To believe that formula companies have PR agents working the BF/FF threads on here?

[CocoDeMoll]

They are a multi million pound set of companies that are invested in keeping Britain’s low breastfeeding rates down and keeping their profit margins up.

Any positives about breastfeeding seem to be shot down in flames on here.

So much pro formula and anti breastfeeding rhetoric.

They can easily afford to and have the best at the jobs be it lawyers, pr teams or spin doctors on their sides and they’re not exactly renounced for their ethics are they (nestle?!?!).

Or am I just getting a bit tied up in conspiracy therorys?

Redteapot67 I said it was difficult above and got told, no it isn't for most women. According to pps, anyone who says it's difficult or mentions any downside is a marketer for a formula company. "blood sweat and tears"? Are you the CEO or something?

It took my blood, sweat and tears. I honestly don't know if I would do it again.

Breastfeeding always ends up in a big rammy on mumsnet. But there feck all evidence that women pointing out formula is just as good is just infiltration by formula companies. To say so is diminishing women’s experiences because they are not yours. In rl the majority of women I know really struggled with breastfeeding and didn’t manage to do it for very long despite all the pressure. We need to stop making mums feel terrible for not being able or even not wanting to breastfeed. That’s a feminist issue. Our bodies our choice.

As for the person who was outraged that staring at someone’s boobs is offensive- it is.

It would be foolish to say that everyone finds bf easy. Some do, of course, but most don't.
However. I think that one of the reasons women find it difficult is that we do not live in a breastfeeding culture. Most women have never seen anyone bf until they try themselves- and they are usually so isolated from other women that they have no one to learn from. They get bad advice, no support and quite understandably switch to formula. Who wouldn't? There is a growing narrative that a significant number of women can't bf-a narrative that is gaining traction even though research from other countries shows it not to be true.

Women should be able to say that they don't want to bf if they don't want to. But if they do want to they should get the proper advice and support. It should be a proper choice.

You probably think that I work for a formula company because I am extremely pro formula.

You would be wrong though.

I do not believe in the nonsense that BM had special magical powers and I have see women reduced to breaking point because they felt obliged to BF

Women have to do what they feel is best for them and their families.

If you still think I work for s formula company because j am do pro formula have a look at my many posts in the "staffroom" part of the site.

Ugh. Why does it MATTER? My DS was FF and is strapping and healthy, is a perfect average weight, is meeting all milestones, and is rarely ill. My DD is breastfed, but in a few years literally nobody will know (or care about) that unless I tell them...!

I wish everyone, on MN and in real life, would stop obsessing about it and just concern themselves with their own children and nobody else's. How I choose to feed my kids is nothing to do with anyone else.

Not everyone is able to breastfeed. For medical reasons I couldn’t and am sick of the breast is best parents who refuse to see other points of view. I very much wanted to breastfeed but couldn’t and my sons have grown up fit and healthy just the same. Get off your soapbox and leave people alone. Conspiracy theory - get a life!

In my experience, if you say anything positive about breastfeeding you are accused of being goady and dismissive to FF mothers. I combi fed so I was the worst of the worst. Didn't sit in either camp. I had very good reasons for combi feeding dispite having a massive over production of milk.

It's estimated that increasing bf rates by just two thirds (which would still put us behind many countries) would save the NHS £40m a year.

I also suspect that formula companies have contributed significantly to the cultural push to get new mums out of hospital within a matter of hours. It snowballs, people talk about how awful the postnatal ward is and then women who read it set their minds to getting discharged as quickly as possible. Why doesn’t anyone ask why it is awful? Why can’t post natal care be improved?

I’m not sure if this is the information being referred to www.nhs.uk/news/pregnancy-and-child/more-breastfeeding-would-save-nhs-millions/#what-were-the-basic-results.

Of the £40 ish million, £21 million is savings in breast cancer, so wouldn’t be realised for many years. The rest is savings related to babies, so fairly immediate.

Looking at it from an economic position (and I don’t mean that I think this is the only way or right way to look), there are approximately 700,000 births each year. So to be cost neutral you are looking at a spend of £57 per birth to be spent on improving BF rates, hoping for a £40 million return.

That’s possibly going to get you a couple of hours support per mother, but it certainly isn’t going to fund longer postnatal stays or improved postnatal hospital experiences. Another night in hospital is probably going to cost £400 per mother, but actually more if you have to factor in making a hospital experience that a mother would willingly subject herself to for longer.

I think it’s fairly clear why nothing much is being done to improve BF rates, the numbers don’t stack up.

But also, I don't think I should have to BF to save the NHS money. My body, my baby, my choice.

I absolutely believe they do. Didn't Nestle set up a "breastfeeding helpline" a few years ago in which they actually gave out bad advice in order to sabotage breastfeeding?

The more I think about it, the more I think formula companies would be crazy not to take advantage of forums. It's a way to directly market formula to mums and disparage breastfeeding without having to adhere to the WHO code.

That's a good way of looking at it PandaPieForTea and does put the figures into perspective admittedly. However I assume the spend wouldn't need to be divided equally - it could be targeted at particular groups. So in fact it might go further than you'd think.

I also wonder what the impact would be of extending the advertising ban to follow-on milks and why this hasn't been done as it's so obviously a cynical ploy by the formula companies.

Pengggwn I absolutely think women should have the choice and wouldn't suggest preventing women from ff if they want to and/or need to.

What I would like is a change in the general environment surrounding bf/ff so that more women willingly choose to bf.

What I would like is a change in the general environment surrounding bf/ff so that more women willingly choose to bf.

I mean that depends on why they chose ff in the first place. But I agree that there needs to be more support in place and that if there were more women would bf

(and are supported in that choice I should add)

Agreed MrSpock - some women don't have the choice due to circumstances / medication / mastectomy / etc etc. So bf rates could never be 100%.

@pengwyn. My body my baby my choice is very similar to a mum choosing to smoke in pregnancy. Do you agree? Do you think it is a priority to spend public funds to reduce this risk to babies I wonder? Or accept that whatever will be will be, even if there is an increased stillborn and infant mortality rate?

Agreed MrSpock - some women don't have the choice due to circumstances / medication / mastectomy / etc etc. So bf rates could never be 100%.

Exactly. I’m supposed to take a medication that it’s inadvisable to bf with. I’ve decided to try to bf exclusively for 3 months but if I absolutely can’t manage then I will have to switch to formula.

There needs to be more support and honest conversations about bf. When I had my son I was quite open minded about either (before I took meds) but the support was crappy and we ended up on special allergy formula anyway.

Recently I’ve been looking for bf classes in my local area and I was shocked to not find any. Eventually, I found one. One. I rang my community midwives and asked them if they knew of any local breastfeeding support, classes or face to face groups and was told they didn’t. I was really shocked and quite disheartened.

Arewehomeyet

'My body, my baby, my choice' applies to anything I choose to do during pregnancy (where a totally different set of ethical considerations is in play). Once the baby is born, I have legal obligations to fulfil. Making decisions based on what is right for me and my family, however, is a prerogative I am not going to give up to save on the tax bill.

spreadingchestnuttree

I agree more support should be available so that should they wish to, more women can BF. I am not going to see this as a target, however, as women can make their own decision about what is best for them and their families. All we need to do is make sure as many women as possible are in a position to make a free choice.

@pengggwyn interesting that you would consider reducing infant morbidity and mortality in terms of reducing a tax bill! Is that your primary concern?

Arewehomeyet

My primary concern is my family. I will make the decisions I believe make sense for my family without regard to what saves the NHS money.

Can you imagine if loads of people were "anti obese people". Obese people cost the NHS millions but it's their choice, and from what I've read of mumsnet there are a hell of a lot of mums on here who are obese who blame having a baby, parenthood etc. Why is this socially acceptable? I give no shits about what anyone else does but this obviously has a way bigger impact on the NHS than people who ff. Just wondering why it's OK to constantly point out to ff mums about the impact their decisions are having but there isn't loads of anti fat threads? Because let's be honest, being obese is completely preventable and just a result of greed normally (disclaimer I am overweight).

IME midwives and health visitors usually don't know where the support groups are. I find this quite strange because it can make such a big difference, and there is usually at least one in most areas unless you are very rural.

I suppose that the NHS cannot promote them, because so many of them are run by groups with agendas other than simply breastfeeding support (La Leche League promotes an attachment parenting style, NCT wishes to recruit parents to paid groups and classes, IBCLCs and the Baby Cafés work for profit) - but there are so very few NHS run clinics, so it would actually make sense to distribute details of these groups even with a disclaimer.

Here's how you find the support groups, BTW:

Use the following search forms for the five most well-known BF support organisations in the UK:

www.laleche.org.uk/find-lll-support-group/

www.nct.org.uk/branches

abm.me.uk/find-a-local-breastfeeding-support-group/

www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/sample-page/

www.thebabycafe.org/find-a-cafe/

Phone your nearest Children's Centre (their websites are often dire) or drop in, and ask if they have any BF support groups in their network. Bear in mind they might have strange office hours. Weekday mornings are usually a safe bet, but keep trying if they are closed.

Phone a Children's Centre in any other nearby areas and ask them too. Frustratingly the Children's Centres in neighbouring towns/cities often are not connected.

Find an IBCLC locally and contact them to see if they offer any groups, courses or classes, or if they know of any organisations who do: www.lcgb.org/find-an-ibclc/

And, yes, it's worth asking your midwife in case there is an NHS clinic in your area, but it's not that likely that you will find one.

As a last resort, you can also try googling "Breastfeeding support + town" with your nearest local towns and cities. This might bring up some lesser known options.

TBH, it should not be this hard.

@Fenwickdream just wow.......

Bf isn't a feminist issue. Ff might be though