to think "Breastfeed if you can" would be a better message

[ringle]

... than "Breast is best".

I say this having start skimmed yet another thread where the OP was driven to post natal depression because of difficulties breast feeding.

PND is far more damaging to babies than formula.

I can only feed from one side and if i had my time again i'd be tempted to not breast feed. I have breastfed 3 dc, close together and it's been so so hard. People talk about support, meaning the physical breast feeding part. But there's the other part, how you can still function if you have other responsibilities. Cluster feeding and being awake all night feeding was fine when i only had one. But add 2 more children to look after and it's really difficult. How can you pick kids up for school and do things with them and cook dinner etc when you have to sit cluster feeding. When you only feed from one side it's even harder, they need feeding more frequently. My dd is 1 and still feeds every 2 hours round the clock and it's hard.

I don't think i'd go so far as to say i regret breast feeding, but knowing what i know now i probably would think twice about doing it.

Do you have twins bubblebubble?

No- I'm fresh from trying to support my sister through it.

That's great :-)

It was a bloody nightmare for her bless her 😭

YANBU

Breastfeeding DC1 for nearly 2 years

Breastfed (mostly expressed) DC2 for 4 weeks and was utterly exhausted and miserable (as was he) so I moved to bottles

Best decision of my life.

YABU. This implies that it’s the norm to be unable to BF, when that’s not the case.

I completely agree that breast is best should be changed.

I couldn't breast feed and I felt and still do feel like such a failure. I'm embarrassed and ashamed feeding my baby formula, especially in front of other mums.

I constantly felt like I had let my baby down because such a big deal is made out of the Bf thing.

Breastfeeding is the biologically normal way to feed babies. We are designed to nurse our young, and breastmilk is the ideal nutrition for infants. In this country it is less common for babies to be breast fed than formula fed, and I imagine most people don't have much exposure to the realities of bf-ing before they hAve a baby. I think we need to see it modelled more, it is not always instinctive behaviour.

Also, fed is better than starving, yes of course. But that does not mean that formula milk is as nutrionally ideal as breastmilk. I'm sorry if that makes anyone feel judged. It's not a judgement, I fed my toddler buckets of crisps and biscuits today in an attempt to keep him quiet in the car. My teen can go days without eating a vegetable, I don't judge what other parents feed their kids. BUT - we are failing women and children if we just shrug our shoulders and say oh well never mind at least your baby is fed. That is unfair when so many women clearly want to continue feeding past the first few days, and are very likely to be physically able to with help.

How about “fed is best”?

Here’s what I don’t get about that slogan: nobody is proposing that babies aren’t fed. If the question is “should we feed babies or not?” then “fed is best” would make sense. As the question is “what should babies be fed?” saying “fed is best” makes absolutely no sense as a contribution to the discussion.

Yeah... I told my HV to fuck off when she told me to keep trying to breastfeed my 3 month old who had cut both his front bottom teeth.

Fuck. That.

One nipple still has puncture marks.

He was combi fed from birth anyway

The first few times I heard "fed is best" it was pretty much in that exact situation, used by breastfeeding counselors and lactation consultants in situations where a mother was unable to produce enough milk to feed the baby, to reassure the mother that giving formula top-ups while the problem was being addressed was the appropriate action. Within a year it seemed to be used everywhere as an anti breastfeeding slogan.

PND is far more damaging to babies than formula

Yabu to say this. There is no evidence at all to back you up. Yes some mothers choose to not to breastfeed to prioritise their MH. But some choose to breastfeed and treat their PND. You are being very judgemental.

I also don't believe BF difficulties would cause PND. Exacerbate it, sure. But not cause it.

"In the western world with clean water and properly made up bottles there is zero difference in the health and wellbeing of bf and ff babies"

I'm sorry but that just isn't true, no matter how much you want it to be. Breastfed babies are less likely to be hospitalised during the first 12 months, less likely to have allergies, less likely to become obese and on average have a higher IQ even after allowing for the fact that they are much more likely to have middle class well educated parents. That's not to say that FF babies are doomed to a lifetime of poor health and stupidity, but it's ludicrous to pretend that the benefits of BF don't exist.

I firmly believe there needs to be more support and better education about the reality of BF - it is normal for BF babies to feed ALL THE TIME at first, even though it's exhausting. It doesn't mean there isn't enough milk. It's also normal for them not to sleep through as quickly as FF babies, again that's fine. If people knew what to expect I think there'd be a lot less panic about insufficient milk etc. and a more realistic idea of how it generally is.

This
www.feedsleepbond.com/can-every-mother-breastfeed/

I'm sure I have read PND is more common in women who intended to breastfeed and then it not work out.

And I'm not sure I buy into this we as humans are losing our ability to birth naturally or breastfeed. Why are other European women so much more likely to be successful at these things than their British counterparts? I'd hazard a guess it is a better level of education, better health and wellbeing and superior health services.

How about “Breast is best. The NHS recognises this, recognises that prevention is better than cure, recognises that increased breastfeeding will save them huge amounts of money in the long run and so is going to invest lots of resources into supporting every mother in Britain who wants to breastfeed. The NHS also recognises formula feeding as a good method of feeding children and recognises that the biggest problem with ff is that a lot of people don’t make the bottles up safely. And so far more work is going to be put into ensuring all parents know how to make up a bottle properly and why it is important to do so rather than preventing this advice by saying “breast is best”.”

It isn’t quite as catchy as I was hoping.....

FFS. Breast IS best. Saying anything else is a nonsense.

Doesn’t mean that any other method of feeding is a disaster/ failure on the part of the mother/ wrong. The problem isn’t the facts, it’s lack of support for new mothers and families. Presumably that’s why the UK’s breastfeeding rates are so dire, rather than slogans.

Lack of support isn't always the issue. I was convinced if I tried harder I could do it.
I couldn't.
Some people don't want to BF.
Some are desperate to and feel guilty and devastated when they can't.
Breast is ideal.
A mother not beating herself up because she had to FF or her child would starve (despite of all the support) is best.

I don’t think “fed is best” is questioning whether babies are fed or not it’s suggesting that either way is fine and everyone should mind their own business.

That’s your interpretation though - actually the slogan says nothing about what an infant should be fed, or about who is responsible for deciding what to feed them.

I’m sorry you feel unhappy about feeding your baby formula. You said that he would have died without it though, so I’m fairly sure you have nothing to feel guilty about if giving formula was necessary to keep your baby alive!

You feel ashamed getting a bottle out, which I understand if you had planned to breastfeed and had to switch to formula, Loads of breastfeeding mums also feel self-conscious or intimidated when they breastfeed in public. It’s such a shame we all end up feeling worried one way or another about how we’re feeding our babies. In practice I reckon most of the time nobody could see less how a Mum feeds her baby, but of course that’s not how it feels to us when we’re worrying about it.

The thing about Boots points isn’t to make you feel shit though. You don’t get points on prescription charges either, but that’s not intended to make people feel shit about needing prescription medicine.

As mentioned the UK has the lowest rates of BF in the world at 6 months. Yet the WHO code is in practice all over the world. In the US there are better BF rates despite no government mandated maternity leave and no public healthcare.

I genuinely feel for any mother who feels let down about BF or that she has failed. But this isn’t about individuals. On a population level something is wrong in the UK related to BF where women feel it’s too hard, they don’t have enough milk, if baby wants to feed more than every 3 hours it must be starving, etc.

Only 1 in 200 women in the U.K., or 0.5 percent, breastfeed their children until they are 1 year old — the lowest rate in the world.

That jaw-dropping figure was published this week in the Lancet medical journal in a study analyzing global trends in breastfeeding.

To put that in context: 27 percent in the U.S., 35 percent in Norway and 44 percent in Mexico were still breastfeeding after one year. The rates were remarkably higher in much of the developing world, with Senegal (99.4 percent), Gambia (98.7 percent) and Malawi (98.3 percent) topping the league table.

That is astounding to me. I didn't know the rates were so low in the UK. And it is patently obvious that is not to do with women not being able to BF. 27% in the US FFS, where there is no maternity leave.