Why are breastfeeding rates so low in the UK?

[Olivebrach]

So related to the news about the Royal College of Midwives changing their policy saying mothers have the right to formula feed and the stigma around formula needs to change ect..

I get it that for people that breastfeeding doesnt work out for/isnt easy, they shouldnt be made to feel like a failure. And the 'breast is best' mantra can be upsetting if that is what you desire to do but it doesnt work out.

But considering the breastfeeding rates are so low in the UK (1 in 200 babies are breastfed at the age of 1). The "mantra" and policy atm currently isnt working to up bf rates..? Clearly more people are formula feeding.

So in your opinion..
what should be done to increase breastfeeding?
And why do so few women end up breastfeeding?

AIBU to think the rates need to improve?

Well said, LeahJack

This thread is also highlighting a need to stop seeing Formula Feeders as a homogenous group, all apparently thinking and acting identically in their decision making process and behaviours to such an extent that they can all be reliably spoken for by those who have never given formula at all.

Yea that goes both ways. I’ve seen breast feeders labelled as aggressively feeding (phahahaha), sleep deprived martyrs on MN in the last 24 hours.

I’ve seen breast feeders labelled as aggressively feeding

That was surely an anecdote about a specific woman at a specific toddler group, although I do accept that generalisation happens both ways.

How dare you Mini.

How dare you clump us all in a lump and speak for us.

How dare you belittle our efforts.It's just appalling and illustrates utter ignorance.

I spent 7 long years trying for a baby and dreaming of breastfeeding it. Like many I told the mw and tried my best. It didn't work and it wasn't for lack of trying or desire.

I truely believe attitudes such as yours play a huge part in the UKs low bfing figures.

Lack of midwife support in hospital. Asked several times and no one had time to help me latch a 35 week preemie.
There was a lactation consultant. She worked worked all of three mornings a week.
So got discharged on bottles and expressing, looked for the bf cafe nearest to me. Open two days a month.
I ended up ff by four weeks.

Thank you, CowParsley - that's basically what I was wanting to say further up.

minifingerz is absolutely right.

A couple of relatives have asked me for help with breastfeeding (having seen me do it) and I was happy to offer advice and support. They've then subsequently given up and told ME that 'you found it easy, though'.

It's just not true. DS1 was back in hospital at 5 days with jaundice and weight loss (he was weighed wrong by MW) and I was hospitalised with mastitis when DS2 was 3 months. I carried on because I'm extremely stubborn (I was also in agony with a 3rd degree tear!).

At the risk of outing myself a bit. There was some research done on reasons women stop at my workplace.

They’d done research with mothers who don’t start or stop early before and what came up time and time again was ‘more support’. So money was poured into offering support. And nothing changed. The rates stayed stubbornly low.

So more research was done which digged quite a bit deeper.

And it wasn’t no support, it was was the type of support. Mother’s wanted support given practically in a non-judgemental way. If a mother wanted support to latch, she wanted support to latch. She didn’t want support to latch along with a lecture about how terrible mothers who FF are.

The judgement and moralising demotivated women. It didn’t make them feel like breastfeeding. It made them feel like stopping.

Practical advice and positive speech encouraged them. Negativity didn’t and the messages mothers were getting which put them off were the negative ones full of judgement. Even a lot of the positive messages seemed to be ruined because they were couched within negative terms in the same sentences.

No support actually turned out to be more like ‘No support that I would willingly access’ from a lot of women who really wanted to BF before birth.

I don’t know if that specific bit of research was used by the Royal College of Midwives to reach this new stance. But I know quite a lot of research and thinking has been leading in this direction for a while and non-judgemental no pressure is the way the wind is blowing in much of the NHS.

But a big problem is that a lot of people involved in promotion are extremely resistant to a non-judgemental model. Which just goes to show exactly why so many mothers complained about being judged in the first place.

@blueisland I agree with you actually. My Grandma who is 90 and had her children in very late 40’s and 50’s bottle fed. She called it “corporation milk.” My Mum bottle fed us in the 80’s, she said it was very rare with her peer group to breast feed. As a child when I found out what breast were for I was repulsed as milk was fed in a bottle.

Consequently I didn’t breast feed mine. I just didn’t want to. It wasn’t “normal” to me and I just didn’t want to. My family never said anything either way, but I had no support anywhere. The Midwife only asked me in passing if I planned to breastfeed. I said I was going to give it a go (I changed my mind) and that was it.

It definitely needs normalising.

My mum showed me how. Not sure the mid wives had anything to do with it. the other threads about breast feeding in public do seem to support the idea the British women just don't seem to like it

I really wanted to bf but every time I asked the midwife for help I was told they were too busy and handed me a bottle, then when I was home asked the health visitor to help and she said just use formula it's easier! Ended up expressing for a few weeks but my milk started to dry up so ended up on formula. If they want people to bf they need to offer help!

If a mother wanted support to latch, she wanted support to latch. She didn’t want support to latch along with a lecture about how terrible mothers who FF are

Exactly! I didn't need the benefits of breastfeeding repeatedly telling to me at every turn - that's why I was literally nearly killing myself trying - I just wanted practical support. Obviously I'm lying though and just not owning my decision to formula feed because I watched Love Island and like to sleep

I think it is cultural and expectation. My mum was unusual in home birthing and breastfeeding when formula was being actively promoted as better for baby and proof you were middle class enough to be able to afford it. I

Most women in the UK will not have been raised by a breasfeeding mother and that maternal influence is a huge, even if unconscious, influence on our own mothering. So it is a cycle where women don't/couldn't BF are going to have daughters who won't want to/be able to BF. No health care professional is a greater influence than your own mum.

No health care professional is a greater influence than your own mum.

Not always true. Me and my sister weren’t breast fed and our mum is very anti-breast feeding but we both still breast fed both our children.

I’ve had my mother tell me that breast feeding is disgusting and she has no idea why I choose to do it.

Thanks mum

I'm lucky enough to be still enjoying breastfeeding at 3 months. I got a lot of offers of support in hospital and the initial weeks by midwives and health visitors as well as online groups; actually to the extent in hospital that I was batting them away because so many came near trying to check his latch and help that they were distracting my baby from feeding! That all helped massively. I was also lucky enough not to have a tongue tie, or at least none that I've ever found out about. The initial weeks were very tiring, but it does get a lot easier as each cluster feeding or development stage passes.

What didn't help too much though was the breastfeeding class as they really don't explain the time commitment, how cluster feeding feels with a baby screaming at your boobs, that some of us might really struggle to express milk and it doesn't mean you don't have any etc etc. I sent a LOT of feedback to the hospital class organiser a few weeks ago and I hope they'll take it on board. I'd advise every new mum to pass on feedback if you can, it's the only way we can realistically fix support in each area. The worst thing I had though was a very stupid young midwife questioning my supply because of normal cluster feeding; I still don't forgive her because I felt very vulnerable at the time (8 days in) and it really made things worse. She actually left me in tears but luckily my partner told me to listen more to my wonderful and much older health visitor plus my online group, who all reassured me it was normal and it was fine - because it was. Without that other support, I could easily have given up and missed out on this lovely later stage. My family are supportive, but none of them fed successfully enough to be of any help; my SIL had a baby around the same time and is also breastfeeding well though, so she was useful for advice on expressing milk (I've no idea who helped her!).

I've been surprised actually that probably 75% of the mums I know are still breastfeeding at 3 months; my area are trying hard to support breastfeeding but perhaps it's also normalising because we can and do all help each other. I don't think health visitors, families nor people in general understand how much time breastfeeding takes though; I know I hadn't but it continues to surprise me that professionals seem to minimise how many feeds and how much time is spent feeding, which makes mums think maybe they are doing something wrong until they confer with each other. If I was going back to work, I'd definitely drop just the daytime feeds earlier, because expressing milk is a faff, but luckily I don't need to for a while yet so I expect I'll keep going alongside solid food from 6 months or whenever he's ready after that. I have no goal in mind for feeding, maybe a year or two years. I hope we can move to a position where everyone is just happy with their choice; helped to breastfeed if they want, helped with techniques to combi feed if that works better or helped to formula feed (advice on teat size etc) if that's their preference.

Sorry, such a long essay.

I don't want to.

It's not about support, I just don't want to, so I don't.

@minifingerz well said!

But is the data accurate? I was with my dd at her 13mth check, the nurse was ticking the no box before she even asked the question. She was quite surprised she was still bf.

no health professional is a greater influence than your own mum

I made this point a few pages ago, almost verbatim. The reason women don't breastfeed, or fail to breastfeed, is because the 'oral tradition' of breastfeeding knowledge passed down through generations has been lost/mixed up with ff advice. Nobody knows how to do it anymore, mums can't help their daughters, it's basically a lost art. Daughters go to their mother for advice and get 'he's feeding all the time, put him on the bottle'.

That and society's aversion to co-sleeping, which supports successful breastfeeding.

So you were just that bit more committed and braver than everybody else Shack. Bollocks!

I had 7 years of IVF,procedures, a near death experience and agonising pain which I battled through with strength and committment. Luck played a part too in the end but my journey was one of sheer grit. I put the same committment into breast feeding my precious longed for babies.

It defeated me/us.

So sorry to disappoint,you aren't tougher or more committed than the rest of us.

ShackUp totally agree, co-sleeping at the beginning, skin to skin, can really help establish breastfeeding in a calm, relaxed and natural way.

There is a reason for society's aversion to co sleeping. It's dangerous.
But we'll skirt over the research and stats re that issue.

cowparsley nope, I didn't say that, I said I don't know why I carried on despite the horrendous problems, I still don't know.

Sorry to hear you had a horrible experience

I was severely ill at university, but eventually came back and finished my degree. Therefore, anyone who was severely ill at university and didn’t come back and finish their degree probably didn’t want it badly enough or wasn’t stubborn enough.

Cow sounds like you and I were in a similar boat (long term infertility and IUI here). I know there’s no way you didn’t want this enough to make it happen.