To ask why you didn't breastfeed?

[MakingABoobOfIt]

For starters, this is NOT meant to be a goady thread, and I'm a longtime MNer but have name changed to avoid outing myself

I'm a Uni student, and have an essay coming up for which I would like to know reasons Mums decide not to breastfeed. Research shows that the majority of mums want to breastfeed but either start and stop pretty quickly, or don't start at all. So if this was the case for you, I would be so grateful if you'd be happy to tell me about what influenced your decision (friends, media, etc) and what might have caused you to decide to breastfeed (more support, less stigma, etc)?

Thank you in advance wise ones.

Making - I’ll PM you when I get home. On my phone now and it’s a bit of a chore to link.

Pre-eclampsia, DD came 8 weeks early, I was very very ill, and I couldn't produce much milk. Those fucking breastfeeding counsellors squeezed my tits until they bruised. Then they made me feel guilty about using donated milk. So then I asked to speak to the SCBU ward sister and asked for DD to be switched to formula. The nurse knew that the whole thing was causing me too much stress, in addition to DD being in her care. I am convinced to this day that the shock of the pre-eclampsia stopped me breastfeeding, but the medics said not enough is known about the subject, it's under-researched, apparently. This was over 11 years ago.

Waterdropsdown we also didn't have our tongue tie dealt with out of choice. I've never met anyone else who made the same choice! For some reason that has reassured me.

@minifingerz that's basically the title of the essay - looking at why breastfeeding rates are so low in the U.K, and trying to take the decision away from the mum and place it into a social and cultural context.

Tongue tied baby. Traumatic delivery. Iffy c section recovery. Couldn’t stand another day of hungry baby screaming at my tits so gave him a bottle of Hipp. It was like magic. I have absolutely no regrets.

I kind of got her to latch after birth (but not really). Got chucked out of the hospital 2 hours after I delivered (first baby, 21yo). Stayed up all day and night crying because I couldn't get her on again. Midwife came round, said she was slightly jaundiced and in serious danger if she didn't latch soon. Then left. Starving hungry baby crying her heart out; still wouldn't latch. I was worried she would die. I told exP to go and buy some formula and bottles.

Really sad about it still. Though my 2yo is healthy and clever and brilliant.

My son was premature and I had pre eclampsia. My milk never came. No matter what I tried. He was too early to feed and was fed by a tube. I would have loved to breast feed but I don’t think I could have changed anything. I also got a lot of sanctimonious crap from other mothers at my anti natal group who told me what damage I had done to him. You don’t know how much damage you did to me. It took a long time to get over the guilt. However, I am much older and would punch anyone who had a go at someone who bottle feeds for what ever reason.

minifingerz Breastfeeding was not common in Norway in the late 60s. They managed to turn it around, mothers there get a lot more support and can get time off to feed their baby.

My baby would not latch at I have completely flat nipples. Not a single midwife could get her to feed. Was completely heart breaking and I was totally devastated. Didn't know about nipple sheilds until it was too late and the mental damage had been done.
I did not have the mental strength to exclusively express...those women have my utmost respect!
I ahve serious reservations about my supply also as having decided to bottle feed from day 3 over fear of DD not eating, my boobs went back to normal the next day. No mastitis, engorgement, nothing.
Expecting ds1 early next year and will try again with nipple sheilds...but if no luck then I'm now comfortable to bottle feed without the guilt.

I was ambivalent about breastfeeding anyway. I thought I'd give it a go and see how I felt.

Baby number 1; C-section at 37 weeks after PROM. I had GD and no milk, his sugars were dropping and the consultant said, 'we need to feed him, what do you want to do?' I said 'feed him'. It was a no brainer to me.

Baby number 2; I only intended to mix feed anyway as I had a trip planned when she was three months and my breasts were coming with me. Anyway, she's a greedyguts and she could get more from a bottle than she could from me and she couldn't have been less interested in my boobs :)

Dd1 - milk didn’t some through until she was 2 weeks old despite me trying with pumps and constant latching etc. Obviously I couldn’t leave her to starve so she was ff.

Dd2 - again milk didn’t come through until she was 3 weeks old, again I asked for help and was told to ‘just keep trying, it will eventually happen’, which nearly drove me crazy as it just wasn’t.

DS1 - no issues BF, continued until marriage broke down abruptly when he was 9 months old and ended up being put on sleeping tablets which meant I could no longer feed.

DS2 - dreadful latch with obvious tongue tie. Resulted in bleeding painful nipples and very unhappy baby. This was due to a very obvious tongue tie which I was repeatedly told by midwives would not be a problem. Ended up getting a private division at 2 weeks but he would still scream, pull away etc. We both found the whole thing very stressful and a totally different experience from DS1. I ended up expressing and bottle feeding from 5 weeks. DS2 ended up in hospital for a week with bronchiolitis. As he was NG fed and milk was gradually reintroduced I needed to keep bottle feeding him so the medics knew how much he was taking at each feed. He ended up being diagnosed with CMPA a couple of weeks later so it was just easier for me to go dairy free and express than try and reintroduce the breast again. It worked for us. Managed 6 months until he was weaned and then supplemented with prescribed formula. I still feel a pang of guilt and disappointment when I see a woman breastfeeding.

Because the only thing that came out of breasts was blood.

@doubletrouble42

Vangoghsleft ear, I am sure that is exactly what happened to me at 32 weeks. At my scbu the nurses were brilliant and told me that bottle feeding was the best I could do for my son as starving him wasn’t the best start in life. They made me laugh and see the situation slightly more clearly. Until we got out into the real world and met other mums!

Making - there’s a book called
“Breast Intentions: How women sabotage breastfeeding for themselves and others”. I really recommend it - it picks this issue apart in a way that no other book does.

For my first, feeding began awkwardly with midwife or lactation nurse having to supervise my latch foe every feed. When I went home had regular blocked ducts, then the pain during feeding began. Cracked bleeding nipples followed, then mastitis. Support from HV was erratic, no close relatives had breastfed...GP told me to stop when starting me on 2nd antibiotic and though I cried and felt like a failure I was secretly relieved that it was over. DS was less than 4 weeks old and I had spent at least two weeks in pain. Got lots of information, not much in the way of practical support after the hospital but nothing really helped.

For my second feeding was easy, lovely latch, gentle and painless. All went swimmingly until DH gave her formula one night to let me sleep. She had been bottle fed expressed breast milk without mishap a few times. But once she tasted formula she wouldn't go back. She refused the breast once she tasted the milk, spat out expressed breast milk from a bottle. I changed my diet to eliminate anything strong tasting but after a few days of rejection all the memories of how difficult it had been with DS resurfaced. Couldn’t face another day of it, so resolved to stop without guilt. Of course I still felt guilty but she was delightedly guzzling formula and thriving.....

I’m too old for more babies, but if I’d have had another I’d still have tried again.

dogletsrock I empathise!

I gave up the mother and baby group because of all the judgy-pants who were all earth mother types. Nope. I hung out with my friend with three kids who taught me so much more. Like how to stay sane. And when enough is enough.

I did have all the support possible (bf friendly hospital, midwives, HVs and special bf counsellor) and carried on bf'ing though my dd did really badly and eventually ended up in hospital with malnutrition. I really regret that decision. It was my fault. I absolutely refused to see a problem because I had so internalised that if you were only committed and got the latch right nothing could go wrong. In the photos from that period, dd looks absolutely skeletal, and I just didn't allow myself to see it. If she had caught an infection, I don't think she could have fought it off.

She had an underlying condition, which was not diagnosed until she was 10, by which time she was also periodically unable to walk, and sometimes to sit upright. It also made her almost unable to suckle.
But I was so proud of my educated, breastfeeding stance that it didn't ever occur to me that there could simply be something wrong with my baby.

Culture was a massive influencer in my case, but in the opposite way to what you meant, OP. Not only was I well educated, I was also very proud of my Scandinavian roots, and as a newcomer in this country wanted to show that I could do babies.

I breastfed ds until he was 18 months, 18 years ago (caveat being that by six months I could reliably leave him with someone else and a few jars of baby food - we were advised to start weaning at 4 months then so by five months or so he wouldn't starve if I left him for an evening).

If I had another, I would start them on bottles ASAP. BFing is lovely, but seriously isn't as anywhere near as big a deal as I thought is was when he was first born.

Wanted to long-term BF ... but had bad time with c-section, infection & lots of opioids. Milk didn’t cone in. DD given a bottle by nurses and never really latched on oroperl6 after that. Exhausted myself expressing for bottles for 8 months then gave up.

• for every feed not foe

Bleeding nipples, infection, dreading feeding and it affecting my bond with my baby, wanting to be able to leave the house and feel normal in early days, baby losing weight with bfing and gaining well on formula. All of these. Don't regret it though felt like a massive failure at the time

The idea of doing it completely creeps me out. Other people doing it doesn’t creep me out, so I can only guess it’s something to do with the way I feel about my boobs?

User1488 me too, never any sign of a single drop of milk!