Sunday times article woman who fail at breastfeeding

[daffodil10]

I've just read this article aibu to be so sad that the situation discussed is still happening?

I can completely relate to the author, 14 years ago I was trying my hardest to bf and failed miserably. I had no support, only judgment and criticism. I can't believe that young mums are being given NHS booklets telling them that formula DESTROYS your babies gut when this is not true and only serves to prey on post natally depressed minds.

I was talking to a mum of a two week old baby last night, she was struggling to feed but was terrified of giving formula in case her friends, mil, hv, midwife found out. She couldn't handle the guilt. This is 2017, why is this behaviour by the breast feeding police still allowed????

Oh and I commented on the other BF thread that it's ridiculous that women have double standards about when it's ok to judge each other.

Don't dare criticise a woman for choosing formula. Her body, her choice. Natural isn't best A woman who wants an elective csection though? Everyone tell her she's wrong and that natural is best!

Both are ridiculous. Chuck ttc into the equation too. The judging you get for not being naturally fertile. I managed a full house- IVF,c/ sections and formula.IVF puts everything into perspective though.

Hopefully at some point we will find a good place where whatever we choose to do, we are supported.

I did BF both my children but I was very lucky because I had lots of milk and I had a very supportive husband was 100% behind me. If I had listened to the other people around me I probably would have given up because from the day the babies were born I had negative drip drip comments about BF'ing and how it was bad for baby. If I wasn't such a stubborn cow I would have given up early on. I also lived in a country where only a very small % of women BF so I had no support from any services.

BF'ing is not just about whipping out a boob and latching on. It takes a whole network of support around you for it to work.

I had lots of milk and 100% supportive husband and I am stubborn. And I still didn't manage it.
I became very ill with physical health problems (and consequently mental health problems) that mws and hvs told me would be cured by breastfeeding.
Like bloody witch doctor care.

I was told my premmie needed milk and to sign the formula consent form. I think it was assumed he would have to be at least partly ff because he couldn't latch and I couldn't express the amount he needed.

Reading with interest as I am struggling with feeding at the minute. I have a 5 week old and have had difficulties for various reasons from the start. Out of say 30 oz he will drink in a day maybe 3oz is breast milk. I'm not sure whether it's worth my while pumping and feeding such a small amount. It probably has no benefit whatsoever.

I joined a breastfeeding group for support but it does seem to be mothers talking about how shit FF mums are and posting pictures of themselves feeding toddlers and congratulating themselves for doing so.

Anna posted what I was trying and obviously failing to do.

We women are our harshest critics. No one absolutlry no one should be instructing or criticising or opinionating how anyone else geeds their bsby.

Hpcs should be helping women to feed however they choose and facilitating that choice.

No guilt and no angst.

I bf my 4 because I was too lazy to make up bottles. I stopped with the twins as 3 months because I wanted to go on a hen weekend. Stopping was bloody lovely. The weekend was bloody amazing

We are all so busy judging and feeling guilty or feeling smug we should just stop with this feeding obsession. No one can pick out which child was ff/bf in reception class and no one should care.

On the flip side, read the Daily Telegraph where every article seems pro formula and anti-bf.

You can't win at all. I only ended up BF DD for a few days, during those days I was tutted in a cafe for breastfeeding. 3 weeks later I was in the same cafe feeding DD a bottle of formula when a lady came up and said "dear, it really would be better for her to breastfeed you know".

Funnily enough the MW and HV couldn't care less.

I had no support

Then you didn't fail. You were failed. I'm a breastfeeding counsellor. Voluntary. I had to pay for my own training, give up my free time to answer calls or visit mums at home who are struggling. NHS professionals locally regard me with the utmost suspicion as they know I have more training than most HVs and midwifes so won't refer mums to me when they need my help with latch. (and 99% of the time it's the latch which is the issue).

There needs to be a lot more money put into the support side of breastfeeding post birth. We have high initiation rates for breastfeeding in the UK but the fact numbers breastfeeding then plummet shows that people are running into trouble and can't get the help they need.

Formula feeding is an acceptable alternative to breast feeding if you really can't. But less than 2% of women physically can't breastfeed, it's a lack of education and a lack of confidence on the mum's part. I've breastfed a preemie, mastitis, nipples shields, all sorts, but the neonatal nurses were so passionate about it, they taught me and I'm now qualified as a peer support.

We need heaps more emphasis on teaching, not dictating. But we also need to prevent people from immediately reaching for the bottle out of laziness and 'I want my body back' etc etc: this is not best to the baby.

I'm pro choice but I'm also pro BF

Maybe macarena and sgree women need support but equally lots do choose to bf for that first week and plan to then ff. I had lots of friends choose to do that.

I wish the literature would keep some sort of "sense of proportion" about all this. Yes, BF is better than FF - that much is clearly evidence based - but how much better? There's a phrase used in earth sciences (where one typically has huge, messy datasets with very low correlation coefficients): "What proportion of the variance does it explain?" By this they mean - there's a lot of stuff going on here, competing causal factors, random noise, feedbacks (where what can be the causal driver one moment becomes the thing being driven the next).

I have a hunch that the proportion of the variance (whether it's the frequency with which babies get gut diseases, or the incidence of asthma, or even, on some accounts, IQ) explained by BF is tiny compared to other factors like genetics, general environment, bad luck (like exposure to viruses or allergens). I'd love to see someone crunch the numbers. Because I'm pretty damn sure we're all getting stressed (and I include myself in that: I "failed" at BF) about something that makes maybe a 1% difference either way. There's much more important stuff to worry about.

Formula feeding is an acceptable alternative to breast feeding if you really can't.

And for many other reasons.

I'll reiterate the point that UK has the lowest BF rates of all developed countries, so it's not a matter of any individual mother saying she had issues. It's an aggregate problem. Formula is not poison but the reality is - it's a processed food derived from milk intended by baby cows. It can never be as ideal as human milk for a growing child. But it is a very good substitute when human milk is not available.

I do not trust formula companies, particularly Nestle. I cringe at the idea that modern society has outsourced the feeding of our newest and most vulnerable members to snack food corporations.

In the debate about BF and its success, why is there so little talk of breast milk banks? In Brazil they are really leading the way on this, mothers can donate and access breast milk through the health system. Last time I checked Brazil has fewer financial resources than the UK. Let's think outside of the box and not just turn to powdered food product. There are other ways to ensure our babies get the nutrition they need.

Fucky

You don't sound pro choice at all.

ff is acceptable if you really can't bf er no it's an adult woman's choice to make as she sees fit.

reaching for the bottle out of lazyness disgraceful comments.

What LRD said upthread.

What is "ideal" depends not just on what you feed a baby. I wouldn't say that it was ideal for a baby to be breastfed but to have a mother that is suffering with pain/exhaustion/pnd.

Some comments here are just awful. Women turning on other women for choices st such a vulnerable time.

Shameful and Shame on you.

"On the flip side, read the Daily Telegraph where every article seems pro formula and anti-bf."
Yes, if it hadn't been for the Daily Telegraph, I would've succeeded- .

why is there so little talk of breast milk banks?

We have breastmilk banks in the UK. I've donated to two of them. They are not for mums to call for "on demand" if they stop breastfeeding for whatever reason, they are there to feed the very sick, very tiny babies who really DO need breastmilk to protect their guts because of nectotising enterocolitis.

Being approved as a donor requires medical tests, you have to note down any drugs you take (even a paracetamol) and most importantly, there's no payment. You get a thank you and that's that.

There's no funding to expand breastmilk banking and I just can't see the situation where a mum who is struggling can just pop along to her local surgery and pick up a litre or two.

MacarenaFerreiro My point is they should be funded, supported, and expanded. If society demanded it and advocated for it, maybe there would be a chance.

I had a freezer full of BM that went to waste as DD refused to drink anything previously frozen, so I could only feed her direct and give expressed milk recently pumped. I wish there had been a way for me to share it with mothers especially those with premature babies or underweight babies.

This just strikes me as a glaring inefficiency.

Haven't read the full thread sorry, but wanted to say:

Pressuring women to be when they don't want to / feel they can't for whatever reason is rotten, wicked behaviour and i would never condone it.

BUT

Insisting that the benefits and advantages of bf over ff are not highlighted or talked about because it may upset ff mums is, I'm sorry, doublethink and alternative fact peddling of the highest order. Yes, fed is best, but there are degrees after "fed or not fed" that should be considered, just as we do with the diets of older children. Formula milk is safe and adequate and huge numbers of babies (by far the majority in fact) do fine on it. But breastfeeding is demonstrably, scientifically better for babies' and their mothers' long term physical health. Women need to be aware of that so they can make informed decisions about how they choose to feed their children, just as they should be made aware of the relative merits and demerits of different types of birthing options so that in so far as they have choices they make the ones they want in full knowledge of the likely outcomes. Of course it should be done sensitively and in a fact-based, judgment free way. But we can't just deny or silence the facts because it makes women feel uncomfortable. We just can't.

And finally, the stats speak for themselves. The U.K., despite the apparent predations of 'lactivists', has the lowest rate of breastfeeding in the developed world, despite the majority of British mothers planning to bf before birth. So however bullied and put upon ff mums are feeling, it is obvious that the challenges put in the way of mothers who want to bf are far more significant as so many mothers decide to ff in spite of all this supposed pressure. Breastfeeding is currently given a lot of lip service by HCPs and the media, but women actually trying to do it encounter lack of good information and support, lack of understanding, and public censure, and as a result so many of them feel their only option is to 'fail', use formula, and feel bad about it. This is a far greater problem and needs to be addressed.

For my part, I really struggled to bf my daughter (still am struggling 5 months in) and so often when I expressed my troubles to family, friends, HVs, GP, the first thing they say is "why not just give her formula?" Th only real help I got was from 'lactivists' like La Leche League, who took my crying baby, hugged my crying self, totally validated my struggle AND my desire to keep feeding, and helped me keep going with kindness and sensitivity. I was never bullied or made to feel guilty; I was empowered and supported to carry on doing what I wanted to do, which was the evidence-based best thing for my daughter and myself.

they made it out to be so easy and simple

For me, this is the crux of the problem. There was seemingly plenty of support; however, none of the support antenatally provided a realistic idea of what is required to establish breastfeeding - including a workshop where we were told that it's 'easy, natural, and animals don't need a workshop to feed their children' and midwives repeating ad nauseum that breastfeeding was convenient and free, completely pain free if done correctly, and that bottles were time consuming. When it wasn't working for us, I realised I had no idea of how often I should be offering the breast, how long I should be feeding for, and was convinced we were doing it wrong because it hurt. As my mood lowered, and recovering from a section, I wasn't functioning well enough to get to a breastfeeding café for support and any advice I received veered from 'just keep at it; you'll learn to love it' to the community midwives insisting I top up with formula to prevent hospital readmission. At least 10 people suggested tongue tie, which wasn't an issue, and then gave up trying to help as that was seemingly the only acceptable excuse for failure.

There was a thread on the Pregnancy board recently where someone had been to a workshop and couldn't understand why anyone would choose not to breastfeed. I remember that feeling well. It seemed like such a no brainer - it was just all positives! I can't help but suspect that they have been set up to fail as, like me, are unlikely to be making an informed choice with the realities.

It starts with BF or FF but doesn't stop there. We bash each other for every decision we make about our children. Mothers are constantly being judged by their peers, by their elders, by their health visitors, by themselves. You have to be made of pretty stern stuff to take it all.

For the record my choice was to breast feed and I was so determined to do it I got in the lactation consultant joined local bf groups had great support from family and mother then when my baby was 7 weeks old I got hit with horrendous post natal anxiety and could not function and ended up on meds. I switched to ff because I was not well at all and not sleeping so needed some sleeping tablets and someone else to take baby ay night and feed them. This happened me on each of my 3 kids exact same pattern. They needed a well mother more than breast milk. I don't regret switching to formula at that stage I knew I needed too I am just sad that I got that ill on each of my babies. Nothing is black and white no one women's experience is the same as another's so why do we assume one glove fits all?

I think that the NHS would be better off stopping all mentions of breastfeeding. Don't mention it to pregnant women or ask them what they intend to do. Don't discuss feeding with them at all apart from to make sure that they know how to safely make up bottles and how to formula feed on demand. Take all the posters down about breastfeeding and stop all the leaflets in any information that women are given. Don't offer any classes on it ante-natally, or maybe just for women that specifically inquire about them, rather than offering them to all.

Then spend as much money as possible on actually supporting women who want to breastfeed post natally. Make sure there's enough support in hospital that is easy to access, and then also at home. Make sure there are experts in spotting tongue tie etc. Just focus on supporting women who are breastfeeding rather than trying to persuade women who don't want to. There's no point and it just sows division, does more harm than good and increases feelings of guilt and shame. Just concentrate on women who do want to breastfeed and accept that we have a formula feeding culture that isn't going to change.