To think mums using formula are shamed more than breastfeeding mums?

[Mumtoboy123]

Before having children i didnt realise how big of an issue this seems to be. Everywhere you go you hear "breast is best" and yes, this is the case for some, however, i had my son 7 weeks ago and i was never too fussed about breastfeeding. I knew it would hurt, take a lot of time to get right and i would be the sole provider of feeding day and night. I knew that for me, this was a lot of pressure, that i would rather DH have the chance to feed DS and get that connection with him and we could face night feeds as a team. I also suffer from chronic fatigue and knew 2 hourly BF by myself would kill me or cause low feeling and possible PND.
When DS was born, i was rushed to surgery following the birth. Before this happened, because i felt i had to, id said i wanted to try and breastfeed for the first few days of colostrum at least. This meant that while i was being prepped for surgery, a midwife was 'panic expressing' in an attempt to get DS to latch on. Quite traumatic. DH then had to give DS a bottle while surgery took so long and we carried on from there.
Since having DS ive had aot of people assuming im breastfeeding, ignoring me saying im formula feeding and continuing to tell me their BF stories and advice, and i get funny looks wherever i bottle feed out of the house, especially at mum groups.
Surely feeding my child in the best way that suits our family is better than BF and my bond with DS suffering because of the hardship, or worse, not feeding at all?! There seems to be a lot of focus on supporting BF mums because of the opinions related to getting breast out in public but no support for those who have chosen to formula feed for whatever reason, if anything, when you say you are formula feeding you get a bit of a look and an "oh right" comment... then a silence. Its got to the point where i see another formula feeding mum in costa and i want to run up to her and high-5 her!!
Just to clarify... i have nothing against Breastfeeding at all... especially in public.

I said, anything. No one should be going up to someone to say anything nasty. It's an awful way to behave.

Also I have not told anyone on this thread to KYS. It's just an expression I learned on here that I thought might be useful in a situation like that.

you are so far out of order with the kill yourself comment its not true.

I haven't even said it to anyone yet. I've never been BF shamed.

Did you get that attitude because you bf and it makes you a bit crazy?

Oh and I know people who claim they were bullied when in actual fact they were the bullies. I suspect you were one of those at school too no?

It has nothing to do with what method I feed my child. I learned it from my time at school that if people go out of their way to be nasty to me just say what I need to whether that's fuck off or whatever. Obviously I didn't know KYS as a teen.

And yes I was very much the victim. I've never gone out of my way to say unprovoked horrible things to someone in public.

Fuck off is completely different to Kill Your Self.

I don't care. If you open a dialogue by going up to someone to insult them you can't complain about what is said back.

But what are these nasty things that are being said to you? You have said yourself that has never happened so at this point it's all BF warrior go kill yourself in your head.

You honestly sound like a bully with that - or else you have some other stuff going on in your head and this is a distraction or some way of making yourself feel big.

It's not big and it's not clever to tell someone to go kill themselves and to be honest I think you sound like you have major issues.

I don't know anyone who has been bullied who would actually tell anyone else to go kill themselves.

My DD was bullied to the point that she did try to kill herself - and that was one of the insults they used. Go kill yourself. Do the world a favour. You are abhorrent and I put you in the same category as people like them when you say that phrase.

Could be my weight, my hair, my clothes anything. I don't have time for people who do that and certainly wouldn't be bothered to mince my words. It's hypothetical and KYS was just what came to mind, I only learned it recently.

And yes I was bullied and told to kill myself at school. It has affected me long term.

So having been bullied and told to kill yourself, you'd say it to someone else? Even knowing what the bullying did to you?

I find that mind boggling.

I went through hell to establish breastfeeding. Anyone who says nasty things to someone unprovoked deserves all the insults back. It's totally different to minding your own business and keeping your head down and people verbally and physically abusing you anyway.

Fuck off, no problem. But I just ... Go Kill Your Self ... nope, sorry, I don't think it's an acceptable insult. Ever.

How many people have verbally and physically abused you for BF?

No one as I live in a high BF area but I could imagine getting shitty comments for FF here and am lucky to have been able to get my supply up. I could easily imagine what it's like being shamed.

Anyone who says KYS casually is an idiot. If you said it to my dd, even as a joke, I'd....not react nicely to you.
Fucking stupid dickwipes use that phrase.

Why would I say KYS or fuck off to your DD?

Argh, this thread has gone mad since I last looked. snuggy you've been reasonable up to now, but stop doubling down! Admit it was a stupid and ill-judged phrase and be done with it!

It wasn't the best choice for this thread.

Also to any teachers reading this, be proactive about bullying because it really messes people up

As many people have said, no matter what you do someone will have a view on it, and with a tiny baby it is easy to take things to heart.
I felt internal pressure to bf my baby which probably didn't help me in the early days- I would have been upset with myself if it hadn't worked out but grateful that there was a way to feed my baby.
Breastfeeding is (in my area) somewhat supported but the answer to feeding problems was in my experience "give a bottle of formula" rather than spending time trying to resolve the feeding issues. This was the message from my family also which made me feel a bit attacked at times to be honest- and also that they felt my choice/wish was a criticism of how thet fed their babies.

My feeling was that the NHs simply do not have the resources to follow through on the messages at antenatal groups etc about breastfeeding and support is lacking as a result.

However- a glance at the infant feeding boards suggests that (while there may be no need for support in the sense of sitting with a woman teaching her to get the baby latched on, advising on positioning etc) there is a lack of support for families who formula feed, either through choice or not. I've noticed similar issues recur (making up bottles in advance being the one that springs to mind) which suggests to me that there is often a lack of real life support for formula feeding families too.

Incidentally, in real life the mums I know seem to support each other as best they can without shaming or making judgements known. If they have the mental energy to be paying attention to what others are doing. I know I don't what with keeping my tiny human alive and wondering if I've picked up a pelvic organ prolapse along the way and wondering what's for dinner, whether my piles are still bleeding, if I left the gas on, where I put the baby, what that rash on her face is, oh look a squirrel etc. If this all shows in my face as a look of vague (screaming) concern and it's made someone else feel judged - sorry about that.

I'm not the person who made the 40% claim but you seemed incredulous that there's a link between BF and reduced infections in babies so I posted one link
This is the kind of statement that really annoyed me. No, I am not incredulous that there might be a benefit. I am incredous that the benefit is that high. I made that very clear in both my posts but as always when you challenge the supposed facts given by supporters of bb, they twist it around to accuse you of denying any benefits.

There is a big difference between claiming a benefit of say 4% to 40% so any evidence ( randomised controlled studies only) of such number would be helpful.

@swingofthings

I posted about the 40% in response to your question. See oage 20 of this thread.

I wonder if some of this shaming (for both bf and FF parents) is actually imagined. Saying you get funny looks for feeding your small baby - is it actually just someone looking at the baby?

I've had comments about bf but did experinced this as well.

I was sat watching for my girls to come back from toilet- DH and Ds had gone off and someone had to stay at the table - wasn't 100% comfortable them being off by themselves in supermarket loos. Vaguely in my line of sight to the loos was DGP and a mum and baby - wasn't paying much heed only registered as they was a lot of flapping.

As my family came finally came back the DGF stood up and loudly said I'm going to say something to that bloody women staring at you bfing you have perfect right to so- just as my eldest skipped past hears- oh mummy you bf all of us – DH answers something like yes pg and bf for what 5 and half years.

I was wondering who the man was upset with – when after my family spoke he sat down suddenly deflated realise he meant me. I was mortified as certainly never meant to upset anyone - wasn’t even aware the mum was bf.

Sorry Brightstarry I hadn't seen your link. As expected though, this research provides no such evidence. As you quoted yourself, it states that the risks reductions were not statistically significant, ie. they can't be considered to establish a causation.

It's a cohort study, based in Crete (so totally different conditions to the UK), medical information based on parental accounts rather than medical records, and really only paying to 91 babies as all others were not exclusively breastfed for 6 months.

In the world of science, a very misleading research and not one that would make me believe of a universal benefit of that scale (especially when they include cold in severe viral infection as recorded by mums).

@swingofthings please link to research that shows there is no relationship between breastfeeding and reduced gastro or ear infections and explain why yours has a robust enough methodology.

I find it astonishing how there is a segment of the population who seems to believe the WHO, NHS, CDC, and other public health agencies have invented the benefits of breast milk and decided to force it on us for their own unknown purposes.

As mentioned upthread if there is scientific proof that formula is as good or better than breast milk you can be sure Nestle Danone et al would have every newspaper in the world publishing it in their health section within days.