To ask what people did before formula?

[Annabelleinapickle]

There's always a BF/FF debate but genuinely what did we do before formula existed? It worked fine then, people produced milk? Personally I think it's all the devices, unhealthy crap invented that has made our bodies less able.

The problem in the UK is hectoring and bullying by mws and hv s with targets on breastfeeding to meet. But no idea how to support you if you are struggling.

It is also very difficult to express pro breastfeeding sentiments as you get jumped on by people who take it very personally. Just look at the reaction to Jamie Oliver - although I admit what he actually said was rather daft but the message behind it was sound (re: promoting BF).

There is an old wives tale that red haired women can't breastfeed. I'm red haired and very pale: my nipples were shredded within a couple of days. I only persevered thanks to nipple shields and seemed to toughen up after a few months. I have scarred nipples to this day though.

Nanny goats (hence the name) if you couldn't afford a wet nurse but it seems that, even amongst the poor, with no contraception, the women were often lactating and would help each other out.

Jamie Oliver got the reaction he did because he effectively belittled a lot of women. Not because he is pro or anti breastfeeding imho.

Apologies if this has already been posted (admit I haven't read whole thread).
In our family there are reliable stories of 2 great uncles (babies in late 1800s) being given clear beef stock, like consommé.
They survived to adulthood (died in wars I believe) but milk intolerance runs through our family ... no pun intended

About 95% of more of women are capable of breastfeeding. This probably hasn't really changed in the last few hundred years. At a certain point various people (health professionals, commercial interests etc.) started promoting infant milks and encouraging women to believe that they weren't capable of feeding their babies or that artificial substitutes were superior. To some extent the tide has turned but there is still a general ignorance of the risks of artificial feeding. In the meantime it has become increasingly less common and so women don't have real-life examples to turn to when they do need support or advice. Their mothers and grandmothers may not have breastfed, their friends probably haven't and HVs, midwives and GPs are often ill-educated on normal infant behaviour/sleep and how to recognise a poor latch, tongue tie etc. So although women are physically capable of producing milk they are not necessarily getting the right support and information to actually acheive that vital transfer of milk from mother to child. We know from examples like Norway that if women are given the right support and time to breastfeed and the marketing of substitutes is curtailed, breastfeeding rates will soar. So going back to the original question, very few women actually couldn't feed their own child before infant formula existed. Those that couldn't would have got a friend or family member to wet nurse (it wasn't just for the wealthy) and if the mother dies the same would happen. Children didn't suffer from malnutrition until they were weaned. Yes, infant mortality was higher but that was largely due to disease and post-weaning. If anything, breastfeeding probably saved many due to the immunological benefits and the mothers were probably also healthier because their births were spaced etc.

I once had a really ancient baby care book (I think it had belonged to a great-granny and I'm a granny now) that gave a 'formula' of something like cow's milk (full cream) diluted 50% with some sugar added.

Children didn't suffer from malnutrition until they were weaned

I'm not entirely convinced by this, anecdotally I have two friends who were desperately keen to breastfeed and, despite getting excellent advice, had real problems with supply. Both continued until their babies were on the brink of hospitalisation for weight loss. Both were very fit athletic women with very very low levels of body fat. I'm convinced it was a factor.

When I have fed my children (each for a year or so),it has resulted in me gradually becoming slimmer and slimmer, despite scoffing as much as I could.

I'm sure women who were malnourished would have really struggled to breastfeed.

Re pressure to breastfeed, lack of understanding of the difficulties, etc., there was a R4 prog not long ago on this, where someone referred to the 'Breastapo'. Grimly true in some cases I think. Professionals can be very evangelical about it, much as they can be about natural childbirth, though I'd better not get started on that.
Personally I had no trouble at all feeding my two - at least for about 5 months, after which I just didn't have enough milk no matter how often I fed them. But I do think I was very lucky at the newborn stages.

I had a mw who had had a wonderfully easy time with all three. She breezed into my home, was dismissive of my difficulties and breezed out. And another who threw a "sterilising bottles" leaflet at me saying "I'm not supposed to discuss this with you". And more examples to go with that pair. Lovely. Real angels.

DH was adopted and fed on cows milk, essentially, from 6 weeks old, in the early 70s.

One of the only solutions available and was used, was to milk sheep, it's not hard to milk sheep anyone involved with lambing does, goats milk was also used, but it was well known that sheep's milk worked and sheep's colostrum is easy to get hold of and you can get quite a bit quickly.

I have a friend who is in her early twenties and was brought up in a former soviet country. She's the last of 7 children and her Mum wasn't well enough to feed her so her older siblings used to take her round the village to different women to be fed. She refers to them as her milk mums!

Most babies who died from a lack of breastfeeding prior to the invention of formula did so because of they had congenital abnormalities that made breastfeeding impossible, or because their mothers had died in childbirth, or because their mothers were in severely poor health and unable to produce milk.

Widespread lactation failure among healthy, well nourished mothers is a modern phenomena which exists only in countries where formula is affordable and widely available.

Minifingerz - so we ARE failures and cosseted lazy arses. Thanks for clearing that up.

Oh, and there have always been cultural practices which have buggered up breastfeeding - separating mothers and babies, tight swaddling, pre-lacteal feeds...

It is also very difficult to express pro breastfeeding sentiments as you get jumped on by people who take it very personally. Just look at the reaction to Jamie Oliver - although I admit what he actually said was rather daft but the message behind it was sound (re: promoting BF)

Well of course, few of us would argue with the message but if the message is delivered in a way that is smug and preachy and narrow minded and totally lacking in empathy with mothers who have really struggled then women will take it very personally. It cuts to the very quick to be told that you, as a mother, are not doing the very best for your child by failing, indeed by neglecting to do such a basic, simple, common sense, natural thing that is 'easy.'

Except that for many, many women it isn't fucking easy and it can drive them to despair and PND trying and failing to do this simple, easy thing that everyone talks about that they are failing spectacularly at.

I like JO and usually stick up for him, but he really should have stayed out of that one imho. It's bad enough being told by other women that it's easy, but being told by a man? Fuck off.

^Most babies who died from a lack of breastfeeding prior to the invention of formula did so because of they had congenital abnormalities that made breastfeeding impossible, or because their mothers had died in childbirth, or because their mothers were in severely poor health and unable to produce milk.

Widespread lactation failure among healthy, well nourished mothers is a modern phenomena which exists only in countries where formula is affordable and widely available.^

Could it be that, where people who couldn't lactate and feed their babies would have died, eventually (both the babies who may have carried this on a genetic level and the mothers because tons of women used to die in childbirth at some point)?

So lots of people now live who otherwise wouldn't have, and genuinely can't feed their babies, rather than formula being available making people 'lazy'?

What do you suggest, mini, a programme of eugenics to correct this?

About 95% of more of women are capable of breastfeeding.

What constitutes capable? Milk production?

There are many reasons why a woman may not feel, or be capable. Milk production is just one of them. If you don't give a shit about her pain threshold, her bleeding, lacerated, ulcerated tits, her mastitis, her MH, her lack of sleep, her shredded nerves and lack of confidence in her skills as a mother when faced with a baby who is not gaining weight at the expected rate, or settling easily after long feeds, if you don't give a shit about her emotional wellbeing, then yes, I'm sure she's quite 'capable.'

What Tippy said. With bells, knows and whistles on. Being treated as a failure for as a parent when you are barely out of post childbirth fug is not great.

Also I hear that before we were bipeds, childbirth was a lot easier too. Bloody uppity women, standing on their own two feet.

Obviously Knobs not knows.

I had my DC1 in 1974, and EBF for 6 weeks - then I got mastitis in one breast, which pretty well ceased production My MW (who was just wonderful) advised me to supplement with Carnation evaporated milk - at that time, this was standard food, and was used to feed prem babies at our local maternity hospital. The mixing amounts (you mixed it with cooled boiled water) were printed on the label of the tin, and it was - of course - easy to buy, transport and store. DC1 thrived on this, and is fine to this day
Three years later, when I had my second DC, I EBF for 10 months with no trouble - but always kept a tin of Carnation in stock (just in case). By this time, the mixing instructions had moved to the back of the label - so they were not so obvious - and a year or two later, they'd vanished altogether, and formula as we know it today had completely taken over...

He wasn't promoting bf.
He was being a goady ill informed fucker