To wonder how much breastfeeding matters 14 years on?

[ringle]

Genuine question. I bf both my kids with relatively few problems, mostly because I found it enjoyable.

But looking back it doesn't seem that big a deal.

What's prompted this is a couple of people testifying on another thread that their ongoing efforts to bf drove them to depression.

What are the stats?

It may be the biological norm but it isn't the actual norm in the UK. Most babies are not breastfed, or breastfed for a very short time only. Generally in the UK people don't accept any of the research or assertions about the positives of breastfeeding. It's not considered that much different to formula feeding in outcome. There's also the general view that breastfeeding is hard work and you'd be slightly foolish to forgo the help and sleep that formula feeding would give you.

Really, it should be something that isn't promoted or discussed any more. We aren't a breastfeeding culture and the majority don't think it's something to aim for anyway. Just quietly support those who want to do it and forget about it as a national policy.

@assassiantedbeauty but that would be ignoring medical science which is a dangerous slope.

Not ignoring it, just accepting practical reality which is that the majority don't want breastfeeding promoted. Leave people to make their own choices, and spend whatever money is available for breastfeeding promotion on supporting those who choose to breastfeed.

I 100% believe that investment should be in support not promotion however there does need to be some kind of outreach to expectant mothers who havent made a feeding decision.

Discussing breastfeeding shouldnt be taboo, its actually really isolating as a nursing mum - my baby is getting over a cold so she fed all weekend so have spent the day in work uncomfortably engorged as she usually only feeds twice a day. I made one comment about it and was met with ''you shouldnt really be feeding her at 17 months''....

Should i accept that its a FF culture and let the comment go or actually stand up for my choice which happens to be backed up my medical best practise?

I find it odd that people blame BF pressure for PPD and not any other of the stresses a new mother faces. Surely the lack of sleep, recovery from birth (which may have been traumatic), conflict with partner/family etc are also potential triggers. Maybe we need more resources to cope with PPD.

I BF my first and plan to again. I don't like the idea of serving processed food to newborns if I can offer a fresh product. So as long as I can BF I will. If I can't then I'm glad formula exists as a backup.

I'm not talking about personal conversations, I was referring to any public promotion by the NHS and so on. I think that midwives should ask, once, what women are planning on and then leave it at that. They can then offer support/information if women plan on breastfeeding or aren't sure and want more input.

I've recently returned from maternity leave and in the course of discussing babies etc one or two comments have been made about trying to/getting to 6 months and then being able to stop breastfeeding. I didn't stop, but I don't see any point in bringing up my own situation unless directly asked. I recognise I'm out of step with the majority and that it's not helpful to mention it as people tend to be massively defensive on all sides.

My first was EBF for 7 months, she's 26 now and very healthy with no allergies, despite pickling her insides with alcohol during her university years. I had poor health including cancer in my childhood, I was FF but suspect that if environmental factors are involved, the really foul secondary smoke from high tar, unfiltered Senior Service and Players No 6 Plain from my parents is a more obvious suspect.
My second was exclusively fed my expressed bm for 11 months via a naso-gastric tube. She suffered grave brain damage following oxygen deprivation at birth. Her extremely eminent neonatal neurologist, probably one of the top 4 in the world, credited this as a key factor in her doing much better than would have been predicted from her first weeks' presentation. She is now 18 and healthy, she is on no medication and hasn't been hospitalised in more than a decade. For someone with her disabilities this is very unusual.
Clearly the benefits must be marginal, but occasionally marginal matters, possibly in the case of my DC2, it's impossible to know for sure on an individual basis.
If my eldest has children, I'll support whatever choice she makes about feeding her own children.

Personally I think it does matter. To me. I'm glad I breastfed.

I don't think FF causes any problems. I think any potential issues might be caused in the absence of breastfeeding, not because of FF.

I struggled with breastfeeding with all 3, but glad I did.

There is way too much pressure on new mums so I think it stems from that. When you're being lectured by family and friends and health professionals on the RIGHT way to do x and y and having leaflets thrown at you in all directions plus reading hundreds of articles on baby websites it can be soul crushing to not be able to 'do it properly'.

It's a learning curve having your first baby, not just the responsibility or new found parenthood, but the ability to realise that YOUR way is the right way for YOU and YOUR child.

I was devastated for months when I couldn't breastfeed my first born. I got to around 3 months postpartum and realised that I was doing a fucking amazing job because my baby was fed, clean, warm and happy.

I feel so so bad for anyone who has recently given birth/are pregnant/are going to have a baby in the future because I truly believe that if I didn't already have experience around children the pressures would have been too much and would have made me mentally ill.

For any new mummy's or mums to be please take note of this, you are doing it right

It's over 10 years since I breastfed my children. If anything I wish I'd done more mixed feeding rather than exclusively bf for as long as I did. I'd have had more breaks, more sleep and maybe been a better mother IMO.

I also wish I'd hired more help.

I just look back and remember nothing but exhaustion.

Neither of my kids were breastfeeding for any significant amount of time and we're both mostly Ff/ however ages 5 and 8 now are among their only friends with no allergies or celiac or other health issues
Mind you I put that more down to luck than if they were breast or formula fed.
Anyone putting pressure on new mothers to the point of depression needs to take a look at themselves

Anyone read or mentioned "The Politics of Breastfeeding" yet ? A fascination book.

Also there is clear evidence of how much more important breastfeeding is in developing countries. The biggest killer of children under 5 years is due to diarrhoea / dehydration and breastfeeding has massive massive benefits to childhood mortality in developing countries.

Botswana promoted formula feeding due to concern over aids and saw a spike in infant mortality.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3008406/ worth a read

Expat coeliac disease testing now often offers genetic testing for family history so I don't see how it could be linked to breastfeeding or the lack of breastfeeding

I'm a dentist and I can't tell the difference between BF and FF children.
Sometimes BF children are fed too often and fed to sleep (always brush after last feed of the day please!) and this can result in caries.
There is a link between babies who are bf and not on solids also at the appropriate time and hypomineralised first permanent molars.
However nursing bottle varies is still around although that is often juice not milk.
So both methods can be detrimental to teeth if people aren't careful.
I do believe at a population level bf may result in slightly better health.
I don't believe it's enough to get worked up about and it isn't enough to cause mothers to be upset, depressed and guilty about not bf.
Personally my DS was unable to bf and I felt shit about it, and when I look at him now I know that was ridiculous.
My advice would be give it a go,but don't worry too much if it doesn't work out for you as FF is a perfectly fine and safe alternative. As with anything there are pros as well as cons to FF.

Most things that we do make no noticeable difference 14 years later. Does that mean that nothing matters?

I thought it was completely fine to breast feed to sleep. I always brush DDs teeth before bed then breastfeed her. Should I brush her teeth after she's gone down then?

DS1 fed all night for 2 years and has no cavities.

I’m currently in the newborn phase (6 weeks in) and I wonder what support can be given sometimes... nothing can prepare you for the reality of it.

I’ve seen 2 IBCLCs, I’ve had support from nurses and I’ve read lots (before and after birth), joined Facebook groups for support and talked to loads of people. And I’m still considering ff...

Mainly because breastfeeding at the moment is totally relentless. My baby wants to feed constantly, sleeps terribly unless he’s in the sling or it’s Post cluster feed and we’re both shattered. I think he is also in a growth spurt too, which adds a layer of difficult. He spits out the boob but acts like he wants it, and yes he might do this with a bottle too, but the physical feeling of this happening to my Body is almost unbearable sometimes. And not through pain (bf has never really hurt me) it’s just the physical feeling of being needed and rejected and toyed with and scratched (that hurts...) but he needs comfort and the boob is his best way to find comfort at the moment and sometimes even what that offers isn’t quite right but he doesn’t know how to ask for anything else really yet. We’re still working each other out.

And what support can be given when I’m finding it hardest at 3am? What does support for a breastfeeding mother look like when it’s just them and their partner and their partner has to sleep to go to work? He does the best he can during the time he is awake with us, but he has to sleep and then I’m on my own...

I feel guilt for even considering stopping and it’s not social guilt really it’s a physical and emotional guilt. I think even without a breast is best message I’d still feel it. I feel like I’m being selfish for considering formula feeding, because it’s a decision I’m making for me not necessarily for my baby. He loves breastfeeding and it is his best chill pill and I am selfishly considering taking that away...

TL:DR: breastfeeding is really physically demanding and emotionally hard and I don’t know what kind of support is actually practical for mothers when they are in the middle of finding it hard ...

It does matter though, doesn't it? Breast fed babies do get a better start. There is a lot of evidence. I don't think we should belittle that because some people are unable to breastfeed.

I have huge regrets I didn't breastfeed my eldest longer.

Surely it's what the child is fed on after weaning and throughout childhood that is far more important and can have very far-reaching consequences?

Providing the baby is properly fed, either BF or with good quality formula, I honestly don't think it matters either way. There are some benefits to BF of course. But equally there are also benefits to FF.

My twins were born by Ecs five weeks early and were resusicated and taken to nicu before they'd finished stitching me up - didn't lay eyes on them for 7 hours, held one the next day but didn't hold the other for quite a while. I immediately started expressing as instructed, within hours of my section. Almost drop of colostrum went to the smaller, sicker twin as he was too sick for formula. tgere was no skin to skin and very little physical contact in the first two weeks, for one particularly. When I was able to try latching them, they couldn't latch well and it was incredibly painful, all the milk was spilling out of their mouth and down me but the hospital kept telling me it was fine. One came home after 2 weeks with his ng tube - I would feed him for up to an hour then he'd still be starving so I'd have to top up with formula since his brother needed all the milk I was making. The other was in for 8 weeks and eventually they were able to get him stable on medications and ebm plus formula for medical reasons and other things. Within two days of him coming home, he got sick and eventually ended up in hospital with whooping cough - I had to stay in a recliner next to his bed for 11 nights and barely got to pump. After that my supply dropped from 1 litre a day to 300 ml.

At the time I was part of a breastfeeding group on Facebook and the attitude towards FF and even pumping was just hideous. Those women made me feel like utter shit. I became obsessed with pumping, was doing it every 2 hours and still not getting 25% of their daily needs so having to supplement anyway. I spent most days in tears, my babies left in their swings or baskets while I pumped. I barely held them in that time. I had terrible depression but didn't realise it at the time.

I ended up leaving that group after a thread denying that formula shaming exists despite seeing it constantly in the group. I was constantly told I could have breastfed if I'd tried harder, that I was lying when I said one needed formula for medical reasons (absolutely true), someone said they didn't agree with formula for "any reason", that the reason I was depressed was because my body believed I was killing my babies by starving them so of course I was depressed. It was the most toxic environment I've ever been in.

I finally saw some sense about 7 months and stopped pumping. Looking back now I must have been insane to continue like that. Failing to BF was definitely a big factor in my depression but I believe the hormones also played a part since when I stopped pumping and my periods returned it improved significantly.

I'm still heartbroken I couldn't bf - it never occurred to me that I wouldn't. Believe me I tried everything and persevered with pumping. in such difficult circumstances far longer than many others would have but I still feel a failure thanks to the attitudes I encountered. I worry that they will have health issues because they weren't bf but fortunately so far that doesn't seem to be the case / I worry more that I was so focussed on pumping that I didn't give them enough focus when they needed it.

Sadly anecdotal evidence means nothing (when little twin had whooping cough he was in hospital with a much bigger baby of the same age who's bf and been in and out of hospital ever since while we have never had to go back, but that's not evidence of anything and I don't get why people turn to stories like this). I do think breast milk is undoubtedly better for baby - it's not processed, it's what baby is supposed to eat and it seems foolish to try and argue that's not the case to me. However, I doubt the extent of some of the claims and the veracity of some of the studies to be honest.

gierg 6 weeks is about the time of peak fussiness - hang in there a bit longer and then make a decision x

I breastfed my ds for 14 months. I agree that there seems to be some pressure before the baby is there to breastfeed (benefits mentioned by midwife, posters in hospital) but I felt very unsupported and even judged as soon as baby arrived.

Maybe I just had a rubbish midwife but i wasn't shown how to breastfeed, was told to get sleep after the birth and when the midwife came in the recovery room she kept making derogatory comments about me feeding him like- you need to put him down now, is he still attached to you?! I actually asked my dh to stand by the door so when she came i could quickly put ds down.

Ds had a tongue tie which fortunately didn't affect his feeding but was told by health visitor to ff him in case he wasn't getting enough as couldn't get the procedure for a few weeks ( he never lost weight and was on 98th percentile) and all the health visitors/doctor's seemed surprised at every app that I was still breastfeeding. I think it probably varies widely but a lot of the pressure is placed on women by themselves. I know I would have felt guilty if I hadn't tried to bf and I'm not sure why.

I'm expecting no 2 soon and I feel that with your second you can be a lot more assertive about your parenting choices. With your first you question everything you do.

OP, like you I found breastfeeding easy, which I think may contribute to why we can't get over worked up about the benefits or think it matters that much. I think if you struggled through agony to do it, you have to tell yourself it was worth the sacrifice so therefore much better than formula. If it was just the easy and natural thing to do, you probably don't feel the same need to big it up and as a consequence belittle formula feeders.

Both my children have either asthma or eczema, so BF is not such magic bullet that guarantees a super healthy child.