aibu to love this blog post about why formula feeding is brilliant?!

[girlwithasecretsmile]

I think it's great to have a post talking about good things about formula for once but part of me feels bad for laughing so much.

passmethebottleblog.wordpress.com/

The Vitamin D thing is an utterly ridiculous argument.

Just read her update and I agree with every word. Her experience of breastfeeding which she describes in more detail in the update, closely resembles mine and, I suspect, that of many other women as well.
But hey, continue to doubt her account and call her names for not enjoying breastfeeding if you will. I hated it too and calling me a moron or a twat or an arsehole won't change the fact that it was miserable for me, leaking and hurting and bloody expressing for hours, going mad with the guilt and the pain and the boredom of it all, while my beloved babies lost weight and raged.
Formula was absolutely magic!

Argument about what?

I'm just saying you really should take it / give it to your baby whilst breastfeeding. You only don't need to when formula feeding because you're already giving it.

In both cases you're giving it just in different ways. I was just saying it's not utter rubbish because actually all babies need it.

You can't declare something as utterly ridiculous just because it doesn't support your argument.

Great comeback

It’s not THE argument, it’s merely a point that she raised that plenty of ppl have jumped on calling her a liar and all sorts when actually, she’s right. Breastfeeding mums are encouraged to give their babies a syrup thing of vitamin d because breast milk doesn’t contain it. I’m pretty sure she didn’t decide to ff based on that one factor but sure, everyone continue piling on

Shall we have facts on the generational rates of breastfeeding in Britain? (Via the NIH)

By 1961 only 12 per cent of mothers in Britain still breastfed at six months, and 40 per cent of all babies had been weaned by the age of two weeks.

In the 1970s, overall breastfeeding rates were around 28%.

We don't have a generational culture of breastfeeding, which makes it harder for women to access advice and support, particularly complicated for women whose mothers may see their daughters' determination/choice to breastfeed as a criticism of their own choices.

I don't doubt some women are belittled for fomula feeding, any more than I doubt some women are belittled for breastfeeding (especially beyond the newborn phase). So much is tied up in our microcultures and their practices and values.

As I've said previously - honest choices where people who want to BF do that, and people who want to FF do that, are the ideal.

But when there are surveys that indicate up to 80% of women who stopped breastfeeding before 6 weeks say they stopped before they wanted to, often because of lack of advice and support, we can't pretend that everyone is making empowered choices, or that there is very much to celebrate here at all.

She was prem, and we avoided nec of the bowel simply by giving her expressed milk. The others, ff, died...

And for all you know they had many other non formula related health issues poor little things. How fucking cold.

In the U.K. fewer women are breastfeeding at a year than in any other developed country apparently.

More breastfeeding mothers are using formula.

We talk CONSTANTLY about how it's your right and your choice how you feed your baby and doesn't matter what you do in the long run. In fact you literally can't talk about breastfeeding AT ALL in the the U.K. without mentioning

• breastfeeding isn't easy
• it's not for everyone
• happy mum happy baby
• it's your choice.

And yet social media is awash with fucked up, angry, resentful, full-on feeding trauma stories like this from people who insist they had no idea breastfeeding could be so hard.

To which I want to ask - why fucking not?

Bet you knew which buggies were hard to fold and which pregnancy jeans made your arse look the best. Why didn't you do some preparation and research into feeding?

You'd have to live under a stone for your entire pregnancy not to be aware of other people's challenges with feeding.

So I read the blog and call bullshit.

Bloody hell. the arguments rage on for 15 pages! Why is everyone so angry about how we feed our babies? There are seriously more things to get angry about.

"You can't declare something as utterly ridiculous just because it doesn't support your argument."
That's not what I'm saying. New research says that everyone needs more vitamin D. Including women who ff. So saying that formula is better because it has vitamin D in it is utterly disingenuous.

BF v FF threads. Always the same.

Hellosquirrels - breastmilk is lifesaving for many preterm babies.

The fact that this has been known by the medical establishment for years and yet not talked about in the media or among mothers, and the fact some parents are still choosing not to not even try to give their babies their own milk is testament to the appalling ignorance about breastfeeding in some communities in the U.K.

@minifingerz perhaps because at every antenatal session and midwife appointment for example, none of the negative aspects were discussed and so women weren’t aware of the difficulties until afterwards.

People who have been through it and had a baby are the ones creating conversations about feeding.

Yes - but I imagine it was not the formula that killed those poor poor babies. I hope no parents who have suffered a loss are reading this shit.

The maj start off breast feeding too,it's just most have stopped by 6 months.

80% start. By 6 weeks it's around 50%, with 23% breastfeeding exclusively.

The six months figure is bandied about as a bit of a distraction from the fact that many women who start out intending to breastfeed stop relatively quickly, and 77% of babies are formula fed, partly or wholly, at 6 weeks.

@BertrandRussell

Everyone does need vitamin d. Except for formula fed babies as the formula contains it. As the Unicef article I posted highlights. It is not disingenuous to point that out

All this bickering will be in the Daily Mail tomorrow I reckon.

Seriously, I have never in real life encountered either the breastfeeding evangelists or the bottle feeding mafia. Most women are just doing what they do and pay no heed to what others are doing. And I say this as a mum who breastfed two children to 8 and 9 months, with one friend who has also successfully breastfed, another two friends who tried breastfeeding and switched to formula, another friend who went straight to formula and one who is currently pregnant and not tying herself in knots over it. Only on mn do these arguments actually seem to exist. In my world at least.

hello
It's well recognised that breast milk helps avoid nec.
Nec is serious and life threatening.

I'm not sure that anyone's especially angry about how people feed their babies, more upset about feeling or being judged by others

I tried for a decade to have children. During that time I read everything I could lay my hands on regards caring for babies. I fully intended to bf until 6 months.

Nowhere in 2000 did it say how horrendous it would be. Not one of the baby books,not one of the leaflets,not one NHS member of staff.

On the one hand I think people should choose which ever method suits best but I think from a public health point of view it's only right to promote breastfeeding as it has many benefits.

But does anyone ever tell you just how horrendous a prem baby might be?
Or one who needs a feeding tube?
Or a disabled child?

"Yes - but I imagine it was not the formula that killed those poor poor babies. I hope no parents who have suffered a loss are reading this shit."

NEC is a big threat to the life and health of preterm babies. Exclusively formula fed preterm babies are 6 - 10 times more likely to get it.

Nowhere in 2000 did it say how horrendous it would be. Not one of the baby books,not one of the leaflets,not one NHS member of staff.

I'd agree with that a decade later; apart from:

1. Friends, who were honest about the challenges, including those who switched to formula

1. The lactation consultant who did our NCT course and who later I used privately. She was much more honest and realistic, and I was impressed that the NCT supported that when it was apparently forbidden ('if it hurts you're doing it wrong!') in the NHS.

As I've said, I was lucky to get the right interventions to allow me to do what I wanted to do and continue.