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??

There's a correlation between breast/ovarian cancer and not breast feeding but it was proven not be causative and was more likely due to older maternal age at first pregnancy. The brochure is definitely misleading and ought to be reported.

Absolutely hate the Breastapo Brigade... Just awful. I have nothing whatsoever against breastfeeding, but loathe those who preach about it and put those who don't down. A fed baby is the best. Who is anyone to judge another mother's decision - it makes my blood boil. From my perspective formula is not inferior. It was a choice I made. I was fully informed. I read up lots on the pros and cons of BF and FF and FF was absolutely the right decision for us as a family. I have no regrets whatsoever. There was practically no information provided on FF by midwife/NHS/NCT, which is pretty poor. F

On bottle feeding: my midwife (head of the area) suggested that this "formula is not sterile" is a bit of scaremongering and that the risk is minimal. I boiled water and put it in sterile bottles, closed them tight, took to bed. Baby woke up, I added the pre-measured scoops, mixed and fed. I know many will say it's wrong but I trusted her experience and I fed my kids that way for their first year. No issues. Never heard of a baby being I'll because of formula and I believe if it were the case, it would be all over the news. That said, during the day I favoured the boiled water plus formula plus topped up with cooled-in-fridge boiled water. But at night I never got out of bed.

Jesus, Jedi.

You shouldn't ever feel horrible. You were let down massively.

Struggling as you were there should have been someone to step in and say enough is enough before it got to the point of your baby starving.

On one hand, the NHS does fill a need for women to research the facts on feeding as it is hard to find in the noise of the internet and people, but I also agree that in general the NHS's information on pregnancy and newborns needs a serious revamp. It seems to either treat it very cringey twee and kinda treats us like we all have the same idealized sugary consumer vision in our heads (Emma's Diary...) or it acts exactly like any other medical situation which I think causes the above feel of almost-propaganda as feeding has much more to it and even for those of us surrounded by anti-breastfeeding culture know most of the benefits and need more practical information.

I mean, with my kids, it was very anti-breastfeeding by basically everyone, and having strong evidence that it was worthwhile helped me even though pretty much no one else around me other than my spouse cared about any of that. I spent pretty much my entire first pregnancy having every time I said I intended to breastfeed in front of someone other than my spouse qualified by the other person with "if you can" and getting breastfeeding horror stories & how it's "gross" in this or that situation. When in hospital with my first I was the only one in my ward area breastfeeding - I had the bizarre experience of having one poor little one vomiting & crying quite a lot of the night and having a midwife tell the mum that that sometimes happens and being all cheery about it followed by her telling me off that mine must be starving because he cried for a few minutes when I fumbled through a nappy change, I got told I had "deep milk ducts" (I still have no idea what that meant), hammered over and over with "it's okay to bottlefeed you know", and was pushed into submitting to heel prick tests as they wouldn't let me leave until I could prove I was feeding him well. Even when my second child was a year old, I still dealt with how X person family member knew was so much happier not trying to breastfeed their second and how big their kid was. My step-BILs making pantomime-big deal about not looking (they would look at the ceiling and sing to themselves) if I tried to feed my infant in front of them, forcing me to either sit through that or leave. I think as awkward as the almost-propaganda NHS stuff is, nothing ever made me feel as bad or as awkward as how others acted by my even wanting to do so, let alone how I've been treated for actually breastfeeding. I find it hard to believe anyone would refuse to continue a conversation and sing loudly if I'd bottlefed.

Personally, I still felt very let down on the NHS's paperwork on the third stage of labour - it is pretty much hardly touched on in anything (I think the main book I was given had like 3 paragraphs on it). 3 out of 4 of my placentas had major issues, one caused by a midwife, the first time it happened I was so thrown because nothing mentioned things going wrong after the baby was born fine. I could never get the kind of information I needed nor would the midwives really talk about it in later pregnancies, each time treated like an odd fluke not to be talked about. The whole information on pregnancy, labour, and infants by the NHS needs a major look through and revamp, if we're going to rely on mother's doing the research, then we need to know what we need to be researching at least.

Here's another curveball.

Anyone ever have any pressure against BF from their husband? You know, because boobs are for page 3, not for their original function?

I'm the same @DN4GeekinDerby. All I have experienced is pressure to bottle feed. Breastfeeding, in theory, before babies are born is "best". Then once baby is here everyone is like "augh, what? Why are you breastfeeding?! Use formula!!"
I struggle to understand these threads.

So you're "keeping an open mind" and think factual information is propaganda.

I'd put money on you not BFing for very long. You have to be committed to it and you don't sound like you are I'm afraid.

Thanks OP, now I just get annoyed thinking about it, but at the time I felt really inadequate. The pictures of my DD with 2 weeks are terrifying now, though. I can't believe we didn't realise, she was so thin :(
So many other people in this thread with similar stories :(

What an arsey post, Count.

Did that make you feel good?

It's an odd strategy from the NHS as there's a fair amount of evidence that this kind of scaremongering doesn't really work.

Even if BF did have significant impacts on infant health in this country, telling women that their babies might cancer if they don't BF is not a good way of going about increasing bf rates...

bfmed.wordpress.com/2016/04/13/might-there-be-risks-of-risk-based-language/

Can I tell you in complete honesty that most midwives are not bothered whether you breastfeed or bottle feed. They are bothered that you have the knowledge and skills to feed your baby the way that works best for both of you. The leaflets given to them, to give to you,are provided by the Department of Health and include whatever message the government of the day wish to promote..

I bet it didn't take her long at all to put the weight on again though Jedi?

Honestly, as a first time mum with no family support network, you should have been looked after much more than you were.

When you are told all through your pregnancy how lovely/easy/convenient/better BFing is it's not surprising you didn't realise.

Thanks Weebo :) I wish they had, instead I just got "another breastfeeding specialist coming soon next week". I think you are right, they should be on top of these things and check, especially if they know that there's no family support (live too far away) or anyone to tell us that something is not right. DH and I slept on the living room together for almost a week, one awake holding the baby, one snoozing gif a few hours, then swap. All because the baby would cry like hell when we tried to put her on the moses (dead hungry!) and also because we took a bit too literally the "you won't sleep now baby is here"... Midwife was shocked when she came to visit 😅 if only I knew then what I know now!

I had support from DH and wider family when I was trying to BF. If only that was enough.

Weebo, she put weight back quickly but she could only eat very little and often, she wasn't used to having a lot in one go. I agree, they knew we didn't have family around and she was our first. We were really excited and read every book we found on raising happy babies... I should have read Mumsnet!!! DH bought me the Mumsnet-stories book when pregnant with the second 😅

We have some of the lowest rates of breastfeeding in the world, I think we need more information explaining the benefits if I'm honest.

I have read a similar document to that and I would not call it anything like propaganda- it is factual. It is a fact that formula is inferior to breast milk, that's not to say it isn't a viable alternative to breastmilk but let's not pretend that it's equal to it.

You have an open mind about breast feeding which is great, good luck with your pregnancy.

I was introduced to the concept of mixed feeding by my health visitor when my first dc was 6 weeks old due being constantly hungry. I had never heard of mixed feeding until then.

When I had my last dc [twins] I was bf with no problems but a Sister on the ward insisted I watch a video on bf despite having no problems. The message of the video was basically I was a cow and should feed my calves to the exclusion of everything else.

I don't think YABU btw.

Yup.

No book will tell you 'Fuck breast is best, get a bottle and stop torturing yourself' but MN certainly will. :o

Well, the sensible people will anyway.

@Escargot82 I'd like to say it's maybe a regional thing but my spouse's family is from all over the UK and mine is from the States at the top of the Bible Belt, and it was all "you probably won't be able to", "that's gross" "wouldn't you be happier if you stopped", "X is a great mum and she stopped & her kid is so much bigger" and mostly it was all turned into a big joke at my expense - isn't she silly, she's breastfeeding, let's have a laugh because boobs. It made getting help really hard because who wants to admit having problems when everyone thinks I shouldn't be doing that in the first place. I had a horrible mastitis with my youngest and I can remember telling my spouse that I did not care what told people, he was not to tell anyone I was going through that because I don't want to hear about it... Years on I'm fine with discussing the issues because that info needs to be said if we're going to give women realistic information to make choices on...but I still don't think I could discuss it in front some of the people who were around me at the time & it's been years.

Maybe it's a "whatever mothers do, we're going to get shit for it" sort of thing and our society which is pretty against women doing anything visibly not for the sake of being pretty to others and pretty against women not martyring ourselves for others means whether we breastfeed or bottlefeed, we're going to hear about how we're doing it all wrong just by different sources. The anti-breastfeeding was particularly very loud and constant for me which caused me a lot of issues when my kids were tiny - I got really isolated because I couldn't deal with that well.

weebo what you said plus my potted experience :

Firstborn, almost 4 weeks prem. He couldn't stimulate supply. I BF for hours and hours... I cried and he starved.. FF from day 28. Thrived from then on. Thanks very much, MW and the NHS official advice. Crap.

Second child. 5 days over. Took to BF with a vengeance, OMG get me some nipple shields, I'm in so much pain and the child might actually ingest blood.

But- second child, still needed to hand express colostrum in the hospital bed so dd could have that. I was not shy about asking the nurses for formula the same day, because I fully intended to mix feed.

They were fine with that. Slough General. Sounds awful - great maternity unit.

I had ds in 2013. At the NHS run ante-natal class we were told that formula was made with fish semen and solvents!

Almost made me want to say I was planning on formula feeding just to annoy them.

I've had 5dc. Formula fed 2 and breast fed 3 until they were nearly 2.

I got more comments, questions and funny looks when breast feeding than I ever did bottle feeding.

I had midwives tell me that I would never be able to manage breast feeding my 11lb newborn. I was told to supplement with formula even though he gained weight from day one. I didn't and he was EBF.

I was asked at the school gate if I felt a bit like a pervert breast feeding a boy!

I had family ask me when I was going to 'stop all that nonsense' and was I sure it wasn't more for me than them.

I was 17 when I had my first and the midwife asked how I intended to feed. I said bottle and mumbled about not having the first clue about breast feeding and I had never seen anyone do it. She just cleared her throat and said she thought it was best if I bottle fed. So I did.

I think breast feeding needs to be normalised, supported and encouraged as much as possible. I think breast milk is best for most babies. I'm not entirely convinced that breast feeding is best for most mothers though.

Something I would like to mention is that I never felt there was any correlation between how I fed my babies and how I bonded with them. I bonded with them because I cared for them, responded to them and fed them.

YANBU there is so much propaganda around breastfeeding. Be prepared for your health visitor to pick up where the magazine leaves off: I.e. If you struggle with breastfeeding they will spout the same unhelpful facts rather than giving you practical advice on how to improve your latch etc. That's my experience anyway.

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.

Yep, I have a copy of the "Feeding and Caring for Your Baby" guide and I can understand why you feel that the publication constitutes propaganda.

I wouldn't quite use that word myself, but I do think it pushes a certain parenting cultural approach that is not considerate of the diversity of British parenting styles and cultures, and it does so in a manner that could be perceived as quite alienating.

Personally, I feel the booklet has been written with an agenda in mind and it is not entirely appropriate for an NHS-endorsed publication. It very much speaks to a certain segment of the parenting demographic. It's also noticeable that there are very few images of BME parents and children.

Yes, there is an extremely strong focus on breastfeeding in every bit of information given in the booklet (read: everything comes back to how you need to breastfeed). Reading the info, you could be forgiven for thinking that if you don't breastfeed, your baby will have a flat head, experience pain when they have immunisations, and will have high cortisol levels that will impede their brain development ... among a range of other scary outcomes.

Now a lot of these things may be accurate, but stating them in the way the booklet does in a very forceful manner is not exactly supportive of mothers who cannot breastfeed.

The major issue I have with the booklet, however, is that it presents breast feeding as part of an NHS-endorsed package of babycare that also heavily involves baby wearing for both parents and baby-led weaning, which is where it starts to fall into pushing a certain parenting cultural style and I think it's quite awkward for an NHS publication to do this.

Personally, I think baby-wearing and baby-led weaning are individual choices for parents. But the booklet really turns on the positive for these things and is rather negative about the alternatives or just doesn't talk about them at all. For example, there's information given about sling libraries, but nothing about guidelines for car seats/carriers or the requirement for newborns to lay flat in prams (indeed, there is two lines about car seats that are very negative in tone). Parent-led weaning is also treated quite negatively.

The advice for dads is also rather specifically cultural. The booklet advises that dad can bond with baby by, for example, wearing a baby sling while vacuuming the house. In fact, the majority of pictures of dads feature them wearing a sling. There's even a picture of a dad playing guitar to a bump. Now that's lovely, but lets be honest here ... this advice is not massively inclusive of the diversity of British men, is it? There's even a caption about how "more men than ever are staying at home to care for families when mothers return to work". Now while this may be statistically true, the numbers of men doing that are still incredibly small and I think by stating this, the booklet is not particularly reflecting the reality of modern circumstances for new parents.

All in all, the message you get from the booklet is that you need to breastfeed, feed on demand, baby-wear, have regular skin-to-skin from birth, use a drop-side crib, not use a car seat or a pram, and if you have to go back to work, you should either have baby close for breastfeeding or express your breast milk. And if you don't do this, lots of horrible things will happen to you and your baby. Oh, and dad needs to babywear as well and also freak out at the £1000 cost of bottle-feeding for a year.

I really don't think that narrative is particularly inclusive nor supportive of the different circumstances of British parents at all.