To think the breast is best strategy is all wrong

[SheepOrWine]

Just back from the health visitor clinic where I was at in front of an entire wall (no exaggeration) telling me why breast is best. Apparently for one young woman it was the best decision she EVER made. This morning I read about another study which "proves" that breast is best (presumably because the many, many existing studies on this are not enough and they needed another one?) At my NHS antenatal breastfeeding class, more than half of the allocated time was dedicated to the benefits of breastfeeding.

Has anyone ever been persuaded to breastfeed by a poster or a news article? Is there anyone out there who seriously has not yet heard the "breast is best" message? Does the NHS just think women are a bit stupid but if you tell them to do something enough times they will do it?

Wouldn't this money be better spent on helping those women who want to breastfeed to do so successfully? Three months ago I was on a postnatal ward with DD where I received conflicting and often incorrect breastfeeding advice. Every time I buzzed for support a frazzled looking HCA or midwife would come and glance at the latch say "yeah that's fine" and walk off. I asked four times to see the breastfeeding advisor but she never arrived. I was discharged without anyone observing a feed.

8 weeks on I gave up breastfeeding as I just had enough of all the various problems I was having with it and for which I was completely unprepared. Before I had DD the posters were useless as like most women, I already knew I wanted to try to breastfeed. And now, post-breastfeeding, all these posters do is just make me feel guilty. What a waste of money.

I think women who are struggling with breast feeding need to be empowered by hcps to feel legitimately able to give it up. Breast may be best in pure terms if both mother and baby are happy and thriving.

It is not necessarily best when women ate struggling with pain, sore nipples, cracks, infections. Add in paracetamol taken to relieve pain, antibiotics to relieve infection and it's not necessarily best. Especially if it makes the mother cry and not enjoy her baby.

I also wonder if there are women who manage for the first week or so when on cocodamol, etc, for the after effects of birth for whom the breastfeeding pain then ratchets up when the pain relief stops, at about the same time as the midwife visits stop, etc.

I think you'd have to be very careful how you approached "empowering" women to "legitimately" give up breastfeeding. I faced an uphill task with both my babies, due to them being poorly at birth (drips, tube feeding etc). It was a struggle from the moment they were born, and a midwife might have felt it appropriate to suggest I not try to get breastfeeding established. If anyone had tried to empower me to stop breastfeeding I would have been incredibly upset and then probably furious.

Allegra ff isn't lazy. Washing sterilising and making bottles is time consuming, annoying, makes it difficult to go out, it's expensive too. It's not the easy option.

I stopped breastfeeding because it was very painful for me, not just a bit but the pain and squashed nipples you get when the latch is wrong. All the midwives said the latch looked fine though. I do regret stopping now though. I just thought it would be simple because it's the natural thing to do.

I don't think women should be empowered to stop breastfeeding though. From my point of view I wish I'd had someone pressuring me more to carry on but everyone is different.

Yes, I see that but I struggled through infective mastitis and thrush of the inner breast and had a weight gaining baby. I desperately needed an hcp to say that it would be ok and understandable to switch to formula. They just said we can't help with that because breast is best. The guilt was enormous and the misery of it tipped me into pnd.

I think the breast I best mantra needs to be moderated. It is best for some women and babies; it isn't for others. The struggling others sometimes need their choices legitimised by the "experts".

I do think as someone said women are ridiculed for breastfeeding older babies and there is still a culture of hiding it away.

This may depend on where you live but here not many people seem to breastfeed, only one person at baby group was breastfeeding. There's no one to talk to about it because most people are bottle feeding.

Croaking cross post, I can understand that.

I've got to say both mine had formula fairly early on and are a picture of health!

Different strategies work for different people though. At the six week check, my GP told me to give up if I wanted to, my mental health was more important.

She meant well. And actually it made me more determined to carry on. and I think it was good for my mental health in the long run.

It seems obvious to me that there's a 6-10 week window of bf establishment. It's tough to get through, but once 10 weeks are done, these mothers are likely to stick the distance. If the NHS could acknowledge this and be honest about if, it would be a good starting point. Putting strategies in place to deal with it is the next step.

croaking, I had twins 3 weeks ago. In the hospital I was in, at least, the message does seem to have been modified. It was not 'breast is best' it was 'breast is best, but we will support you however you decide to feed'. It was such a better, less stressful way of dealing with it compared to the guilt tripping and pushing which was prevalent when I had my son in 2012.

I could be wrong but I think with twins and multiples they don't push breastfeeding quite so much.

Congratulations BillSykes. Pleased too to hear about more openmindedness.

Haven't rtft as it's so long now but agree that the NHS approach of horrendous pressure and no support is awful.

My little rant...

I had a grim start to BF with DD. Thankfully all of my family breastfed their babies (mum, aunties, MIL, DH's aunties) as well as some v close friends so I had good and honest support there. By honest I mean acknowledging that the NORM is for things to be bloody painful. I was in agony until about 8 weeks. I threw up from pain. I had to have DH hold me still to feed DD as I was sobbing so hard I was shaking and she couldn't latch. Every woman I know who has BF has had pain, bar one. One! Out of at least...50, probably more? Why is there no honesty surrounding this from the NHS?

I don't really understand why women can't be provided with an honest and full picture of BF and FF and left to make up their own minds. In general BF'ing will be the better choice for most infants so most women will make this choice but will be better informed and prepared. And if they decide that actually in their own particular circumstances that FF will be best for their child, that's fine too.

I would also say it is so painfully obvious that most midwives and hvs have had fuck all training re breastfeeding. When I was having problems I was told variously that the latch was fine so I couldn't actually be in that much pain, and that it was ok 'just to give up' (phrased like that, how is that helpful?!). I was also told that using nipple shields would dry up my milk and so if I wasn't willing to go without there was little point continuing at all. So basically I was told I was a liar or a wimp, or that there was no helping me, or even that I shouldn't even bother to try to help myself. WTF!

Anyway, shields worked, I gave them up once the weather got warmer (I have raynauds) and I'm still EBfeeding DD at nearly 6 months...oh but she will not take a bottle and I've had to delay return to work. She did take a bottle of ebm grand up until at 4 weeks a midwife told me stop until 7 weeks lest she get nipple confusion and I jeopardise our chances even more than I already had, with my wimpiness and my shields. . Thanks for that! Another aspect of BF where the NHS lies, befuddles and misleads.

I was told by a midwife that I must be doing it wrong because it hurt like hell in the early days. I thought really? It wasn't until I read up more information myself that it does hurt and it is normal. The pain went away after about a week.

It didn't help that I had pretty much zero help after delivery. I was left alone for over 4 hours until DP went and got someone.

There are also a lot of horror stories thrown out from certain types of bfeeders which I'm sure freak people out and push them towards formula. I was on a popular bfeeding Facebook group and if someone posted because, say, their 12 month old was waking every half hour for a feed, instead of advice that might actually help them, they would get people saying "oh that's totally normal for BF babies, she needs the extra nutrition/comfort". If I'd seen advice like that in the early days and didn't know better I'd have thought fuck that for a laugh, I'm not setting myself up for that shit!

My 6 month old was a good sleeper and is now a shite one but I am slowly weaning him off some night feeds and his sleep has really improved by me following certain techniques which aren't fecking co sleeping or feeding lying down (both of which I hate and so does he).

I think there is a lot of rhetoric surrounding bfeeding which implies you're basically sacrificing your sleep, your relationship and any chance of time to yourself for however long you do it for, all for the good of your baby. I mean if you do things like co sleep and don't want to express to give a bottle and that works for you then that's absolutely great. But it's not the only way. It's perfectly possible to breastfeed a baby, help them to sleep well, have someone else feed them and get some time to yourself. There's really no massive difference between it and ff in that respect.

My MIL was amazing. My mum passed away a year and half ago so she was my rock in the early days. She was the one that helped me through breastfeeding more than anyone else. So the support was there, unfortunately not so much with the nhs.

I was guilt-tripped by my first health visitor about this. She told me that EVERYONE produces ample breast milk and I believed her. I persevered and my baby failed to thrive. My doctor advised me to comp feed with formula and I did this for a couple of months, I was exhausted and guilty, but she did very well, and then I had no milk at all. When I had my twins, a different health visitor looked at my boobs and asked questions about breast growth during pregnancy (none) engorgement (none) feelings of let-down (none) and pointed out that my boobs were the wrong shape for someone who's just had a baby, let alone two of them. She organized an ultrasound that showed that I had three milk ducts in one and four in the other - average is between 24 and 32. Apparently missing milk ducts is quite common for women whose mothers smoked while pregnant. (So yeah - I have something else to blame my mother for...) She told me to quite while I was ahead and I did, had happy, healthy babies (who slept!!!) and now they are happy, healthy ten year olds. The breast is best advice is great, but the guilt trips and misinformation is dangerous.

There are also a lot of horror stories thrown out from certain types of bfeeders

Who are "certain types of feeders" throwing out "horror stories"?

Do you mean mothers talking about their experiences?

lass

Read my post. I explained quite clearly what I meant.

I mean the ones who tell you it is all no sleep no life and seem proud of this.

It certainly doesn't have to be that way.

Just to clarify I'm not talking about women who have had difficult experiences bfeeding and who talk about that, I'm talking about the ones who say that it's normal for bfed babies to be crappy sleepers for instance.

Oh thank you for giving permission to speak.

Bf was the most depressing, soul-destroying experience of my life.

It is 'normal' for babies to be crappy sleepers.

But some are crappier than others. I wouldn't say waking every half hour as Maybe explicitly referred to.

www.swansea.ac.uk/humanandhealthsciences/news-and-events/latest-research/sleeplessnightsnewresearchfindsbabiesshouldwakeatnight.php

The findings firstly showed that 78% of babies at this age still regularly woke at least once in the night with 61% having at least one milk feed during the night.

Er, exactly. Once a night. Not every half hour.

And the whole breastfed babies wake more than formula babies thing seems to be emerging as a myth too according to current research.

How you deal with frequent waking is a parenting issue not a breastfeeding issue. Yes breastfeeding mums tend to feed more at night because for many it's an easy way to resettle. But that doesn't mean cause and effect should be mixed up the way it so frequently is.

Well then you're agreeing with maybe who said waking every half hour was not normal?