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?

Just read another post saying return to work means they have to give up bf. Makes me so sad as it's not true!

Wasn't particularly aimed at you Grass,our posts crossed.

I was aiming it all the others piling on,many of whom won't even have ever used formula.

As others have said, FF is the cultural norm. You very rarely see people BF in real life

Well I suppose it depends on where you live. Bf rates where I live have been increasing apparently. I'd say 80% of mums I've met bf and bf out and about.

Anyway, no one prepared me for bf. It was horrendous. It was sore and the burden of feeding was all on me. I have bf 2 DC for a total of 4 years but I very very very nearly gave up on day 5 with DC1.

There need to be more lactation consultants available, not just on post natal wards but in community settings.
Midwives need to be a lot more honest about the realities. All you are ever told is “It doesn’t hurt if you’re doing it right”. But it bloody does.
People also need to know more about stuff like cluster feeding - it’s not uncommon for this to be mistaken for baby being hungry and not satisfied with just breastmilk, leading to unnecessary topping up and negative effects on supply.

Dailymailfail... that answers my q really.
Sorry to hear you had that experience

It is such an emotive issue that I think getting to the nub of it is challenging.

While pregnant with dd1 I knew how to BF. I read all the books and talked Kellymom. I knew about cluster feeding and nipple pain. I was prepared for it. But dd was born and simply would not latch on. When she did eventually she just sort of held the nipple there in her mouth. I begged for us to be let Home as I felt the home environment was more conducive and the staff agreed. We ended up readmitted at 2am and staying in days while a line of medical staff filed through our room looking perplexed.

I had milk and could pump like a star. One kindly member of staff suggested while begging me for forgiveness if it would be ok to give her a tiny drop of formula. I remember the huge relief.

Long and emotional story short I tried pumping to feed her while also trying to latch her onto for two weeks. Nowadays it feels like such a tiny amount of time I am irritated with myself. But at the time I felt I was days away from throwing myself under a bus. I was exhausted and felt like a failure. We had a stream of family visit - first grandchild - and I couldn’t manage pumping, trying to latch, giving the doting grandparents their right to cuddles. Handing over a wee bottle and letting them do it just seemed kind and a blessed relief.

Not one of the wonderful and kind midwives who visited me daily had ever BF themselves. They had read the same stuff I had so we wee the blind leading the blind.

Eventually I admitted I wanted to stop. It took me literally years to lose the guilt over this.

In June last year my second dd was born. She came out and latched on. Simple as that. Feeding her was an absolute joy. I fed happily and comfortably in front of anyone and everyone. She has intolerances so I had to reduce my diet and make changes but it all seemed so easy.

I woke up one morning at 8 months though and just felt it was time to stop. No logic really, it was like the decision was already made. I moved comfortably onto prescription formula and she never seemed to notice the difference. I have no guilt about the fact I didn’t feed to a year. I can’t explain why I stopped, it was just time.

Sorry - what a flipping essay. I am glad that there has been guidance given to the RC of midwives but I really don’t think that they are the issue. Lack of support for women in general is the issue I think. Society loves to hate on women so whatever feeding method we used, someone will be judging.

The BF rates are even lower in France.
But frankly we don't give a shit 😁

It's lack of information and education about the REALITY of the early days. Totally absent from the NHS literature. No discussion at MW appointments about what happens if you find it difficult, mix feeding, expressing, what happens if you're induced and have nothing to give the baby for a week. Having your breasts constantly grabbed and shoved in the baby's mouth in hospital. Nobody to show you how the breast tissue has to be manipulated to get milk to flow. Never any mention of relactation, just a clear cut "well, if you're not managing to feed after a week, you'll have to use formula" and that's it. Game over before it's started.

It's actually disgraceful that 'Breast is Best' is pushed but there's no backup whatsoever. It doesn't take long at an antenatal appointment to demonstrate how deeply the breast tissue has to be taken into the baby's mouth, how to hand express etc. Why isn't there a realistic model of a human breast in every MW's office so that you can be shown how to get started? I've finally figured it out thanks to You Tube. Wish someone had pointed in that direction when I was pregnant the first time.

I'm dreading the first couple of weeks with DC2 next month, but am absolutely determined to try again on my own terms this time.

Currently having to almost exclusively pump to feed my ds who is 20wo. Believe me, I am putting in serious effort to do that. So the will is there.

Why bfing hasn’t worked for me is down to personal circumstances like ds having a TT, but my experience with getting help for bfing has also been piss poor and I think it’s orobably true for a lot of women.

For example, I was sneered at in hospital for wanting to stay an extra night, as I wasn’t confident with bfing ds. While there, I was totally ignored or belittled for asking for more help. I then went home, having to top up with formula, started pumping to boost supply and sought help outside the hospital. I couldn’t get help from anyone, even when I was trying to pay people to come and help me, they wouldn’t. It turned out ds was TT and he had it snipped at about 12wo after my fifth trip to have it looked at. By then, he was so used to a bottle that he never really got the hang of breastfeeding. So I’m still pumping.

So why are rates so low?

• most people I know have NO family support nearby. This makes such a difference as nobody there for a bit of company while you’re bfing all the time or to distract older dcs for a bit. Or to

• lack of support from the NHS (or whatever charity they’ve delegated to) inside and out of hospitals.

• poorly trained midwives who wouldn’t know a TT if it jumped up and introduced itself. It’s so common and yet I don’t think most mws know what to look for. If it isn’t glaringly obvious they say it isn’t there.

• culture - yes, I think there is a “sort yourself out - not my problem” attitude even among people whose job it is to help you. Also the prudishness.

• an emphasis on telling mothers how wonderful bfing is, but not telling them how to do it. This is such an error and I think is the main reason the rates are low.

Culture, misinformation, the feeling that breastfeeding is taboo (i.e. getting your breast out in public).

The insane amount of myths perpetrated as facts is actually ridiculous. The top-up trap is a common pitfall- people don't know that feeding constantly is normal so assume they don't make enough. They top up, make less, then end up fully ff.

Also think the fact that most people don’t bf beyond 6 weeks or so means that the culture has an unrealistic expectation about what bf-ing older babies and toddlers is like. People assume it’s the same level of effort and stress as bf-ing a tiny baby when for most, it’s easier than having to make up bottles at that point.

It's such an emotive issue- possibly as it's the first hurdle you face as a new mum?- that it is very hard for both sides and it's very difficult to promote without offending those that haven't breastfed for whatever reason. It always ends up with both sides very defensive.
I sometimes feel it's fighting a bit of a losing battle as ideally breastfeeding would be seen as the norm but as the statistics show it clearly isn't anymore
I feel what doesn't help is the constant negativity in the media, social media etc ...about bf experiences - I hear far more of these than I do negative experiences of bottle feeding

Why is it 'bonkers' not to breastfeed if you can, but you don't want to. We should all feed comfortable with anything we do with our bodies and it's ok to say you don't want to do it.

I don't have any family myself and personally I view family to be part of the problem, not the lack of to be. Often families who have bottle fed encourage bottle feeding or spread the myths of not making enough etc. My family who I didn't grow up with (my mum and siblings) all formula fed and my mum ff us all. I think it creates a sort of expectation/norm.

CowParsley, here is a lucid explanation of the research. www.nhs.uk/news/pregnancy-and-child/more-breastfeeding-would-save-nhs-millions/

This piece did not specifically look at obesity, but there is a solid body of evidence linking bottle-feeding to increased risk of childhood obesity, which often becomes adult obesity, and it is no secret that rising obesity is hugely draining the NHS, to the tune of billions a year. Here is a meta-analysis on the subject of Bf and childhood obesity for you. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4301835/

It’s down to support post birth
There isn’t any
No one tells you that it hurts. That your dh might be jealous/ unsupportive/ find it ‘disgusting’ and ‘lazy’
No one tells you about cluster feeding and what it is ( I still don’t know - my daughter is a teenager now)
Plus women often have to work
It’s a pity

The most depressing thing I ever heard about breastfeeding was in a TV programme about falling rates of BF amongst young women in which one young mum said, with no apparent irony:

"It's not what breasts are for." (It is! It really is!)
When the interviewer asked what they WERE for, she replied:
"Breasts are for sex and showing off."

@Olivebrach women used wet nurses especially the rich.

loopylass

Totally agree about the anti mums in the UK

Formula feed or breastfeed and your going to get those criticising somewhere.... especially when new mothers are sometimes vunerable we prob feel attatcked with peoples opinions

@Heatherjayne1972 many excellent points but I don’t think it’s down to the NHS to tell you your DH is a pillock.

Two words - cluster feeding. And everything associated with it - the mental and physical implications.

So much gets batted around about it all being 'normal.' It may be normal, but it's utterly relentless and I recall the feeling of spending days just glued to the sofa with a baby on my boob almost the entire time because I wanted to try and do "what was best". The reality is, on the face of it, my breastfed child is no different to her formula fed sister and they will both be fine.

Cluster feeding doesn't always last for a long period of time in the grand scheme of things, but it's for long enough to push many women to offer a bottle for some respite.

I BF both until they self weaned at about 11 months. It is one of my proudest achievements. It is a little disheartening to think that would be considered a failure as I didn't carry on until they were a year.

They're a YOUR breasts and they are "for" whatever you want to use them for. Just because you have a vagina, you don't have to use it. We all have a choice.

Having so little support in the hospital was the reason I didn’t continue. An Untrained HCA refused to get the midwife to help “I’ll do it” as she grabbed my breast roughly and forced it into my sons mouth. He never latched on and was starving.

I tried for a week with each child and i’m not convinced that any of the 3 of them ever got a drop at all from me.

It was agony. They ALL wailed constantly.

They all lost weight enough to keep us in hospital.

The worst arguments I ever had with both my husband and my mum were 5 days after my DD3 was born when they both decided to stop begging me to stop trying, and started being furious with me that I was keeping trying.

I had awful PND, needing professional help weekly and support workers and everything because I was far too immersed in the “internet baby forum world” and all I heard was “but I just love my baby too much not too”....and yes, absolutely “i’d Never feed my baby poison” - genuinely had that said to me directly.

How could the nhs have helped... TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF. Stop making ffers feel so crap about it. Let us try and help us to make it work, but if it doesn’t stop making us feel suicidal about failing st the very first step