Breastfeeding rates in the UK

[Faerie87]

It’s just that really, been reading up a lot on this recently and the statics show that our rates are not as good as other countries, so what is it that other countries do differently?

I currently feed my LG a combination of breast milk and formula, I express for her, unfortunately I was never able to get her to latch properly but would have loved to have been able to feed her directly. I know this can be quite an emotive subject so I thought I would share my experience to show I’m not in one camp or the other regarding this, I’m just curious to find out what is the general consensus on why the Uk does have low breast feeding rates?

I think it’s nice to share experiences of feeding baby’s whether it be formula feeding or breast feeding, and for those ladies who have tried to breast feed but not continued what made you stop? And if you were to have another baby would you do anything differently?

Obsession of HCPs with growth charts and tracking centile lines doesn't help. I live in a part of the country with very high bf rates but I've spoken to loads of people who were told to top up with formula because their baby was slow to gain weight and dropped centiles on their chart. Yes some babies will need top ups, but not all, and it requires a fair bit of follow up support to do this without it turning into exclusive ff even if that's not what the mother wants.

New mums aren’t prepared for how hard it is basically.

Then, there is hardly any support. But there is lots of people telling you to stop with the whole “happy mummy = happy baby” and “fed is best”. I fucking hate those phrases. They are so unhelpful to someone struggling with breastfeeding.

And as others have said - a lack of understanding of when milk comes in, cluster feeding etc

nothisispatrick I cant recommend going to a baby clinic or breastfeeding clinic enough- your HV can tell you which days they’re on and where.

My mum breastfed my siblings and me really successfully so I completely expected to do the same for my dcs. As it turned out though, I couldn’t really get mine to latch properly either. I have no idea why.

Dc1 and I were both seriously ill after I had her, so we were in separate wards etc, so that made things a lot harder. I mix fed her for about 3 months.

Dc2 couldn’t latch either and he wa TT (diagnosed and finally snipped at 3mo). I did a mix of breastfeeding and ebm till he was 4mo and then he refused the breast entirely. I am now EPing for him. He is 8mo.

I think I’m dc2’s case, faster diagnosis of TT might have helped. With dc1 I don’t know... maybe not letting us get into so much trouble in labour so we may have been well enough to establish feeding.

Also more bfing support after birth would be lovely, but I don’t know how much help they can really give without moving in with you! I think if I had the money and had another baby, I would pay someone to come and help with feeding at home over the first week or so.

Stone bake I went to a breastfeeding or baby clinic every day for the first few weeks- within 20 miles or so you could find one on every day- so at least I had a daily check of the latch and made Sure they had one good supervised feed a day.

When I was in hospital and getting midwife visits I made them watch me BF each time to check all was ok

It was like my way of getting a free breastfeeding nanny!

Thanks glint! We only went to our local ones, so two a week. One kept diagnosing TT and the other kept saying no TT . Went on for ages.

With dc1 we were still in hospital after the first week, so no option to get advice.

I swear if I have a third though it will all work marvellously... I’m sure...

I’ve heard so many horror stories about getting TT diagnosed and treated, I think that’s another reason people in this country struggle to BF.

I remember a SA friend gobsmacked she has to take her baby to a consultant to get it done- the nurses or midwives at the GPS surgery do it at home. And that’s joburg, not some remote village with a shaken!

Shamen even

Breastfeeding over a year is extremely unusual anywhere in this country

I’ve seen those stats (1 in 200) too but are they true?

The vast majority of women I know breastfed for at least a year. Possibly I’m not from a representative group but you’d think if it was truly so rare, it would be crazy that I know so many who have (including myself).
Then from people I don’t know as more than acquaintances, my child has gone to two nurseries predominantly with over 1s. I was not the only breastfeeding mother and saw a couple feeding at pick up at both nurseries. No one has ever expressed any kind of surprise that my child is still breastfed. Sure I’m in a minority now, but not 1 in 200.
Coming back to work from mat leave, a few women mentioned to me that they fed until 18 months or 2 years. Again, yet more “1 in 200”s.

I think one of the contributing factors is lack of training for midwives and doctors around tongue tie and long waiting times to have it corrected. I had a baby who's tie was missed by two different midwives. They said baby definitely 100pc didn't have one. Instead they should have said they weren't qualified to say for sure and it would have saved me weeks of pain. We went private to a tongue tie practitioner as I really wanted to breastfeed but I can see a lot of people not wanting to do this or not being able to afford it. With 1 in 10 babies having a tongue tie it's not great that they're not diagnosed or corrected routinely at birth

Yeah we had a consultant for ours, simply because ds was 3 mo by then. And who should be assisting at the op than the midwife who has repeatedly said no TT? First thing she said was “oh yes that’s a TT, I can see it”. Felt like giving her a piece of my mind, but didn’t. She’d clearly forgotten us. Twat.

Ah well. We’ve done alright with the EPing. I’ll keep going till he’s one I think and then see where we are.

I think when if comes to this birds of a feather can flock together if that makes sense. Everyone at my NCT group and the baby group I attend breastfeeds but it's a self selecting group and I think both sides can be a bit tribal.

@Cookit That could be due to socio-economic factors. For example, affluent areas tend to see a higher rate of breastfeeding than low-income areas, and also older mums seem more likely to try breastfeeding than very young mums (obviously this is just an overall generalisation and doesn't take into account specific individuals).

Personally I think the NCT taking over NHS antenatal classes in many parts of the UK has a lot to answer for. Rather than be open about the challenges occasional sheer brutality of breastfeeding, they tend to push the positive 'breast is best' agenda to the point that many new mothers feel a failure the second that previously undisclosed complications set in. Faced with that, it's only the most determined who will persevere - particularly with the patchy levels of postnatal bf support on offer.

I agree re not bfing “education”. It was just nonsense at my group. The baby will crawl it’s way up to your nipple and latch itself on apparently and then only feed every two to three hours hahaha!

Yes, I know it dies happen, just not to anyone I know. Or maybe two out of all the bfing mums I know.

Nct not not

I agree that it's one of those things - like smoking - that either almost everyone you know does or almost no one you know does. In my little middle class bubble almost everyone breastfeeds, and I've noticed that those who don't feel obliged to explain why, which makes me feel sad - they shouldn't be made to feel like they have to justify themselves!

Breastfeeding came very physically easy to me, but I will say I struggled with how incredibly unequal it made things for me and DH - we were both at home for the first eight weeks (he's a teacher and DS very obligingly came two weeks before the summer hols) and even with him doing everything else the feeding made such a difference to the toll it took on us. We have always had a very domestically equal marriage and I had all these ideas that a baby wouldn't change that - he's taking shared parental leave when I go back to work at six months, for instance - and it did come as a shock how much biology, in the form of breastfeeding, undermined that.

It’s ignorance, imo.

Because of the 70’s swing to “scientific” formula, we have lost what a normal breastfeeding baby looks like. Both within families and hcp.

Cluster feeding, feeding practically permanently in the first weeks at least, liquid poo, all these were flagged up as “abnormal” by my mum and female relatives. Did i have enough milk? Was it “rich” enough, surely she can’t be feeding again, your milk isn't satisfying her. The liquid poo meant she can’t be absorbing the goodness and thats why she fed so often. Not sleeping through at 6 weeks? Maybe it’s your milk isn’t enough to see her through.

Hcp knowledgeable, and confident enough to say it’s normal are rare. Most, when faced with a worried mum, will just say top up with formula, then all the above “problems” go away. On the small chance that there is a problem.

For most older, formula feeders babies should feed every four hours, sleep in between, and sleep through by 6 weeks. Anything else and they start worrying there isn a problem.

Formula is easy to be confident with. You know how much, you know when. It is less easily digestible so keeps them full longer, which usually means they sleep longer- so after a switch to formula baby usually goes longer and sleeps better- which appears to confirm that it must be a lack of milk causing the frequent feeding.

I lived in a very hippy area and i was the only person who bf long term. Most admitted they switched because of the above, and at least they could be sure baby was getting enough. Many also gave up because their mums pressured them to. My own mum hated me bf in public and made it very clear.

I also think that women are sometimes sold expressing as a solution to the inequality of feeding and it's a bit of a con - I express one bottle a day so DS is used to a bottle for when I go back to work and have been since he was four weeks old. It's a lot more work for me than just feeding him myself! Women are sometimes told that if you express you can have all the freedom of formula feeding and I do think that's a bit of a lie.

I agree with Lisa in that it is very unequal. I remember really resenting how DH had free time in the evening and I didn't. With FF I would probably have handed him DD and a bottle when he got in from work and gone for a nap or bath or something.

How the fuck does a newborn baby ‘crawl up to the breast’? What is this crap they tell us? I’ve had 4 and none of them did any kind of crawling until 8 months plus.

I definitely had to put them to the boob!

The 'babies sleep better on formula' idea is incredibly prevalent, but I'm not so sure it's as true as people say. The formula feeders I know all have babies who they claim 'normally sleep through', but who they insist have been teething (for months, with no actual signs of teeth emerging) and so just temporarily not sleeping well...

Mine never did the crawl up thing but she was very sick at birth so I wonder if she lost that reflex. Luckily after a days antibiotics she was willing to latch on though.

YY lisa, I EP (exclusively pump) and I reckon it’s more time consuming that just feeding him would be! At this age anyway. He’s 8mo.