Friend is pissed off with me, WIBU to correct her?

[teenytinypontypine]

It is a breastfeeding one, sorry.

Group of 4 of us female friends out for lunch. I have an almost three y o who I breastfed for 13 months and FWIW it was fucking agony wasn't easy for the first couple of months but I stuck it out and am pleased I did. Other friend "A" has a 5 month old who is FF. I don't care a jot. Feed your baby however you like.

Other two ladies are both currently pregnant, due within a few weeks of each other around Xmas time, and over lunch conversation turns to feeding.

Friend A says she really wanted to bf but couldn't. She said her milk didn't come in because she had an elcs, so baby was starving and unhappy and she had to give up. "How long did you try for?" asks pregnant friend - answer: 18 hours. Cue sympathetic tutting from pregnant friends about how hard that must have been.

So, I sort of couldn't help myself but explain that your milk usually doesn't come in at birth, but more usually a few days later. And that newborn stomachs are v little and hardly take any filling at all. And that newborns physiologically are prepared for mum's milk not coming in for a few days so usually do just fine. Oh and that people having a section usually can bf. And yes, I know there are some circumstances where these things aren't true, but in the main this is what happens.

"A" got visibly riled - reporting that her baby was much happier as soon as she got a bottle. I gave her a big grin and said that's fine and clearly she is a happy, growing little girl and doing perfectly well on formula. But I told her I thought it was only fair to point out to pregnant friends some basic facts about bf. Especially as I am a fucking doctor.

Basically, she feels that by correcting or questioning her version of events I am judging her for not trying for longer. On the contrary, I couldn't give a flying fuck what she does wrt feeding, but I do care that she is spreading misinformation to pregnant friends. I have a duty as a bloody doctor to not just sit by and let someone's opinion stand as fact when I know evidence to the contrary.

So WIBU to correct her like that? Should I have just nodded and smiled and caught my two pregnant friends later to give them a more balanced view?

Stick to sympathetic tutting next time op. It's a sensitive subject, clearly still raw for her and your explanation does sound as though you're judging her decision.

I don't think you were unreasonable. It's important to enable people to be aware of the realities and it may have helped to reassure your pregnant friends that if their milk doesn't come in within 18 hours it doesn't mean they can't - if they want to.

Sometimes it's more important to be kind than to be right.
You were at the table as a friend not a doctor
You could have been more tactful.
Also pretty patronising to the pregnant friends.

Natural birth here and no colostrum, no milk, child would have starved without ff. I had three days at home thinking I was useless and not doing it right despite having breastfed two children before.

If you haven't had problems you really cant judge.

I don't think ywbu. I've had three by cs and always been quite aware of the fact that the milk doesn't come in straight away and persevered accordingly. Gone on to bf for 30, 25 and 18 months respectively. However, nothing could have prepared me for #3 (the hungry boy child) and his relentless hunger after (in hindsight) I lost 2.5 litres of blood and ended up in the high dependency room. I ended up begging the nurses to take him away and give him formula after too many incidences of me falling asleep while trying to feed him once back in a private room on the ward- it was getting dangerous! We went on to eventually establish a good supply, but it was much harder going initially than the other two and took me by surprise. So I really did get an insight into why new mums may worry and give up, where previously I didn't have any experience of it.
I think you handled it just fine and I think it is important to have made the pregnant mum's aware of it though.

If it was just you and your friend I think you should have kept quiet, but she was giving potentially damaging misinformation to two (presumably) first time mothers. I had no idea it took days for milk to come in, kept thing I was unable to feed but persisted with it for the time it took to start flowing. If she said "I felt 18 hours was more than enough" then fair enough, but that's not what she said.

I am not a doctor but I think may have said the same to a Ff friend many years ago. But I do (and even more so then) have a very factual brain .

I did know quite a few people who used to evangelise about ff which is ironic in light of breast is best. Best to just admit you didn't get on with it, which is understandable .

Like you I really don't care either way. It is a personal choice and best to frame it that way rather than buying into the myths

Ds screamed the place down when he was one day old

He latched on and had been fed but not enough he was ravenous

Was asked if I wanted to top up he drank two of the bottles straight

He was a very very greedy baby and no I could never produce enough milk for him I was excatly the same my mum passed out trying to feed me

So no our bodies do not always work the way the should and really she didn't need the lecture I doubt you are the first

Yeah, I think you were insensitive. Maybe not deliberately so but I bet you left her feeling like shite. I had a very traumatic birth and a PPH, which led to my milk being delayed. Mine didn't come in until day 7. No way could my daughter have survived on just a few drops of colostrum for a week, she was starving hungry after a day, she was nearly 9lb.

We struggled on with donor breastmilk (I was in hospital a week after birth), cup feeding, hand expressing and syringe feeding, pumping, the lot (all while trying to physically and mentally recover) because I was so determined that I shouldn't 'let my baby down' by giving her formula. What rubbish. I eventually gave her a bottle of Aptamil and she was grand. I felt like shit about it though for months and months. She never took well to BF, but I expressed for six months six times a day and supplemented her with formula too. I look back now and though I'm proud of what I did I do think it was a huge unnecessary strains to put on myself for so long. My MH definitely suffered as a result.

Some people already feel awful for not breastfeeding all by themselves. They don't need successful breastfeeders coming along and making them feel worse or making them look like a liar or stupid in front of others.

Say sorry to your friend.

"Being kind to your friend" in this case would equal "misinforming other pg women"

I think it's really difficult - you can't let misinformation like that stand, but it may have sounded to her like you were calling her a liar. She also probably felt very tired and overwhelmed in those 18 hours post-birth, and "gave up" rather than making a positive decision to FF. There will be a lot of emotion attached to it still - my mum still deeply regrets giving up BFing 38 years later and wishes she'd persevered.

I'd probably have approached it by telling my birth story after hers - I'm a doctor too, but nobody likes medical advice in the middle of a baby chat. It creates a hierarchy and is distancing. I've had to smile and nod through plenty of rubbish advice from fellow mums at baby group! And I had people recommending acupuncture and homeopathy left right and centre when I was having infertility treatment. They're trying to bond by sharing something of themselves.

Facts sometimes irritate people especially around their 'failings' and breastfeedyis very emotive. I'm amazed how many women say they 'couldn't breastfeed' despite normal physiology and a UK plentiful diet. I can see me pointing out they actually chose not to breastfeed when they want the world to think they 'couldnt' might upset them a tad.
Education is never lost though!

Absolutely not unreasonable. So many people don't breast feed because of stuff like this that they hear and take in. I was given barely.any information on breastfeeding when pregnant and just knew what others had said. Luckily I found it very easy but if not I would have given up pretty swiftly due to all the 'facts' id heard which were in fact rubbish on the whole.
No I dont judge you for formula feeding but I do for bullshitting about why and so affecting others decisions.

It's true that after a c section your milk may not come in. How I wish somebody had told me that BEFORE I took my baby home and basically starved her until her 5 day check. At which point she had lost so much weight she was readmitted to hospital as an emergency. The hospital paeds refused to consider that she was just hungry and stuck her on intravenous antibiotics in case of sepsis. During the 3 or 4 days this went on until her blood tests came back clear she was force fed through a nasal tube - they wouldn't even let me give a bottle. If I had known that you can fail to lactate after a C-section none of that would have happened, but on I struggled secure in my NCT found wisdom that all mother's make the right amount of milk for their babies (just like all mother's have a pelvis the right size for their babies), phoning the breast helpline in tears to be told that I clearly was failing with the latching on. No body suggested NO MILK. I wish I had had a friend who had alerted me to that possibility (even if she had just not given herself enough time)

None of us can know, of course, but it sounds to me like you possibly didn't put it in the best way?? If you value the friendship, it might be worth apologising if you didn't put it very well.

Also, whilst I think being a doctor is relevant, it doesn't make you the expert of every single medically related discussion.

You were totally right to correct her. Many of my friends and relatives had issues breastfeeding, some of them are even second time or third time mums and saying things like 'I had no milk so I had to give the baby formula, I couldn't let her starve' etc etc.

If someone had explained this stuff to me when I was a first time mum I may have been successful bf my first dc (and I had gone to all the hospital bf courses etc).

YANBU

Are you sure you're a doctor? Surely you 've met women who didn't succeed in breast feeding before and you know what a heart breaking decision it can be for them?

When my breastfeeding didn't work out, I sat on my bathroom floor alone in the middle of the night and cried and cried with the feeling of failure. Not one of my friends judged me.

For years I could just say 'formula fed', I would offer all my excuses and reasons every time the topic came up.

I'm glad it went well for you, but someday you will struggle with something important and I hope you reflect on how you made your friend feel.

I hear a lot of women say they gave up breastfeeding because they weren't producing enough milk. This is very unusual, very few women do not produce enough milk and usually for medical reasons.
I think, in honestly, you were just correcting this misinformation. Maybe less women who want to bf wouldn't give it up for this reason if they knew?
I think UWNBU but it's obviously a sensitive subject and you're not allowed to tell the truth when it comes to bf
Some babies genuinely are happier bottle fed, maybe it's because it's easier for them/ the flow is faster idk BUT most women do produce enough milk to breastfeed.

Oh FFS to PPs. You were bang on! Too right you tell the truth - you're a doctor and a friend to those preggers ladies. People can't pick and choose when you're an off-duty doctor (in an emergency, it's ok, otherwise it's not is spectacularly unfair).
You definitely did the right thing. Good job. FWIW if I were there I'd have backed you. (I'm no Dr though).

You were right to give the correct information.
Why is it when people talk crap and are corrected, the person doing the correcting is wrong. Like they are so delicate their ears can't take the truth.

I was induced with first & also didn't realise milk took a while to come in until I saw a lactation consultant who explained that I still only had colostrum & a giant hungry baby. 2nd baby was semi elective c section so I was prepared with some formula if needed. There are so many misconceptions about breastfeeding, childbirth etc & I certainly felt as a first time mum nothing prepared me for the realities.

OP - fwiw I think you were right to ensure that the two expectant mums were given correct information about bf.
Hope your friend A was ok when you phoned her.
I'm still a bit confused why, in previous posts, a midwife and a paediatrician were so quick to put neonates on formula. Were they really 'starving' or 'dehydrated' at a few hours old?

You're not strictly correct about just waiting for milk to come in so you were smug and BU. Dependant on the circumstances of birth sometimes you are told they need to have milk sooner than it comes in and therefore you have to FF. Jaundice is a prime example of this. Lets be honest if you were that bothered about your friends having the correct information you could have contacted them separately later. You wanted to humiliate your friend because you believe she failed.

I think as a 'fucking doctor' you should have recognised it was probably a touchy subject and shouldn't have pushed it. You could have always given some information to your pregnant friends another time instead of pissing on your friend's chips.

(I'm also a fucking Doctor btw)

I have said in my OP and during the conversation with my friends that there are exceptions, so everyone coming out with their tales of milk not coming in - I know that that happens and am not minimising that.

That was not my friend's experience. She ff at 18 hours after a very standard section with no complications or NICU etc. And her milk did come in, I saw her on day 3 when she was leaking through her breast pads.

I just couldn't let my pregnant friends go away thinking that if they hadn't got it cracked within 1 day they should give up!