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??

I don't think so, anymore than a BFing mother would take offence at having latch checked. You can always say you don't need support anyway. I'm not convinced personally about overfeeding and think it's largely a myth, but not all babies are the same I guess.

It should be about lowering risks - gastroenteritis shouldn't be an additional risk if hygiene rules are followed in modern UK kitchens. Just like as Tiktok said above skin to skin will be good for baby however they are fed.

Bert have you FF and felt shitty about it ever - er no. Anyone is perfectly within their rights to refuse any advice at all they don't want. Why does your view usurp the rights of others to support?

"Why does your view usurp the rights of others to support?"

It doesn't. I am just pointing out that in terms of the sheer practicality of getting milk into a baby, formula feeders need much less support than breastfeeders. That's just a pragmatic fact.

I was getting really annoyed reading chorus' of 'it's facts therefore can't be propaganda, which means lies'.
Glad that's been corrected.
Propaganda is simply information presented in a misleading or biased fashion in order to further an agenda.
It usually is associated with misinformation, or deceit.
You can definitely mislead and deceive people by presenting half a story, even if that half a story is factually correct.
I feel this literature definitely falls into this category.
It, and bf info in general, is so biased, it only focus on the positives, and the negatives are not mentioned, until there's a problem, but but that time, the message is internalised that by giving your baby 'second best' you're somehow letting them down.
I think if they actively made people aware of the common problems, people wouldn't feel guilt/like a failure for not being able to be suceed.
Formula is marvellous. It's not as good as breast milk, but it's a hell of a lot better than rice mixed with well water. Or sugar water.
Formula has saved the lives of so many babies.

Alyosha, I actually did know of that opinion article (it's in the section marked 'opinion' which is a clue :) ) in JAMA, Alyosha, but you were referring to research, and I was confident enough to say the research evidence does not exist....which it does not.

That article describes 'unintended' effects of the BFI - of course babies are at risk of serious harm, even death, if they are skin to skin immediately after birth or in the postnatal period (per BFI ) which indeed encourages skin to skin for all babies) with exhausted mothers with no one overseeing safety, or even explaining to the mother how to hold her baby safely. That's 'unintended' effects of rubbish postnatal care. Sudden Unexpected PostNatal Collapse is a known phenomenon and it can happen under any circumstances....oh, just read the article itself jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2546142 and not the Slate report of it.

Baby Friendly USA - because the opinion article was 'about' the USA - responded "The recent article published in JAMA‐Pediatrics titled Unintended Consequences of Current Breastfeeding Initiatives [9]is filled with comments not supported by research. It has triggered a firestorm of on‐line articles with sensational headlines that are
geared towards frightening practitioners and families away from the Baby‐Friendly Hospital Initiative.' This short, evidence-based rebuttal is online.

"If BFI did not exist, the babies would have lived." Of course not. Do you think BFI invented skin to skin? Or avoiding unnecessary supplementation with formula? All the BFI did was take good practice, which had been shown already to be beneficial in research over years and years, and combine it into a programme which was coherent, and practicable.

"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"

I think your point is that I am minimising neonatal hypernatraemic dehydration? Not at all. It is not a good thing, clearly :) But the Iranian babies in 'your' citation (we have no info on their bf status or any maternity unit practice - it's unlikely to be BFI, anyway) appear to be severely affected early on - I can't compare figures with the Oddie (British) babies as the measurements of sodium levels were different, but the Iranian babies had brain swelling, kidney stones and haemmorhage, You'd expect later consequences with that .

Err..OK. Editorial in JAMA with some research is not research because it wasn't published as a paper. I still think it is evidence of the potential harms of BFHI - there is evidence of excess deaths due to BFHI. The whole editorial itself was based on the updated (US) based guidelines assessment that programmes such as BFHI had absolutely no evidence of working (that was based on 9 studies rated as "fair to good").

Secondly, poor HCPs don't operate in a vacuum; if they are encouraged to promote skin to skin immediately and as a priority, or if they are told to promote breastfeeding and never offer formula unless medically indicated - then being poor HCPs, this advice may become deadly. It's as though you were blaming a student for crashing a car when a driving instructor told them it was safe to go at 100 mph in a 60 zone. Both are to blame!

You can read the JAMA's authors (evidence-based) response to criticisms here: jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2599004

Also (amusing, but probably not indicative of BF causing weight gain - "Breastfed teens are heavier: jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2633911?widget=personalizedcontent&previousarticle=2571222"

"Breastfeeding doesn’t protect against obesity in adolescence, nor does it lower blood pressure (BP), according to a secondary analysis of the Cluster-randomized Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT) published in JAMA Pediatrics.

The trial randomized 17 046 mother-infant pairs to an intervention that promoted breastfeeding, or to a control group. About 80% of the children were followed up to age 16 years. The intervention increased breastfeeding duration and exclusivity—45% of the infants were exclusively breastfed at 3 months vs 6% of the control group"

Yes, I think you minimise the risk - you often say there's no evidence of long term negative effects. I.e. it's no worth warning new parents about because ultimately it won't cause problems down the line.

There clearly is some evidence of longer term effecs- I'm sure Iranian babies aren't all that different from British babies. You would hope our superior medical care would stop damage accelerating to that point.

Bertrand - as I said, the majority of adults are overweight, yet overweight people still feel judged. They're not mad - something can be ubiquitous yet looked down upon. Overweight women in particular are really judged in our society.

Especially on MN, where women are more likely to be middle class and thus be in a peer group with women who are trying to breastfeed, you would expect women to feel more judged than usual for FF. Although nationally few infants are BF to 6 months, amongst the upper income quartiles this will be far higher, especially in London.

I am struggling with the being overweight/formula feeding analogy.......

formula feeders need much less support than breastfeeders. That's just a pragmatic fact.

I didn't disagree with that. But it shouldn't be zero

I am struggling with the being overweight/formula feeding analogy..

An obvious link being increased risk of childhood obesity for one thing.

I suppose the difference is that the ffers only need to be shown/told once. Bfers often need ongoing help. So the pp's picture of ffers being ignored is misleading. Anyone glancing round the ward when I had ds might have thought I was being ignored too. I wasn't. - i just remembered what I had learned with dd and thankfully it worked. So I didn't need help and was happy for the HCPs to concentrate on other people.

The local hospital's 'must not promote or condone ff in any way' policy was downright dangerous for me.

I lost lots of blood in labour and failed to establish feeding. At no point did any midwife suggest ff as I tried and tried and tried to feed dd myself.

DD got severe jaundice and lost weight and still they were pushing bf.

When I finally said I couldn't do it any more (feeling like an utter failure) they provided formula and DD got her first proper feed.

The midwife agreed that my being so poorly would have affected my supply. That was said after we'd been in hospital failing for 6 whole days at that point.

Why? FF is ubiquitous, but many women feel very judged for FF.

Being overweight is ubiquitous, but many women feel very judged for being overweight.

The point is simply that just because something is very common, doesn't mean people don't judge you for it... You've made it your mission to dismiss every woman who has said they feel judged for FF on this thread so I thought an analogy might help.

You've made it your mission to dismiss every woman who has said they feel judged for FF on this thread"

I haven't, you know. You appear to be blinkered by your mission to prove that bf kills babies....

"The local hospital's 'must not promote or condone ff in any way' policy was downright dangerous for me."
Is that an actual agreed, written down policy?????? I presume so, because you're putting it in quotation marks. Blimey!

They told me that they weren't allowed to sway mothers towards formula feeding. Weren't allowed to recommend it even in the face of my struggling and dd losing weight and becoming jaundiced. Yet there were 'breast is best' posters everywhere. And advice for establishing bf.

I wish it had worked out for me. But my daughter failed to feed properly for days and we weren't given any support apart from 'keep trying' and a very terse 'well you'll have to decide for yourself what you want to do!' comment.

YABU. The UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world and this needs to change as national health is in crisis. I understand there are very small percentage of women who cannot breastfeed for whatever reason/problems but I all the mothers I personally know who haven't breastfed didn't even try.. which is think is disgraceful unless there is a VERY good reason. And the mothers I know who didn't breastfeed for very long mostly, with a couple of exceptions, didn't try very hard to overcome feeding issues. I never doubted I could breastfeed my children, they've all been fed for two years minimum as per WHO guidelines. We had tons of issues to overcome; poor latches, tongue tie, oversupply, undersupply, 1-2 hourly nights for almost a year, cracked and bleeding nipples.. and probably much more I've forgotten. I'm not blaming the mothers, it's the culture in this country, lack of awareness, massive lack of support, lack of understanding and much more. Don't bash the NHS for trying to tackle this.. people's ignorance and attitudes need to change!

haveacupoftea sorry you had that experience, I've never found online groups to be supportive either.. and the support groups I went to were hit and miss but once I found the 'right' one for me it was wonderful. The thing that goes against many women in the UK is that there are often little or no women in their close friends/family circle to mentor and support them getting breastfeeding established because often none of them have breastfeed themselves! My mum breastfeed my sister and I for a year each but her own mum hadn't breastfeed any of her children and none of her 3 sisters who already had children had breastfeed. And my mum was made to feel very uncomfortable by them, not out of malice but I think igneovance and them feeling awkward/uncomfortable. Very sad. Especially when you can compare to other cultures where it's just the norm and 99% of women breastfeed. And they are baffled by the idea that half the women in a country are 'unable' to breastfeed!!

I suppose the difference is that the ffers only need to be shown/told once.

Erm no. Mothers who FF need help and support too.

When I had DS1 I was shown what to do and given a clipboard to fill in how much ounces he was taking. I was up all of my first night (after not sleeping for 48 hours) on the ward trying to get him to take the formula but he had no interest what so ever.

A very grumpy midwife whipped back my curtain and 7 am and barked that what he had taken wasn't good enough and that I needed to get more in him.

I didn't get any support until a lovely student midwife found me the next day sobbing and sat with me for ages trying different things.

He still wasn't great at it until I got him home and was able to use a different teat to the one on the disposable bottles that we were given in the hospital.

Bertrand why do you not believe me about being forced to keep our curtains open on postnatal apart from when BFing?! It happened. You weren't there at that hospital so how do you know what it was like?!

Of course FFers need support. They may not have thought of practising sterilising bottles in advance or lack the literacy or language skills to read the instructions. They may not have expected to use formula but ended up having to. They may need to be shown different ways of holding the baby to reduce backache or help baby bring up wind afterwards.

To brand new parents everything is new whether it's breast or bottle feeding and both sets deserve support.

Sorry, that was meant to be a reply to Tiptop above about the curtains!

Of course midwives should provide support for preparing formula. It should be about supporting mothers and babies however they are fed.

I'm presuming that anyone was allowed to close the curtains if they were exposing bits of their bodies normally kept covered?

If we shut the curtains a member of staff would whisk them open next time they came past. Most of us seemed to get changed in the loos! One poor Muslim woman was sat there on her bed with the curtains open the whole time having to wear her hijab because of all the male visitors wandering around (that's a whole other thread/issue).

why do you not believe me about being forced to keep our curtains open on postnatal apart from when BFing?!

You are lucky if you could keep them closed whilst trying to BF. Last time I was on a maternity ward, they were constantly being opened regardless, and too bad if the mum was unable to move after surgery to close them. it's a disgrace (no lack of threads on the subject on this forum).

Secondly, poor HCPs don't operate in a vacuum; if they are encouraged to promote skin to skin immediately and as a priority, or if they are told to promote breastfeeding and never offer formula unless medically indicated - then being poor HCPs, this advice may become deadly.
This is just a very weak argument. Sometimes (rarely) in a car crash wearing seatbelts causes a victim to become trapped and die...google it! But it's still the best option.

It's as though you were blaming a student for crashing a car when a driving instructor told them it was safe to go at 100 mph in a 60 zone
So skin to skin is illegal and it's being recommended and this leads to avoidable death!!!! Sorry but this is nonsense.

Re open curtains: nurses like them open so that they have sight of their patients and thus would be able to help them if there were a problem. Not to be spiteful to ff or in fact BF mothers!