinics running weekly in every single area of the UK.

There are peer supporter schemes.

There are breastfeeding cafes.

Hospitals have regular breastfeeding clinics.

The NHS runs breastfeeding education classes. They are often poorly attended.

There is support.

There are 3 breastfeeding helplines which are open 7 days a week. One is 24 hours. There is a national breastfeeding helpline.

I've rang that number, never got through to anyone and it just kept cutting out.

I think that a lot of that support is not communicated to new mothers at the right time, and when you need help and support you have to try and find out information about all those things on your own via the Internet. No suprise that lots of people don't find the help they need.

It would be helpful if all of that could be really clearly summarised on 1 page in all the bumph you get given as part of the maternity notes pack.

Why do you object to that Cats?

Breastfeeding is natural, but no, that doesn't always mean it's easy. It's a skill that you learn, like most things.

Pregnancy is natural, but that's sure as hell not easy. But the thing is, its not forever.

A baby will go through a growth spurt on average every 2-4 weeks in the early few weeks. Typically at 3 days and 3 weeks in the start, which incidentally are when most women think they're not giving the baby enough, and start giving formula.
Cluster feeding in growth spurts can mean the baby feeds a lot - but only for a couple of days or so, and often mainly in the evenings. It passes, and it's a very short time in your life to be slightly inconvenienced.

When I had DC1, only one midwife mentioned in passing to me about this. No one else, and no literature did. I was lucky that I had friends who had breastfed to tell me 'it's normal, just keep feeding.' 36 hours later, back to every 3-4 hours. But so many women give up when cluster feeding starts, just because of lack of education.

I 100% agree that there needs to be more support for women who want to breastfeed, but I don't believe that this should come at the expense of trying to educate people about the benefits of breastfeeding.

Yes, some women dearly want to breastfeed but give up. But many, many more women actively choose to FF because they believe that it will be easier, they will get more sleep, and that its just as good as breastfeeding, and it is THIS which needs to change.

You say that there is free support available through the NHS but with my first I didn't get any support even though I asked for it. Midwives huffed and tutted at me on the wards and once home these was zero support at all.

It was better with my second marginally. I had a different midwife visit every day for 7 days. They all had different advice. They all said he latch was fine from what they could see but I had no skin left on my nipples. One suggested nipple shields, another said to avoid nipple shields. One just said she didn't bother bf her own dc.

That's not to say it's the NHS fault but consistent support would have been better.

The leaflets don't prepare you for the horrors of bleeding nipples, maybe they don't want to put women off

Ovaries - totally agree. I was lucky enough to BF successfully, which was a mixture of DS seeming to know what to do and good support both in the hospital and in a free antenatal course I took. I was lucky as I certainly didn't try any harder (in fact the opposite) than my friends who wanted to BF but couldn't for varying reasons. All women deserve this support, not just ones lucky enough to give birth in a hospital with good support like I did. With the NHS being in the state it is I agree that maybe the multiple leaflets I was sent home with extolling the benefits of BF could be cut to one to help fund that practical support.

Cats - it's bloody exhausting isn't it? I've been dairy free for the past few weeks, which has helped DS a bit but his reflux is really bad again at the moment. Feels like my every waking moment (and there's a lot of them!) is spent trying to work out what might make him better. It's getting really boring! Hope things pick up with your baby

they didn't want to bf in the first place and felt pressured

This is what needs to change. Why wouldn't women want to?

minifingers everything you're saying about FF being culturally normal and heavily promoted is spot on.

Prior to having my DS I had spent 5 years in a professional role that included supporting new moms with breastfeeding so I naively thought I would be a natural expert at actually doing it - how wrong I was.

For some women BF can be very, very hard and sometimes it isn't possible or practical to just soldier on.

My first 8 weeks of BF were horrendous, I was in a very bad place at times, and if there is ever a DC2 I absolutely don't think I could persevere on in the same way I chose to last time because next time I would have DS to look after too.

Well I have never heard of any of those things, the only support I had was midwives.

I could have prepared more before the birth but I just believed it would happen naturally.

All my older relative who bf did 4 hour schedules.

OhShutUpThomas because if you plan to ff there's no support or info, and you should have both presented to you. I object to it being pushed. Normalised and supported yes, not pushed.

sand have you got anything for the reflux? I've got omeprazol which helps. It's really hard having an allergy child, and I hope yours gets better soon! Are you weaning yet? Weaning is supposed to improve it but it hasn't made a difference here

"they didn't want to bf in the first place"

Yes - as I have said, bottlefeeding is the cultural norm. No wonder women don't want to breastfeed. It's not something they are familiar with in their day to day life. They don't see it around them, they don't have confidence in it, and they have been bought up in a highly sexualised culture where breasts are fetishised and that adds to the feelings of discomfort around breastfeeding.

"and felt pressured" - yes, when a health professional explains to you (as they are required to do - it's part of their job) that breastfeeding your baby will reduce the risk of them contracting a very wide range of serious and minor illnesses you ARE going to feel a sense of pressure to do it, but that pressure is really coming from within.

It's normal for parents to want to make the healthiest and safest choices for their children when it comes to nutrition. It's obviously emotionally taxing if this feeling conflicts with the urge to feed your baby in a way you feel emotionally and culturally comfortable and familiar with.

The net result of this is to engender some guilt and the feeling of being pressured. But it's not the health professional's fault - it's their job to give you information and that's ALL they're doing: passing on important information so you can make an informed choice.

Obviously the timing of this information giving is important. A weeping ew mum on the postnatal ward who's struggling to know what to do shouldn't be subject to a lecture. But to be given this information at another time, when you're able to discuss it and understand it? Why not? It's their job.

"B) they wanted to bf but encountered difficulties"

Yes - and depending on your age, your motivation to breastfeed, your ethnicity, your education, you are more or less likely to overcome these difficulties.

OhShutUpThomas that's what I disagree with, it's perfectly okay to not want to breastfeed.

Maybe she doesn't want to do all the feeds herself, maybe she wants her body back, maybe she doesn't like the idea of it, maybe she thinks it'll be too tiring, maybe she has done both before and preferred ff, maybe she wants to go back to work, maybe she has other children to look after

I went into it neutral. I wasn't in love with the idea of bf but I wasn't against it, I thought that I would try it and see.

FF is definitely culturally the default.

Why do dolls come with bottles?

FF seems easy to understand, it's made and measured. Sterilisers and bottles are everywhere. Dad can join in with the feeds, the baby will sleep better. It's all a lie. You're stuffed if your poor baby has a cows milk intolerance and you can't just revert back.

"Normalised and supported yes, not pushed"

A mother who wants to breastfeed and is highly motivated would see the midwife who sits her down during an antenatal breastfeeding appointment and goes through all of the evidence on the benefits of breastfeeding - something that would take 20 minutes to half an hour to go through fully and explain - as doing a really great job. She would go away feeling really well informed about the benefits of breastfeeding.

A mum who is really ambivalent about breastfeeding might hear the same information and experience it as 'pressure' and 'bullying'.

It doesn't change the fact that it's the midwife's JOB to make sure that mothers have really full information about what the medical literature has to say about feeding choices in language she can understand.

It's not 'pressurising' and 'pushing' to give women a full understanding of the benefits of breastfeeding.

mini but someone not wanting to, whatever you think of their reason, is perfectly okay. I'm not on about them presenting the facts, that's fine. I'm on about repeatedly trying to change the minds of people who don't want to bf and refusing to support those who don't want to.

Breasts being sexualised had no impact on feeding method for me I've always been quite clear what they're for and I tell my eldest the same.

mini giving the facts is fine, what isn't fine is when someone says that they don't want to bf and they keep doing it.