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.

Had no strong feelings about it either way and DH wanted to be involved in feeding so we went for formula. I know its an unpopular opinion on here but we made the decision, as parents.

“ 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”

I’m glad your child is ok, but human milk can be literally life-saving for preterm babies. If mothers can’t or won’t breastfeed all preterm babies should be offered donor milk. NEC is 20 Times more common in babies over 30 weeks who receive no breast milk. Parents need to be aware of this before they make the decision not to feed their preterm baby on human milk.

I really really wanted to breast feed, like I had my heart set on it. I had that first feed after she was born but I got really anxious and felt like I was going to drop her off the bed etc so I got my hubby to bottle feed her and I never really tried again.

I had a really traumatic birth that ended with an emergency c-section and I was left traumatised for a good wee while after it. I honestly could not have coped with breast feeding on top of everything I was going through mentally!

The first pregnancies I was young and found it uncomfortable.

I did make a big effort with one of mine but I had that awful thing where I had a massive dark depression during let down. I can't even describe it. It petrified me so much I thought I could be capable of bad things during those moments. I remember one moment where my older child was in front of me when it happened and I had this awful feeling of rage where I just wanted to run away before I lost it.

So I stopped as I thought there was something seriously wrong with me and I couldn't tell anyone.

I now know there is a name for it, but I can't remember it.

Severe tongue tie meant baby couldnt latch from the off.

It runs in the family and I knew the signs and wasnt surprised. I pointed it out straight away and was told by the MW's that they didnt snip them there and I would have to go on a waiting list which could take weeks or months or get it done privately.

I was forced to feed formular in hospital. I was kept in post C section because of infection for 4 days.

When I left, I was so distraught and in too much pain I wasnt able to get the tongue tie snipped until baby was 2 weeks old.

I tried everything to get baby to latch after that as I was told it would be possible, but it was soul destroying just seeing baby so distraught by even giving it a go.

I contacted the local breastfeeding help who gave me details for lactation consultant who I contacted straight away, but she wasnt able to do home visits and I wasnt able to drive ( i was struggling to get down the stairs at home, let alone even leave the house), and didnt have any family or friends nearby who could have driven me.

I exclusively expressed for 12 weeks before realising the advise about expressing I had been given by HV was bad as it had caused me to produce too much milk and I was engorged all the time and in pain.

By the end of 12 weeks I felt totally destroyed mentally and physically. I was embarrassed and felt ashamed and like a total failure.

Sometimes it is not your decision. Some mums just don’t produce milk or have milk come in days later which is too late

Painful, boring, endless and restricting. Thats why I switched to bottle at various stages with all 3 dc.

in addition to that, we also suffered with nipple thrush, raynauds of the nipple, cracked and bleeding nipples and blocked ducts regularly.

I didn't BF my first although I wanted to.
I had heard so much about how it was easy/simple etc.
Then after a traumatic birth I was in pain and unable to hold DS in a way that made sense. I tried different holds (the maternity ward staff were great) and that coupled with the fact it hurt a lot meant I struggled to feed him.
He was starving and screaming. I was in pain and exhausted (while pregnant I had trouble sleeping in third trimester so before birth I was operating on reserves). I found the latch painful and no one had warned me that the initial couple of weeks hurt so I felt tired, in pain, stupid as I wasn't naturally picking up something that everyone had told me would be easy and a bad mother as my son was crying out of hunger all the time.
One of the nurses came and sat with me and suggested I use some formula to save my sanity.
After that I hired an expressing machine which allowed me to combination feed, but I felt that I was either pumping, feeding or changing nappies while suffering from baby blues and not bonding with DS so slipped to formula.

With DD I was told about shields and that hurting is normal at first for lots of people. But knowing that the pain wasn't a sign of me getting it wrong, just a sign that having something clamped on to my nipples wasn't going to feel gentle at first, helped a lot.

Please don't assume that stopping breastfeeding is the wrong thing to do. I breastfed all my children but with the benefit of hindsight, I shouldn't have breastfed my last.
He had a thick posterior tongue tie not diagnosed until 6weeks, by which point he had dropped from 98th to 2nd centile. He looked like a spider by his 6 week check...all arms and legs.....but no alarm bells rang for anyone but me. As he was my last child, I was determined to put this right. His tongue tie was cut which I had to argue to get (I was expected to wait a further 2 weeks because no holiday cover had been arranged at the hospital! as they support tiny babies who are loosing weight how is that even allowed!). By then, my supply had dropped so I 'power pumped' based on online advice, mostly US based. All efforts to get real life feeding support from so called 'feeding consultants' was pointless. They were rude, unhelpful and 1 was just plain nasty. I took Domperidone to boost my supply, bought my own baby scales and ended up feeding for 14 months. However, he never slept which meant that I didn't sleep. By 11 months I had PND and I was suicidal.
I'd never asked for help before with my previous children, my experience of trying to get help when I needed it with my last was horrific. Post natal support is really low quality. There are lots of people in roles, but no-one who actually helps.
Giving up breastfeeding is not the worst thing that can happen.

Started off fine. Great latch. DD was a chunk and lost no weight in the first week so was clearly getting enough.

My poor nipples got destroyed. Painless my arse. Even with nipple shields my whole body tensed with the pain when she latched.

Not doing it this time. I need DP to be able to share night feeds.

I breast fed second, nobody once checked my D3, B12 and ferratin levels. It was sold to me as breast is best, etc etc. It turned out my milk was lacking in all and to this day my DS suffers for it with leg issues and developmental problems. More needs to be done to monitor a mother's health before she is encouraged blindly to breast feed imo. I'm not after a debate over breast is best at all, each to their own. But I do think a woman's levels should be monitored before they're encouraged that breast is best. Low D3 can do major damage!

Wanted to but found it incredibly painful - like red hot needles. Everyone said the latch was fine and it would get better. It didn’t. Tried expressing but too much blood in the milk to be able to give it to the baby. When you are at the point of dreading your much anticipated baby awakening because they will need feeding and you know the pain will be excruciating, you also know it’s time to look at the alternatives. Never looked back once I decided to bottle feed, and was fortunate to have plenty of support from hospital midwives.

I did skin to skin with baby straight after birth, midwives were called to an emergency and left me for two hours with baby, in that time baby latched and wouldn't let go. I think the baby didn't latch properly and my nipples became "stressed". Tried for the next two days and nipples just got worse and worse, both ended up being completely stabbed over and it was agonising every time I had to feed. The final straw was when baby got a mouth full of blood and milk wasn't coming in anyway. I felt the healthcare assistants at the hospital were being really harsh with me when I complained about my nipples being sore ans bleeding and kept just grabbing my breast and putting it in the baby's mouth. I felt manhandled and no listened to. It was only once I was home and started bottle feeding that a midwife said that the hospital should have advised me to use nipple shields. I feel like I was deprived of feeding my baby and she was deprived of my milk because the hospital staff's attitude. I still cry when I think about it.

My first was 18 years ago, I had pre-eclampsia, and then HELPP syndrome. DS was born at 32 weeks, and initially fed via TPN, then had a few drops of my expressed colostrum. Then demand outstripped supply and we went on to donated breast milk. I tried to express but never got very much, so went on to formula. My milk kind of came in just as he was coming home at 7 weeks old, but the bottle feeding was very established by then.

With DD, 7 years ago, I wanted to try again, but my milk never came in at all, either as a result of pre eclampsia again, or the blood pressure medication I was on.

In both pregnancies my breasts didn't change at all, which apparently is another indicator of not being able to breastfeed.

And why after all this time do I still feel the need to explain and justify myself?

I wanted to and never imagined it wouldn’t work out. My baby was a reluctant feeder and hadn’t managed to feed from me in the hospital when the consultant moved us onto a regime of feed (which basically didn’t work) express, supplement with formula. Breast feeding was a hideous experience for us for the 2 weeks we lasted. My baby was frustrated and hungry, I was in terrible pain (worse than labour) and was exhausted as the regime of failing to feed, then expressing then bottle feeding was knackering. We had midwives to the house every other day and even with support we just couldn’t do it. If I’d have had more support to mix feed, I think I’d have managed to express for longer but the support was for pure breastfeeding or nothing. For me and my baby switching to formula was the best thing I did. I didn’t have any issues about feeding in public etc and I wasn’t worried about that aspect. My issues were findamentally that it was making me and my baby miserable and she wasn’t getting what she needed. I’ll try again with future babies but wouldn’t feel as guilty if it didn’t work out again.

@TheRealMrsClarkson no absolutely, the decision has got to be right for you - no point pushing on with breastfeeding if it's stopping you enjoying your baby, as many mums have said, or if your baby isn't getting what they need.

Agony.
Undiagnosed lip tie.
Poor support.
Actually make that diabolical lack of support.
I finally realised that I wasn't failing my baby to admit I loathed every second.

I didn't bf dc4 because he had a severe cleft palate. I bf my others though.

I did but people seem to consider that I didn't . I hated it. Have a medical condition that made it really painful. Got mastitis, never been so ill. Started combination feeding about 3 months, then not long after my child was diagnosed with a milk allergy which included my breast milk (and no, giving up dairy wouldn't have helped, it does happen). DC didn't thrive until we were given an entirely synthetic milk substitute. I was so bloody relieved not to have to breast feed and to have a good excuse for bottle feeding her because bejaysus did I get judged for it!

Domestic abuse. Ex would have kicked the crap out of me if I'd got my boobs out in public.

I did BF so hope I'm not spoiling things here but my experience was staggering. All the advice at hospital appointments was to BF, posters in the waiting rooms expounding the benefits of BF.

All good, yet when I had an emergency section with DS my anaesthetist straight away, on my waking in extreme pain, offered me morphine. I told him I wanted to BF so surely that would be a bad idea?. "Yes" he replied, "Shall I just turn your epidural up instead?"

On the ward, 2 mums who had been given morphine after CS, then BF were being told very sternly, "If you can't get your (zonked out) baby feeding we will put him on a drip".

My DS cried a lot at night because it was so noisy on the ward. Several of the nurses told me I wasn't making enough milk, he was hungry and needed 'topping up with a cup of formula'. I pointed out that of course I wasn't making enough effing milk. He was 36 hours old and my milk was just coming in.

Despite all the hype about BF, you are sabotaged at every turn. I heard a much younger mum in the next bed say to her DP "Do you think I should feed him?" No-one came to see me after delivery to see if I was feeding ok and I was in a big London teaching hospital - not some backwater.

I did BF successfully but I'm an older mum and take no shit. I despair for younger women with little or no advice and support. You can't tell women it's nirvana to BF then make them feel shit when they struggle (but I guess, from your work, you know that )

Great survey - I wish you all the best. I remember BF my eldest and my poor mum saying "I wanted to BF but no-one told us then that you had to put the baby straight on the breast to make the milk come in. I just thought it should happen automatically and that I had no milk." She clearly felt like she had failed.

As a result of her 'failure' I can delightedly tell younger pregnant friends to 'chill'. I never had a drop of breastmilk and I turned out semi-ok. Sorry it's turned into a novella. We beat ourselves up so much over this stuff.

I just thought it was a revolting bovine practice. Didn't appeal to me at all. I shudder at the thought of it TBH.

It’s depressing to hear so many preemie / NNICU stories being posted here as in our NNICU the BFing rates are really good. But that comes down to one of the major reasons for so many trying then deciding to stop in the first month or two - the lack of BFing support is shocking. It is treated as a “nice to have” by so many units and they think the way to do it is to either guilt mums into it or shove up a bunch of posters and refuse to deal with anything to do with formula. Not helpful at all.

Really interested to read experiences from people who just didn’t want to do it. Refreshingly honest.

Wanted to but couldn't. Baby was 6 weeks early and I had no supply (literally zero). Hey ho.