To think the 'information' the midwife gave me is almost propaganda?

[ethelfleda]

Recently had 24 week appointment. This is our first. Midwife asked if I had thought about feeding yet. I said I plan on breastfeeding. I say 'plan' because (as with everything else baby related) I am trying to keep an open mind as from what I hear, things don't always go according to plan! So I will try hard to breastfeed but I won't beat myself up if it doesn't work out for us.
She handed me a 20 odd page pamphlet thing and said it contained useful information on caring for a new born.

I started to read it today thinking it would be basic NHS info on how to feed, wind and change your baby etc. It was actually 20 odd pages of info telling me basically that if i don't breastfeed, my baby is more likely to develop cancer (as am I) as well as be admitted to hospital in their first year of life etc etc among other very scary statistics.
The language used was shocking IMO! And seemingly designed to make women who don't/can't breastfeed feel awful! Has anyone else had this information handed to them and thought it was way over the top??

Is it really true that midwives are not allowed to talk about formula feeding?

The thing about BFI hospitals not stocking formula... Starter packs of formula were available in the hospital Boots shop in the hospital that I had my two babies in. Most towns and cities have 24 hr supermarkets and garages that sell formula. Most women will have a partner, family member or friend that could get them formula if they need it. The hospital might not give it out for free but it's available in most situations, surely?

Thinking about rooming in, I don't think that taking babies away and putting them in nursery rooms would be a popular option, regardless of feeding method.

Is it really true that midwives are not allowed to talk about formula feeding?

I got woken at 1am to change wards. When I was woken at 6am and told to "wake DD and feed her" - the DD that felt no hunger and had a sore face from the forceps less than 24 hours previous - the midwife got short shrift from me. She told me they "would have to see DD breastfeeding properly before I would be allowed to leave". I told her to come back when she had found any legislation that prevented me from leaving the hospital that minute with DD.

She wrote in my notes that i was "uncooperative". 😂

Betrand

No it's not. Or at least in my experience anyway. When I had ds (3.5 years ago)we had a tough start to bf, feeding every 1.5 hours but falling asleep, shredded nipples, he was tongue tied, jaundiced. When he was still losing weight at 11 days all the mw could talk about was formula.

When I was due dd I said that I would try my best to bf but if when my dp went back to work it really wasn't working I would switch. They asked if I wanted to know the benefits of bf, I said no as I knew them as i'd bf ds. They asked if there was anything I wanted to know about ff, again I said no as I'd ff ds too (he was mix fed)!

When I had dd the lady in the next bed was ff and the mw brought her a made up bottle for her baby and I heard her say that they would go over making a bottle later.

My postnatal midwives were happy to chat about bottles/formula/sterilising and the one that assisted with the actual birth fetched me a ready made bottle of C&G from their stash (wasn't expecting it and had brought my own).

She also gave baby to her dad for initial skin to skin / first feed so I could sit and enjoy a well earned cuppa .

This was the birth of my third in Jan. Maybe they're less inclined to try and pressurise if it's not your first? Or maybe the midwife who assisted me was just very respectful of individual choice. She was lovely. They all were.

I remember when I was trying desperately to breastfeed and joined a Facebook BF support group. I posted about struggling and was basically told it was my own fault for having a bad latch and not trying hard enough. I'd had my latch checked and was offering the breast constantly as well as pumping round the clock. Finding time to make bottles as well as breast feed as well as pumping and sterilising pump parts with a newborn is no joke. But no, I should have been pumping every 2 hours on top of everything else, day and night, and eating oats 🙄

The whole page was basically smug established breastfeeders congratulating themselves on 'golden boobies' (1 year of breastfeeding), posting pictures of themselves feeding toddlers, anytime anyone posted about a health problem their child had breast milk was always the solution (infected cut? Put breastmilk on it) and everyday there were chats about how shit FF mums are for not giving their children 'liquid gold'

There's a real breastfeeding culture out there, and it's not as sweet and serene as you'd think.

"There's a real breastfeeding culture out there, and it's not as sweet and serene as you'd think"

That actually sounds like a real arsehole culture to me, rather that a breastfeeding culture. I hope you dumped them like a hot potato and found someone more helpful!

My own bf experience is too long ago - 16 years- to be really relevant, but I was the only woman in a 6 bed ward to be breast feeding. And I was offered formula when ds and I were having a bit of a struggle at first.

My sister's youngest turns 18 this year and when he was born she was encouraged to ff many, many times because he was 10 lb. She wouldn't make enough milk they said. She had bf her other 2 so knew better.

havea they sound like your common old garden arseholes, if it wasn't bf it would be something else. 98% ish if babies have f so I don't think there really is a massive us v's them in real life. Avoid dodgy Facebook groups!

Bertrand I gave birth 20 months ago in a BFI hospital and the midwives wouldn't talk about formula at all. Anyone planning to FF was told to come into hospital with bottles and the little ready made formula bottles (powder wasn't allowed as there was nowhere to boil a kettle). Presumably anybody without it had to send a partner off to buy some as there was no formula kept on the ward. I saw a couple of women FF in the time I was in (3 nights/4 days after birth) and they were just left alone whereas the midwives and maternity assistants were buzzing around checking latches etc. for everyone else who was BF.

I was given three copies of the NHS breastfeeding booklet by different midwives and a HV. After running into all our problems and readmittance to hospital with dehydrated baby I had to ask if there was an equivalent for bottle feeding which it turned out there was but hidden away. I was given contradictory instructions about sterilising bottles in hospital - I had never sterilised anything in my life and had expected to EBF so had no idea how to sterilise.

Formula was available in SCBU (DD was BF, then tube fed formula in a cycle) but the formula bottles were kept locked away and you had to ask a neonatal nurse for them in the quantity the paediatrician said your baby should be receiving.

My hospital also only had a small newsagent shop on site and no 24 hour supermarket in that town... Goodness knows where any unprepared parents got the formula from!

Aloysha going back a bit....I do think it is unnecessarily dramatic to talk of BFI leading to the death of babies. I don't get the misogyny of the phrase dramatic - drama isn't a stereotypical 'female' activity and ppl can certainly accuse men of drama, too. So I don't accept that at all.

More important than whether you are justified in calling my phrase misogynistic is the accusation that BFI is the cause of hcps ignoring babies who are failing to thrive to the extent they die. And then you say you read it in the Lancet (or somewhere - you don't quite know).

Research in the UK (Oddie et al - you can look it up, it's freely available) found in newborns was actually rare and that it had no serious sequelae as long as it was treated promptly. It should be avoidable in most cases, of course, as it is a result of poor care (failure to spot early signs). But death? Due to BFI?

It must vary from hospital to hospital Riding I was in a BF I hospital too and dd is only 2 (literally 24 months). The mw was definitely giving the lady next to me a fully prepared bottle. They also had a kettle and fridge there too- I remember from having ds as we had to make any hot drinks we wanted ourselves.

There are controls in maternity units on formula, bike, in many places. This is good practice. Powdered formula is not permitted because it is not sterile and for young vulnerable newborns, prepacked ready to feed is safer. International guidance from the European Food Safety network recommends this. I don't think formula powder has been used in UK hospitals for more than a generation.

Freely available formula to pick up and use is not good. The practice of having the bottles sitting there to pick up and use led to theft by visitors and others. The use of formula does need to be carried out with guidance and support so the right volume is given. I cannot think why anyone would object to that.

Maternity units which ask mothers to bring in their own formula always have formula on hand in emergencies or when a mother literally cannot get any brought in.

HCPs are certainly allowed to talk about formula to anyone who needs the information - in fact they are obliged to, because if the hygiene rules are not followed, then babies can become ill. What they cannot do is recommend a brand - that seems fair enough to me, given there is no evidence one brand is better than another.

I saw a couple of women FF in the time I was in (3 nights/4 days after birth) and they were just left alone whereas the midwives and maternity assistants were buzzing around checking latches etc. for everyone else who was BF."

I don't understand why this is an issue. Unless you are suggesting that the ff mothers were being ostracized?

To me it looked like they were being ignored. There was a definite divide and a big 'show' of supporting women BF. Which wasn't very helpful - lots of support for latching on but not for other issues as it turned out later on. They should also have been helping the FF mothers with sterilising info and things like how to hold baby and bottle feed to help with bonding but I didn't see anyone stopping to help them.

We were only allowed to pull curtains round our beds if we were BFing otherwise they had to be open to let the light in ('for the babies' sake' the midwife said) so the FFers were on show feeding all the time.

It may have been because the BFers were told to ring the buzzer for each feed so someone could come and check their latch so the staff were kept pretty busy running around responding to buzzers.

Right. So we have had women who use formula as a beleaguered, judged minority. Any now we have formula feeding as something which requires the same level of practical help and support as breastfeeding? Blimey.

As a website of mostly mothers, I think we can all reasonably comment on the state of affairs in the post-natal wards in the UK. Are you suggesting RidingMyBike that the midwives support formula prep?

Is there really anything about bottle feeding that can't be googled in advance of the baby's birth?

We were only allowed to pull curtains round our beds if we were BFing otherwise they had to be open to let the light in ('for the babies' sake' the midwife said) so the FFers were on show feeding all the time.

I'm struggling to believe this is true.

In 1999 I was in a ward of 6 beds after DC1's birth. We were all attempting to BF. My buzzer broke and the MW came and sellotaped it off.
I do remember the fussing about having your curtains open, don't know what that was all about.
TBF the problems didn't start with BF til about a week after we got home.

Any now we have formula feeding as something which requires the same level of practical help and support as breastfeeding?

I don't think it needs to have the same level of support. But it requires more than zero support:

1. One of the 'risks' of bottle feeding is gastro enteritis, which is entirely avoidable if you follow simple hygiene rules.
2. 'Read the can' is tricky for those who have literacy problems/ have poor English language skills. Also it doesn't explain what to do when you go out.
3. It isn't as easy as people who breastfed often think, colic etc. Also ime I had to feed on demand or the babies just refused to take it, whereas there is a mindset amongst many that you just point the bottle at baby and he/she takes 6oz.
4. Some babies seem to overfeed on formula and how to manage this. Mine didn't, as I said I just fed on demand and have them as much as they wanted as they limped up the 25th centile line, but this is something mentioned on MN.

Tiktok - I disagree, women are accused of being dramatic far more than men are.

You also know exactly which research I am referring to, and actually it was in JAMA, overview here: www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/08/23/baby_friendly_hospital_initiative_criticized_as_unsafe_in_new_jama_paper.html

It is not dramatic to say that BFI has lead to deaths. Practically any intervention that you can think of can lead to deaths - the key point is do the benefits outweigh the risks? In the case of BFI it's a pretty clear "no" IMO.

You are very hung up on the HCPs causing the deaths. But the actions the HCPs took directly lead from BFI - you cannot separate the two. If the HCPs had been better, the babies would have lived. If BFI did not exist, the babies would have lived.

There is also some new research that shows more severe long term effects from newborn dehydration: online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/bfm.2016.0054?journalCode=bfm

"All infants in the control group were developmentally normal at ages 6 and 12 months, but in the case group 25% and 21% had developmental delay at 6 and 12 months, respectively. At 18 months the incidence of developmental delay was 3% for the control group and 19% for case group, and at 24 months 12% of case infants had developmental delay versus none for the case group. At the age of 6 months, the severity of developmental delay was directly related to the severity of hypernatremia ( p = 0.001)…"

Bertrand - so many women on so many threads over so many years have given their personal experiences of being judged for using formula, of not having enough support with FF. But you dismiss them all.

Why? What stake do you have in believing that no one is ever judged for FF and that no woman feels under prepared to FF??

It's possible for two scenarios to be true - that women feel judged for FF, and the FF is ubiquitous. It would be surprising if women didn't feel judged for FF given the amount the NHS bangs on about how much superior BF is.

It's ubiquitous now to be overweight; yet overweight people still feel judged.

increasingly, true of course. Parents who ff should get support (and in my experience they did)however, as threads such as this will often demonstrate when you say " ff babies are at an increased risk of gastrointestinal problems" women who ff see it as a dig. "Let me show you how to hold your baby so that you can bond whilst ff" could be met with " are you saying ff parents don't bond with their baby?". "Do you want help to make sure that your baby isn't over fed?", if you were fully clued up I can see how you might take this personally. Maybe that is an issue?

Why? What stake do you have in believing that no one is ever judged for FF and that no woman feels under prepared to FF??"

I don't have any stake in believing that. I just think that women are "judged" for how they feed their babies. And you are far less likely to be judged for following the norms of the society we live in than for not following them. And if you feel under prepared to ff it is very easy to become better prepared. The suggestion that offering more time to bf women than to ff women on the post natal ward is somehow window dressing or discriminatory is frankly absurd.

And, frankly, if I were ff my baby and a HCP came across to give me instruction about how to bond with my baby, I would be distinctly pissed off.