Breast milk is the best thing for your baby...

[Starwhisperer]

Please hear me out on this one.

I know that advertising regulations are in line with the WHO advice that breast milk is the best thing for a baby until at least 6 months of age.

My issue is with the specifics in what we see and read as soon to be and new mothers.

I combi fed my first child for 18m as my supply never seemed to be where I needed it to be. The first 2 months were a hellish cycle of pumping and formula milk. I firmly believe the failure to feed as I'd wanted led to my PND. I met other mothers struggling at the time who felt the same way and there has been research done which has confirmed this.

Everytime I formula fed my baby there in front of me was the message "breast milk is the best thing for your baby". Am I being unreasonable to think that this would do more harm than good. I know it made me feel rotten. I'd have thought that by the time a mother is preparing and giving formula feeds it's generally too late to be converted to the idea of BFing. The message is either going to women entirely happy with their decision to FF or women like me who see it as a kick in the teeth because they tried their hardest and didn't get the hang of it.

I feel that instead more effort should be put in before birth to get the facts out there, all i had was ony little leaflet with no opportunity promoted to ask aboit tjings in more detail. Perhaps a blanket ban on formula advertising. They use babies as close to 6m as possible for the pictures which does far more in the way of promoting FF than a little message promoting BF on a box.

Perhaps I'm getting my knickers in a twist over nothing bit I feel the formula manufacturers are doing way more harm than good here.

Assassinated agree. There's a blog called the alpha parent which is a fantastic source of information. I wish more pregnant mothers read it.

Laurie, screaming breast is best is easy yes and also about as much as can be done by the nhs on limited funds. If money wasn't an issue there would be lactation consultants on every ward, support workers to sit with mums, longer hospital stays. Our anger should be at formula companies.

I disagree with a lot of this. I believe the NHS has an obligation to follow through with adequate support at the very least. And if breast feeding is important to the NHS, then they need to find the goddamn money. Setting the BIB grenade off, then doing nothing to help new mothers is setting them up for failure and mental illness and that, in my mind, isn't good enough.

And I don't think we should be angry with formula companies particularly. They're tightly controlled already. We need the product.

Well that just goes to show how different people’s experiences can be, I guess that’s why you don’t get it. Still though, you were told.

I remember getting all teary in a baby clinic with a BF poster up soon after I was discharged, I don’t think they should be taken down as they’re presumably for pregnant women to see.

There is something very wrong with the way they have gone about this for so many mothers to start out feeding then stop. In Switzerland 80% of mothers are still BF at 4 months and over there it’s very normal to give the odd bottle of formula even in the beginning. I am by no means in a middle class bubble btw. My MIL told me formula was just as good as it had more vitamins, my friends (no kids) all supported me FF. Me feeling shit was purely down to my treatment at hospital and the pressure I felt to carry on BF.

Of course we should be aiming to raise bf rates.

You do that in a number of ways. So by supporting women who want to bf not by bashing women who choose to ff.
By education - not haranguing
By being honest that bf can be bloody hard work at the beginning. And that here is a shitton of support if you’re struggling

This whole ‘everyone Can do it and it’s easy’ shit is counterproductive. Women who struggle but want to continue are not getting support and left feeling like failures. The oft cited figure of a couple of percent who can’t bf is misleading. That’s the ones who cannot produce any milk. There is a MUCH higher number of women who have a sub-optimal production or very painful feeding due to either their physiology or the physiology of the child. Friends who work in this are of the opinion that about 15% of first time mums experience such difficulty that without intensive support they are unlikely to continue. And let’s not forget that before formula those babies would have died.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Support is the key, not haranguing women.

I had a cs. I feel precisely zero guilt. Guilt? Seriously why on earth would I feel guilt? The alternative was us both bleeding out. Fuck that. Thank fuck for modern medicine. Ds BFd until 18m, when I’d had quite enough. If I have another I’ll mix feed.

Do what’s best for YOU and your baby. This ridiculous guilt trip shit has to stop.

There's a blog called the alpha parent which is a fantastic source of information. I wish more pregnant mothers read it.

I've read her and to be perfectly honest, I think she's totally toxic. If I had not been successful in breastfeeding, I would have felt like shit in a shovel reading her blog. New mothers don't need that.

Yeah, the Alpha Parent is not helpful to anyone.

We should be so cross at formula companies they have made a product that would in reality only be necessary to a few women become the most adopted way and the norm to feed a baby up to 6 months.

But this just isn't entirely true. People bottle fed babies before formula existed and these babies were fed a variety of different concoctions. This applies to my parents generation, they were all bottle fed but not on formula.

The bad thing they did was promote it in the third world, that is awful.

Kellymom - brilliant website. Factual. Evidence based. Guilt free. Great resource.

Parenting blogs in general can do one

The cuts are ideologically driven, no doubt about it but I doubt breastfeeding will be given any more importance. And I disagree formula companies Stoll have far too much freedom, their adverts are always misleading the whole 'follow on milk' thing like its a necessity, younger looking babies used. They might print a small message but they offset it in many other ways.

Kellymom is great. And la leche league.

Toxic is unfair, she has so much fantastic advice. I found her very helpful and motivational.

Toxic is unfair

I don't think so. She may have great advice, but the overwhelming tone of superiority (even the name!) is horrific. Her blog isn't about supporting mothers, but making herself feel superior.

I remember one particularly awful entry about how to 'win the argument with formula feeders'. FFS, it's not about winning arguments. It's about understanding, supporting and helping mothers do the best they can.

We should be so cross at formula companies they have made a product that would in reality only be necessary to a few women become the most adopted way and the norm to feed a baby up to 6 months.

We should be glad there’s a safe effective way to feed babies whose mothers can’t feed them. And it was never just a few babies. A LOT needed it. Before, babies were fed horrendously inappropriate stuff from bottles that were a breeding ground for bacteria. The mortality rate for bottle fed babies was terrifying.

Formula advertising should be, and is, curtailed. Formula companies aggressively promoting in the third world is terrible. But it’s a product that is necessary. And used appropriately is beneficial.

It’s not as simple as formula= Satan. It’s saved a lot of lives and it’s contributed to a lot of deaths. Like most things in life it’s neither wonderful nor evil.

Is support that terrible? I am not going to claim for a second this happens everywhere but in my area (a council that covers a population of 110,000 people) there are baby clinics, staffed with hV and BF advisors, on every day. Is a different children's centre, village hall or GP surgery -you may well have to travel to get to them- up to about 10 miles- but their support is wonderful. I went regularly and made them watch me feed. They provided so much expertise and even cups of tea. I saw many women turning up in floods of tears and they were wonderful and we all rallied around to support and help

I used the NCT helpline, the national BF network helpline and LLL. All on the end of the phone.

I never met one other person on my maternity leave who used these services and many wouldn't be able to tell you they existed. Yet the information about them was part of the standard pack passed on when we were released to the care of the HV team.

I hated those labels too, and the stupid pop up on the formula website - I went online to check the instructions but had to tick a box to confirm that I understood exclusively breastfeeding was best for my baby.

I exclusively BF for five days and ended up with a seriously ill baby in SCBU with hypernatraemic dehydration. My milk didn’t come in properly until DD was eight weeks old (still BF now at almost 23 months). I didn’t have any choice about using formula and those messages, plus the ones I’d encountered in pregnancy are what led to me having PND.
I did a NHS breastfeeding workshop at my hospital and was given a booklet about BF but nowhere was there balanced information available about potential difficulties, or that formula can actually save lives (the reason it was invented in the first place). I just got a load of tosh about BF being an amazing bonding experience (I hated it and it really screwed up bonding with DD - much preferred looking into her eyes whilst bottlefeeding and when my milk eventually came in I refused to increase my supply beyond 50% FF/BF because I disliked BF so much.

What pregnant women need is accurate information, not patronising rubbish in leaflets and on labels that help no one.

Are you in Lanarkshire bubble? The suppprt is similar there. They reckon they can fund it with the money they save treating young babies with gastro bugs that would have been avoided with successful bf

No I'm down sarf

Completely agree. I basically starved my child for almost two months as I was being advised by my health visitor to 'keep going' even in the face of continued weight loss, sleeplessness and constant screaming. I'm not stupid or a pushover and would happily have told her to do one if it hadn't been for the overwhelming amount of times I was told by every single midwife, health visitor and leaflet I was given that breast is best and I should persevere if I really wanted to do the right thing by my dc. Of course it wasn't the right thing at all and It devastates me even now that I put my dc through that when they were so small and that was their first few months of life. I cry almost every time I think of it.

I had my first in the UK and second abroad and didn't find a significant difference in levels of support. (Possibly my experience was not normal because I had a short period in NICU in the UK and a very long period in NICU abroad. But in both I was encouraged and supported to breastfeed but not guilted into it.) I think there is something else keeping breastfeeding rates low in the U.K.

@Bubblebubblepop in my area they've cancelled clinics, and reduced access to the remainder. Plus, traveling to them is difficult if you've had a c section and can't drive or walk far. The specific breastfeeding drop in sessions have also been reduced and don't run in the summer, which was when my baby was born. There was a breastfeeding support worker in the hospital on the day my DS2 was born, but I only saw her that day and then she disappeared never to be seen again! The help I had was great, but I still needed support on day 2 onwards in hospital.

I have no idea if this is typical, but it has definitely got worse since I had my first child 5 years ago.

Where I was
6-10 weeks wait for cutting tongue tie
5 minutes of midwife support in hospital, then too busy
No NHS breast feeding clinics

However, private support was stunning. Very expensive though.

When you say cancelled clinics- these are sort of hybrid clinics, also the ones that you would get your baby weighed at or drop in for advice- surely they can't cancel them?

I agree re c section and driving- I had a c section- but what can you do? They'll always be someone who doesn't fit the service exactly.

My HV would come out to your house but not much point mentioning it as it will just illiciate a load of replies as to how that doesn't help either

Yep, the hybrid clinics where you can get baby weighed and get drop in advice. They've reduced them down to two from four and made them appointment only in advance. The clinics were so busy the queues would be out the door, so it wasn't to do with lack of demand.

**But BF IS the best thing for your baby. It doesn't matter if it makes you feel like shit, and I am sorry you failed at bfing, but health organisations have a responsibility to promote the healthiest options.

Agh! Narrow minded blanket statements like this are infuriating! It is not always best!! If there isn't enough of it the baby gets ill and dehydrated, loses weight etc. If it drives mother to pnd, well ya know that isn't great either. Why are people so unable to look at this issue more holistically and stop making suck frankly stupid statements?!

If anybody tries their absolute best to breastfeed and isn't successful, they won't get upset by a message and feel guilt.However if its a half hearted effort and then and quick switch without persevering as much as they could then I can see why the message would be upsetting.

This is just vile. And is just wrong. It was so damaging to my mental health to have people like you suggest that I didn’t try hard enough. I punished myself because of my own expectations, societal pressure etc.

I work in public health and was probably equally sanctimonious before I found out what it was like to struggle. I have learnt some humility and my experiences have changed the way I work.