Benefits of breastfeeding 'wear off' by 5

[greygal]

Had 6 week check for DS today with my GP. He asked all the 'normal' questions, including how I was finding breastfeeding.

I've been really lucky and had no pain, soreness etc and DS is gaining wait incredibly well so I explained that despite my longest sleep in 6 weeks being 4 hours in one go, I felt that it was going really well and felt positive about continuing.

He then launched into a rant about there being far too much pressure on mothers to breastfeed and that by the age of 5, any benefits to a baby of being breast-fed had worn off!

AIBU to wonder why the bloody hell we're all bothering (especially people who have cracked, bloody nipples/ blocked milk ducts/ mastitis etc)?

Is it true that there is no difference between a breast fed and formula fed child by 5 years of age?

Correlation does not mean causation.

It the SIDs and formula fed example may be an that there is something that makes both factors more likely.

I totally get the icky comment. I hating breastfeeding partially because it all went wrong with my first, (actually ended up starving her for the first 5 days of her life miss by hospital, home midwives and lactation consultants). Partly because I just didn't enjoy having my body taken over for any longer than the 9 months that I had no choice about. Ever tried telling a midwife you weren't at all sure about breastfeeding but you'd like to express for a bit while you got comfortable with the idea and so you knew some of it was actually going in. They just about let me have access to the machine but refused to help in any way shape or form. DS did actually end up breastfeeding but I hated it and didn't keep it up for long. Nothing felt more natural than giving a child a bottle.

He's not right and also if you like breastfeeding as I did that benefit to the mother is for life. I remember fondly now when I did it. It was a huge benefit to me, never mind the child. Also some men don't like not being in control - may be the GP is like that.

Rebel the face was because the poster thinks bf is yucky and can cause claustrophobia. How can it cause claustrophobia? You don’t have to shit yourself in a small empty room to bf and there isn’t anything yucky about something which is entirely natural - moreso than giving a bottle of formula. And I agree that nobody needs to express but if your only reason for giving formula is that you don’t want a baby sucking your nipple then expressing is an alternative. Formula isn’t poison, I used it lots with my eldest 2 childrenbut I do take offence to being told that bf is yucky and likely to lead to claisyrophobia and other bizarre claims. So yes, every need for my sceptical face.
People can give their babies normal full fat cows milk if they want - their baby, their choice but I don’t have to agree that it is the best choice regardless of their reasoning. For some people formula absolutely is the best choice and genright choice for them. But no grown adult should be going about saying that bf is yucky.

Yep I’m not sure how anyone whose had a baby pushed/pulled out of their vagina or indeed pulled out of their stomach could find breastfeeding ‘yucky’. I think pregnancy and birth prepare you for dealing with the yucks of life but breastfeeding isn’t one of them. It’s a pretty immature view to voice even if you do have your own issues around the subject.

Not everyone can express.

I breastfed ds for 18m and always had milk for him but could never manage more than tiny bits expressing. Just didn’t work for me. 20-40ml tips even if he hadn’t fed for a while.

women do not need to face a committee and have their reasons for not bfing deemed ‘good enough’ - you don’t get to say that it doesn’t make someone claustrophobic or that they should do something that makes them feel terrible. If they don’t want a baby on their nipple they don’t want it. No one else gets any say in it.

This is one reason why SO MANY women get pnd. On top of the exhaustion they are being judged for not breastfeeding. Or for breastfeeding. Or random other shit that makes tiny amounts of difference to final outcomes in the end.

But People are judged for breastfeeding too back. For one, we are told it is yucky, we are told we should not be doing it in public.

I think we need to think about where we have gone wrong as a society if if some mothers consider breastfeeding yucky !

@Stillwishihadabs I already gave some reasons why some women might think/feel breastfeeding is yucky,confining,claustrophobic etc.
I don't think it's any of those things ,but that doesn't mean another woman won't or that it's automatically "wrong".

Yes that’s what I said ‘on top of that they are judged for not breastfeeding. Or breastfeeding..’

There shouldn’t be judgement either way. Breastfeed. Bottlefeed. It makes a tiny amount of difference to the final outcome.

It’s not ok to have a go at women breastfeeding in public and it’s not ok to have some sort of moral scale of ‘i Didn’t breastfeed because...’ (oh ok you had chemo, you get a pass but not you, lady who found it unpleasant! Try harder!)

It’s all bollocks. Just feed the baby.

I genuinely don’t know how you can have given birth and yet find BF “yucky.” And taking care of a small child involves spending loads of time with poo and vomit.

BF or don’t BF, but be an adult. Calling it “yucky” is absurd.

It's true that breastfeeding mothers get judged in all sorts of ways too. The best thing to do I think is to treat others how you would wish to be treated, support other new mothers rather than judge and do what you think right for your own child. Let's face it, we're all just doing our best here.

@Havingahorridtime

No I'm not a 12-year-old nor am I ignorant or brainwashed. I am in fact 35 and a professional woman.

It is yucky to me and many others (on here too as I said).

Of course you're allowed to leave the house when breastfeeding but I for one (and many others with me no doubt) do not feel like whipping out my boob in front of people I don't know properly. Just no.

It is not about growing up it's about not liking it. Do we also tell women off for ELCs? Because there are advantages to vaginal births too.

what @Backenette said

Do we also tell women off for ELCs?

Sadly yes. People are assholes about that too. Natural is best! C sections mean youve not really given birth! Also utter bollocks.

Do we also tell women off for ELCs?
Actually we do. Well some people do. As soon as a woman announces she's pregnant(and sometimes even before of that) the judgement begins.. what they eat,what they drink,what they weigh, if they work out or not, what time they go on maternity leave ,what they buy and when they buy it,what the baby's name will be, what the birth plan is , and that's even before baby was born. Then once they are it's bf or ff, cosleeping or not,babywearing or not, weaning, sleep routines or cry it out, leave baby cry,don't let them cry at all,baby groups,don't stimulate baby too much,strict routines,be more lax,disposable nappies or reusable,wiped or water and cotton wool,outfits or baby grows.And the judgement continues regardless how old the child gets, with the assumption that if anything goes wrong,somewhere somehow you fucked up.

Well kikibo my opinion on elcs wont be popular but I think if there is no physical medical need for an elcs a woman should have to pay for it. It costs the nhs a lot more for an elcs than a vaginal birth and frankly the nhs is already cutting back on essential treatments and therapies. Fortunately the vast majority of sections are absolutely needed and nobody should feel guilty or like a failure for having one when it is physically needed.

if there is no physical medical need for an elcs a woman should have to pay for it

The number of pure maternal request c sections is realy small. Most are elective as in not an emergency due to birth, but you have no choice (I had placenta and vasa previa so elcs because it was arranged but nothing optional about it.*

It’s almost impossible to get an elcs without a reason anyway - and tokophobia is as good a reason as a ‘physical’ one - or should only Rich women be allowed the luxury of not being traumatised by birth?

An elcs should be available to anyone who has a reason, mental or physical, without cost. Ie the system as it is now is fine.

The long term cost of surgery, psychological support and lost productivity for a woman debilitated by birth injury is far above the cost of an ‘unnecessary’ c section.

Again and again on this thread women are being judged and expected to meet some sort of threshold criteria before we ‘allow’ them to bottle feed or have a birth they feel ok with.

It’s not my place to tell another woman how she feels about feeding and her nipples - it’s her choice. It’s not my choice to sit on that imaginary committee and say ‘you could have pumped’ ‘you could have tried harder’ ‘your anxiety about having another fourth degree year is not enough to warrant a c section.’

It makes me so mad. These are personal choices. We are supposed to have bodily autonomy. Parenting is a lot of hard yards - why can’t we pick the options that make it bearable for us? It’s all too fucking biblical for my liking - ‘To the woman He said, "I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children;’

I think language is important. Using emotive terms such as “yukky” does suggest a childish frame of thought and it does appear judgemental.

I think if we were all careful about how we phrased our preferences it would make for a less emotive debate.

The problem with pregnancy, childbirth and feeding an infant is it’s not always compatible with bodily autonomy though. Do I want to give up wine, throw up every day for 9 months and possibly have my vagina ripped apart again? No. But I have to if I want a baby and all those things are out of my control. I actually found breastfeeding helped me reclaim my body after pregnancy. Although I was really fat and unfit and didn’t feel like me my body was still nourishing the best addition to my life. On the other hand I pretty much hate every moment of pregnancy! I guess everyone feels differently.

The 2% figure comes out a lot but I have no idea where it comes from. The only figure I've ever seen which comes close is that somewhere like Sweden (I think it's Sweden!) has a 98% breastfeeding rate. Therefore, they say, 98% of women can breastfeed, because they do in Sweden.

However, I don't think this is right at all. 98% of Swedish women breastfeeding has nothing to do with whether British women can do it. The argument is that we are the same biologically, but breastfeeding is not just biological, it is environmental, social and cultural as well. I would not be at all surprised if Sweden (or wherever) has a completely different social and cultural environment to the UK, and I would argue that social, cultural and environmental factors are no less a barrier than physical barriers. In fact from our own surveys a far higher percentage of British women are unable to breastfeed - quantified by wanting to but not actually doing so. It would be much more useful to try and work out why that is and whether any of the barriers can be removed or reduced, rather than simply repeating this 2% figure which doesn't mean anything at all!

Bertie that is what the 2% figure means. That 2% of women are physically unable to breastfeed. Women across the planet are not physiologically different. I take your point that we have other barriers in this country and I’m not sure about the proportion of babies that are unable to feed but saying someone physically couldn’t b/feed when it was down to the other factors listed is still incorrect.

Well Havingahorridtime, direct your c section scorn at doctors, because a lot opt for c sections over vaginal births. And they know the exact cost to the NHS.

It seems that the 2% seems to stem from an old 1990 study of 319 women of similar backgrounds that should not be applied on the general population.

The 5% came out of a small study in Colorado - the study followed 319 women who were highly motivated to breastfeed. They were mainly white, mostly married, mainly college grads, and mainly earned >$35,000/yr in the late 1980s.
While the study is interesting in itself and 10% of the women needed help to increase milk supply and only 5% never could produce enough milk, it's not a big or diverse enough sample to apply to population level.