to feel bullied over breastfeeding

[user1473451513]

I'm posting a letter I'm sending to my government representatives and was interested to hear others' views on it. I'm in Scotland so no sure how pertinent it is for other parts of the UK or indeed around the world. I want to point out from the offset I am not anti breastfeeding, I am anti bullying.

I write to express my concern, disappointment and upset with regards to a government instigated bullying campaign. This is an issue which has been at the forefront for some time now and causes much angst for all affected. It is the issue of breastfeeding.
I can assure you that I fully understand all the health benefits of breastfeeding, both physical and emotional and there is no doubting that breastfeeding is the healthier option. However, those who do not breastfeed their children are made to feel inferior and I feel that this is a deliberate government policy to create stigma.
When I was pregnant with my son, I was fully intending to breastfeed, I had listened to and read about all the benefits and how it was the best choice for me and my baby. It wasn’t until much later on I realised just how little information I had been given about formula feeding. At the antenatal classes, there was very little discussion around formula feeding and the general information given was something along the lines of ‘make sure your bottles are sterilised’. I also began to realise just how little space in the ‘Ready, Steady, Baby’ book was dedicated to formula feeding versus the wealth of space given over to breastfeeding.
As good as my intentions were, it simply was not to be. I had been trying my absolute best and had completely exhausted myself trying to make it a success. Although I was making every effort to make it work, my son did not take to the breast at all. He got upset and distressed and through this I got upset and distressed. It began to affect my mental health and it was at this point we decided that the best option for us was to switch to formula feeding.
I could not believe it when my health visitor at my six week check demanded to know exactly when I stopped breast feeding – I had to tell her how old my son was when I stopped. To the very day. I was made to feel completely incompetent and was told that I should be getting myself along to the breastfeeding cafes or getting help from the breastfeeding support worker. I did not want this. I wanted to stop breastfeeding but this seemed to be deemed the worst decision ever.
I finally realised today that there is a government ploy to force women into breastfeeding and it was the most innocuous of discussions that made this clear to me. After discussion with a very kind sales assistant in Boots Chemists, I enquired as to why I wasn’t getting Advantage Card points for the baby milk and she told me that it was a government directive to ‘encourage’ women to breastfeed. I don’t feel encouraged to breastfeed – I feel like I am not good enough because I am not breastfeeding my son. I am made to feel that I am missing out and my son is missing out too.
I can assure you my son is healthy, happy and growing well. He gets all the nourishment he needs from his formula milk. I have formed a strong, close bond with him which has developed without breastfeeding.
I know many women feel this way and are victimised for making the correct choices for themselves and their babies. However, it seems that the government wants to tell us what the correct choices are and enforce them upon us. Because of this brainwashing, I find it very difficult to speak out about my feelings as so many people – mums and non-mums alike have been conditioned to believe that breastfeeding is the only way to go and if you’re not exclusively feeding your child yourself then you are the worst mum ever.
In closing, I would like to understand why the government are anti-choice when it comes to the matter of breastfeeding and why mothers who choose not to breastfeed their children are made to feel inadequate. I would like to know why a healthy balance of pros and cons of both formula and breast feeding is absent from any government pregnancy propaganda. I would like to know why I have been made to feel like it would be impossible to speak my mind about the topic and why my free speech is being stifled.
I look forward to reading your response.
Yours sincerely

user1473451513
Proud Formula Feeding Mum

Another one here who was made to feel pressured by an NCT group. I had no family nearby, was in the depths of post natal depression (as a result of being made to feel I'd failed for not being able to bf my baby).
I can laugh about it now, but I've never met a more judgemental, holier than thou, unwelcoming group of bitches in my life. Just when I needed support, they made me feel unwelcome, inadequate and, if possible, more of a failure than I felt already
I didn't find much funny at the time, but I did chuckle at the cat's bum faces when I described ff son's fairly strict routine (which worked for him and me) and at the collective gasp of horror when I produced ds' dummy
I hope it's better these days - this was nearly 25 years ago.
But nct as a support group? If you fit into their cosy, bf, look at us what amazing, supportive, bf martyrs we are model, yeah maybe. If, like me, you were crying out for support but were a ff, dummy using parent, forget it, you are clearly a crap parent unworthy of our attention.
This was my nct experience. I appreciate others have had better experiences.

I agree with slightly I was, and am, too lazy to make up the bottles and just enjoyed sitting and watching tv, spending literally all day feeding dd. Plus it gave me a great excuse not to hand dd over to entitled relatives at will- which I always hated doing.

When I announced that I wanted to try bf to mil, she was dead against it, told me they never get enough milk and dont sleep through til they are 2 years old or some rubbish.

So I breastfed...HARD, anything to prove that awful woman wrong, every day dd continues to bf is another wrinkle added to her perpetual cat bum mouth.

It was totally worth the struggle.

When I was in the middle of my struggles the NCT chair was on tell in full cat's bum face mode saying that "only a very small proportion of women can't BF". I just thought- well no point going to them for help either. Maybe I was wrong but at the time I felt like a lonely failure. Is that what BF support is supposed to be like?

When someone is struggling, possibly in pain, feeling crap and ineffective and finding it hard to get help, it's easy to misinterpret remarks and observations and apply them personally. That's possibly what happened with you, freetrampoline?

Because someone saying - factually - that only a small proportion of women are actually unable to BF (and that with the right help, support and info, many mothers in difficulties can be helped) , is an encouragement.

She might well have sounded a disapproving note - to the myth makers that shrug their shoulders and say if someone wants to BF and hits problems, then there's nothing to be done, just use a bottle and forget you actually chose to breastfeed. It's as if the stats comparing uk BF to (say) Scandinavian BF show there is something fundamentally different between Brit anatomy and our Danish counterparts .

Just to add, freetrampoline, feeding babies - however it's done - is emotional, social, cultural as well as physiological.....feeling a 'lonely failure' is horrible and it shows many women need sensitive one to one help. Groups are not for everyone and can feel scary. NCT has several hundred breastfeeding counsellors who help people one to one. Midwives and health visitors - when they're doing their job properly - help people one to one.

It's unfair (as you acknowledge) to judge a perfectly justifiable campaigning stance (more women could breastfeed, if circumstances changed, because there is nothing physiological to stop most of them) and decide an organisation could not help.

If there's a next time for you, I hope you have a better experience :(

I didn't give two hoots about not bf my daughter, nobody knew what I was doing behind closed doors anyway. In fact none of the mums in my family, who altogether have had 8 babies since 1995, have bf. Your letter is ott.

Sadly can't be a next time for me. It is the hectoring that is unacceptable and which prompted the op. If I could go back in time I would give myself the gentle support I needed and would make sure that the other symptoms I was presenting (which I now know were ms related) would be promptly addressed.

In principle, I agree with the OP. I was totally geared up to breastfeed my first child. 40 hours of labour followed by EmCS put paid to that. 4 days of screaming child, no milk, being dragged out of my bed every two hours by the midwives to " have another go" and finally collapsing into a sobbing hot mess and wishing I'd never had the bloody baby. After all of that, a nursing assistant asked if I wanted s bottle. That tiny bottle saved me. After that, I was utterly ignored my the midwives. I was a failure. My son had starved for 4 days but I was a failure for feeding him interestingly, the woman in the bed next to me who FF from the start didn't get the same treatment. With my next child, I couldn't bear the repeat, so it's was formula from the beginning. As for the points thing, I never met anyone who said I was going to FF til I found out you couldn't get points on the tins of SMA so I breastfed instead. It's just another way of infantilising women. I'm still strongly pro- breastfeeding. Try and stop a woman breastfeeding on a cafe or a park and you'll have to go through me first. But, I'm even more in favour of women making the choices that are best for their particular situation. It pains me to see women judging each other for their parenting choices. There's enough people in the world trying to keep us down and restrict our choices. Surely we can support each other in something as fundamental as this? If the NHS wants more breastfeeding it needs to spend less on posters and more on actual support for women. Because if you don't do that and then hector at the women who 'fail' then, yes it is bullying.

Don't worry OP! 99% of UK babies have formula at some point. Most are fully formula fed by the time they are 6 weeks old.

UK mums have the lowest breastfeeding rates in the developed world.

There is absolutely no danger of UK mums being 'bullied out of' bottle feeding.

FWIW, before they started encouraging promoting 'hectoring'
women in the UK to breastfeed, the breastfeeding rates at one week post birth were about 23%. This is in the 1970's.

Would you like us to go back to that era OP?

I have no idea why say with one breath that you have been 'made to feel bad' and then I'm the next that you feel 'proud' of ff and feel like it's the best choice for your child.

You've contradicted yourself.

Thank you, dazzling. Clearly not just my experience and I wish , like you, they spent the scarce resources on human support not posters. A course to show what cat's bum face looks and feels like from the other side would be a start.

Mini - maybe you need to walk a mile in other people's shoes or whatever the phrase is. Sorry you can't be more understanding.

good post dazzlingdeborah

Free - i know women feel angry and disappointed in relation to their feeding choices, and they can't help how they feel.

But I'm responding to the OP and the many attacks made on mumsnet against midwives, the NHS and people trying to support mothers with breastfeeding for doing something which needed to be done - increase breastfeeding rates.

I'm totally in sympathy with the view that more needs to done to support mothers who are struggling with feeding, but it's also the case that the NHS is rightfully responsible for promoting behaviours associated with optimal health, of which breastfeeding is one. It shouldn't come under attack for doing so because the promotion of breastfeeding makes mothers who don't want to/can't breastfeed feel upset.

Don't want to is not the same as struggle to. I wish you and the nhs could see that.

"like you, they spent the scarce resources on human support not posters."

The NHS in under resourced.

Applying your logic they should stop all health promotion - get rid of literature encouraging parents to practice safe sleeping, smoke free pregnancies, maintaining a healthy weight etc, and focus resources on treating the problems arising from SIDS, low birth rate, stillbirth and obesity.

Yes, more stats - that's what a struggling mum needs.

Free - I understand what you're saying, but I also think that wanting to breastfeed and believing it to be of value to mothers and babies is the single most important factor in overcoming breastfeeding problems.

We've got to stop pretending that the extraordinarily high breastfeeding fall out rates in the UK have nothing to do with the fact that we are (and have been for a long time) primarily a bottle feeding culture and where there is little belief in the value of breastfeeding.

Is the OP 'struggling' with feeding?

I thought she was proudly bottle feeding and starting a campaign to change health promotion strategies in the NHS?

The problem though is that the advice and actions are too general. Nobody adapts to individual situations because there's simply not enough resource to do that. To go back to my situation. It should have been clear to the midwives that I wasn't producing milk. My breasts were flat and soft. Nothing there. Morphine is known for this. About two weeks after giving birth, once the morphine had worked its way out of my system, hey presto, milky boobies. But, I had no clue at that time about relactation or that I could try again. Nor did any midwife or health visitor suggest that I could. So I carried on FF and the milk dried up. That's what I mean by proper informed support. There were loads of posters about the benefits of bf but none of them helped my situation. And we aren't going to get UK breastfeeding rates up with posters. We need informed, trained staff with the time and the space to help women in all of the situations that occur.

I also think that wanting to breastfeed and believing it to be of value to mothers and babies is the single most important factor in overcoming breastfeeding problems.

Bollocks, sorry. I couldn't have wanted to breastfeed more. I was devastated when I couldn't; really heartbroken. More support and a diagnosis of lip tie in DD would have helped me overcome it, not closing my eyes and wishing really hard and clicking my heels three times.

You don't get it. The last thing I needed was a lecture about how it worked for others and I must try harder.

Lol

"Any mother is free to feed their child as they wish."

And so they are. Nobody is bullying you OP. Formula industry paying ££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££(!)
each year in marketing formula often breaching international WHO agreements on breastmilk substitute marketing. You could say women are coaxed into believing their milk isn't goof enough and their bodies are for male gratification instead of doing what nature ants us to do.
Breastmilk subs are fine when BF is not an option or not wanted by the mother but they are sadly no real substitute for breast milk. Even if you wish it were so.

BF promotes long-term health and is the best food for babies. However mothers are free to choose (apart from being targeted and influenced by formula marketers) how they feed their infants. You are brewing a proverbial storm in a tea cup. Move on.

I sympathise with the op (although I'm not sure that the letter is the best way to go). When pregnant I rather naively believed the overly positive view of breastfeeding that was presented by midwives (it happens naturally, virtually all women can do it, after the first couple of weeks it's easy). I was in complete denial up until my son was admitted to hospital with severe dehydration because he just wasn't getting enough milk from me despite all the skin to skin and cluster feeding. I was still producing colostrum until day 8 and he was literally starving. In my case all the midwives initially said he was latched on fine and we were discharged (he wasn't), then when we were readmitted they all had different, contradictory theories about how to make my milk come in. I did eventually find one who really knew what we were supposed to be doing, but we talked to a lot who didn't first, and in my vulnerable state it was a bit overwhelming.

Technically the support was there for us (plenty of visits from people allegedly trained in breastfeeding), but in reality I think it did more harm than good as it was extremely stressful to be told something different and have the plan ripped up every time a new shift came on. I was devastated when I had to give him formula, and the culture, and to some extent exaggeration of the benefits of breast feeding, contributed massively to that (as did the disapproving looks from some HCPs, others were actually very encouragng). In the end I mixed fed for 7 months and in some ways feel proud that I managed that. For me the 'every feed counts' message helped me to keep going by setting smaller goals when it became clear that the 6 months EBF wasn't possible for me.

Your letter is incredibly ignorant and self-absorbed

Lack of support is one stumbling stone for UK mothers but I believe the reason why our country has one of the lowest BF rates in the world is cultural.

We are much more consumerist in the UK than many other EU countries, t's all about brands, buying stuff, paying lots for children's birthday parties., buying ready meals rather than cooking from scratch bla bla... We have less of a culture where we do or make things ourselves, we feel if we pay for it it is magically 'the best' and the coolest. Naturally people buy 'the best formula' (there is no such thing) and the best feeding bottles (no such thing either).
We are more repressed than our European neighbours and this impacts on how comfortable people feel about the reality of their bodies, sex, physical activity potty training,, breastfeeding etc. Low BF rates in our country are cultural imo.