AIBU to think that professionals shouldn't immediately lecture on 'breast is best' without checking WHY you're not breastfeeding?

[Bellabelloo]

Every single doctor, midwife, health visitor, doctor has given me a disapproving look and lecture on breast being best and asking whether I've given it a proper try etc without actually asking WHY I'm not breastfeeding. When I tell them that I had breast cancer when I was 30 and that I had to have a double mastectomy it shuts them up pretty quickly.

But I do feel really upset by it. I feel guilty that I can't breastfeed. I already feel like less of a woman having had my breasts removed, and now I am being made to feel like less of a mother.

There are many, many reasons why women might not be able to breastfeed and I just think the medical professionals should just ask whether there is a reason a woman has chosen not to breastfeed before judging and lecturing.

That's not unreasonable, is it?

I agree with you op, it turned out that I was incapable of BF my DD. I had expressed concerns to my midwife, who brushed them off without any discussion at all, so I was expecting to BF. When it was becoming obvious I couldn't BF three different BF 'specialists' (in commas as they didn't seem to have a clue) visited me while I was in hospital. One accused my DD of being a lazy baby, apparently she wasn't trying hard enough! Another had a go at me for not discussing it with my midwife but she didn't have much to say when I told her I'd tried. In the end the staff appeared to give up on me and I left hospital knowing that I would have to ff. One nurse spoke to me privately, in the grounds, not the ward, to say she thought I was right to swop to ff, but not one member of staff offered me any help or advice about ff. As I hadn't planned to ff I had nothing at home and I made a bit of an emergency trip to Boots without any information about what I was doing.

Then I was left with the terrible guilt that I was feeding my DD poison and I felt everybody was judging me for ff when I was out in public.

The % of woman breast feeding in the first 6 months of life is tiny anyway. I'm sure I read somewhere it's less than 10%, so it infuriates me when people dare to question our choices.

FED is best ffs!

My DS has been formula fed since birth has he had a tongue tie. It worked out the best way for us as I was going back to work after 6 months, and I didn't want the hassle of trying to get him used to bottles then anyway.

YANBU at all, there is no way they should be giving you a hard time regardless, but in your situation it's phenomenally out of line.

DD was FF from day 2 onwards as we didn't get anywhere with BF and I was all over the show after a long labour and EMCS. I felt quite defensive about not BF but not a single HCP gave me a hard time, they offered support if I wanted it, and then were fully supportive of my decision when I said no.

OP I am sorry that you have had to go through this, your HCPs have been insensitive.

Yours is a major example of why some woman cannot breastfeed, but in fact quite rare. the overwhelming majority of women can in fact breastfeed.

skerrywind In which way do you think your post is helpful or relevant to the OP who started this thread?

Yanbu

Sorry for what you are going through. People don't need a reason to not breastfeed if they don't want to that's fine. None of their business as long as the baby is fed.

These people have no business questioning you at all.

And if they can't read a set of notes wtf is the point of the notes in the first place.

What other vital. Info are they missing....

Congrats on your beautiful miracle baby

Relevant because of this *There are many, many reasons why women might not be able to breastfeed "

Reasons that a woman cannot breastfeed are very rare.

"Your HCPs have been insensitive"

You've got some nerve! Wittering about reduced rates of various gynae cancers afforded by breastfeeding in a thread started by an OP unable to breastfeed after a double mastectomy. Good God.

There is a difference between preliminary investigations suggesting a causal link and "x reduces the risk of y". Can you substantiate all your claims with peer-reviewed data that indicates a statistically significant or incontrovertible causal link between breastfeeding and lowered risk of all the conditions you list?

And reasons a woman and baby cannot breastfeed are not "extremely rare" at all.

Yup, as I thought, of no interest to the OP. If she wanted a BF/FF debate I expect she'd have said so.

I had to take medication throughout pregnancy and was advised at 4 months I would not be safe to breastfeed. I then spent the following 5 months of pregnancy and the first months of his life telling everyone "I'm unable to breastfeed due to taking medication" almost as though I had to justify myself.
I was just grateful to sustain a pregnancy following many mc I just wanted a well baby!

andwhat, yest these circumstances exist, but are rare.

That's awful I'm so sorry OP.
I have a general problem with multiple healthcare professionals not having a glance over my notes before seeing me/my family. I think it's so unprofessional and causes upset like this.

mouseclogs- I am correcting sycamore's post.

I don't need to post links to these claims. The evidence is well researched and documented. look for yourself if you doubt what I say.

I am not disputing that studies have taken place that give an indication that breastfeeding may be causally linked to a reduced susceptibility to certain conditions - just stating that this is not sufficient to make concrete claims that "breastfeeding reduces the risk of x".

Also, what is your definition of "rare"?

'Lactivists' don't do the research or run the NHS or any of the other organisations which promote breastfeeding as the healthiest and safest way to feed a baby.

No, but what they do is take the evidence and exaggerate it. Research has shown that bf has some small statistical benefits in developed countries but lactivists somehow spin this into claims about 'liquid gold'.

Ffs do some people have no off button? They just seem to vomit their thoughts out with no thought for the context.

OP congratulations on your baby.

skerrywind You make it sound like the default is that mothers must bf, but you will graciously grant permission to the select few to get out of it. Nevertheless you'll continue to subject them to a lecture on the benefits of bf.

The number of women who can't feed because they can't produce enough milk is supposedly around the 2-5% mark. That's already not what would classically be classed as "rare", and we haven't even begun to add the women reliant on medication incompatible with breastfeeding, women with certain infections, infants unable physiologically to feed, etc etc.

Breassfeeding avoid a host of diseases that strike later in life, such as type 1 and type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and inflammatory bowel disease. Crohn's disease,ulcerative colitis.allergies
It also reduces breast, uterine and ovarian cancer risk in a mother.

No. Some studies have shown that breastfeeding may have some impact on these areas. Other studies have shown no correlation.

Fact of the matter is breastfeeding studies are inherently flawed due to the scientists being unable to account for the impact of other lifestyle factors.

Breastfeeding is the best option in countries where mothers don't have access to clean water and affordable alternatives. In the West, they haven't been able to prove any notable benefits consistently.

Also, the whole "it's rare someone can't breastfeed" bullshit is totally wrong. It's "rare" that a woman can't produce any milk at all, but most studies show that anywhere from 15 to 35% of women are unable to produce enough milk, or proper milk for their children, or whose children are unable to breastfeed successfully, again for a variety of reasons. This corresponds to historical information which shows a high rate of infant death due to malnutrition and a high demand for supplemental nutrition and methods of delivery.

There is a reason formula was invented.

YANBU but please don't feel guilty. You have no other choice (and even if you did, ff may still be the right choice for you). yy to pp who said that the medical professionals need to be more prepared.
I ff my first, felt guilty for months if not years. My only regret now isn't that I didn't bf, but that I let it cloud her early months so much.
Will leave it there, I don't want to fan the flames of a ff/bf debate, it isn't really appropriate here.
And congratulations :)

mouseclogs I think I love you.

I think sometimes they go on script. I had a Dr listen to my explain ds had been a homebirth then within 2 minutes ask if it had been a caesarean or vaginal delivery

Good luck with the baby OP

Mumsnet is the home of the snide comments about breastfeeding. In my second pregnancy I produced not one drop of milk. I had no changes to my breasts (no growing bigger, no sensitivity etc) and no HCP could prise even the tiniest drop of colustrum from them. I'd been pregnant before, so I knew it felt different to first time round. Not one HCP made a big deal of it but I've been told repeatedly on mumsnet over the years that I'm lying.

It's worrying, how the default setting in so many situations seems to be that women are liars.

I sympathise enormously OP. I couldn't breastfeed due to medication I was taking that would have been toxic for baby and got really sick of the judgement and assumptions. I also got pretty sick of people, when I was backed into explaining it to them, basically suggesting that my reasons were valid and acceptable so I could be given a bf pass so to speak but other womens' weren't. You may not be interested right now and that's fair enough but if you did want to Google the research on breastfeeding sibling studies, which are essentially the only studies that can control for selection and correlation factors such as mother's educational attainment/income etc, there's some pretty interesting reading out there.