Breastfeeding: Only Middle Class Now?

[redbedheadd]

Was debating this with my DP - he is of the belief that breastfeeding is a mainly a middle class thing. I'm not sure if I agree, wanted other opinions.

We live in a very MC/posh area of London and I'd say 90% of mums at my Baby classes BF. This is his evidence.

We both grew up in working class environments - him in a council estate in London where no-one breastfed and me in a Northern town where is was normal to BF.

So.... thoughts?

Age is a factor. When I had DS1 I was 20 and I had one HCP say "you won't be breastfeeding, younger women never do."

I was working class, when I had my kids BF went in and out of fashion over the years, I did BF. My second DS for 15 months, because it was the only way, he would go to sleep, I was back at work when they were 3 months old, and I was like a zombi! I have only seem people FF these days, and definitely never heard of anyone in the younger age group, doing it. Am thinking of my youngest DDs friends.

@Peachesandcream14 yes absolutely, my Granny formula fed as an officer's wife as that's what they were expected to do, BF was not classy for a lady! She really regretted in her later years when the health benefits of BF were more widely identified, and was very proud of her daughters BF (and no doubt her granddaughters had she been alive to see it). Class identity changes, when formula came in that was seen as the "healthy" and proper way of doing things. I can't imagine many working class could have afforded it back then.

@EmeraldShamrock Feeding a baby over 1 is not 'unnecessary', and feeding a 3 year old is not for the mother's comfort. People have such strange ideas, and it's really annoying that these attitudes filter through.

Snuggybuggy some overbearing family members actually discourage BF because it means they will be less likely to have baby away from mother. Common topic on here.

Namestheyareachanging, I did it because I knew of no alternative. It literally didn't enter my mind that FF was an option. Of course I'm aware formula exists and that lots of people use it, I just assumed that people like me bf.

I wasn't in my right mind. My militantly pro BF mother appeared one day when DS was 12 weeks old and said, right, look at him, he's huge and bouncing with health, YOU CAN STOP NOW.

And that was it. Huge sigh of relief. Bottles bought immediately and battle of getting DS onto them.

I needed 'permission' to formula feed and for reasons I still can't really fathom, the permission couldn't come from me.

I couldn't give a flying fig how kids of any age are fed now. DS favours a Greggs sausage roll, and I couldn't care less who sees us. But in those dark, terrifying early days I lost my self determination.

JaneEyre07 my DD was born 6 weeks early and struggled with latching. The MW were supportive in theory of BF but did keep saying “if you bottle fed you’d have her home by now”! And the first question I was asked as they whisked her off to NICU after birth was which brand of formula I preferred. Not whether I wanted to BF or FF. When she threw up the formula their response was to try to get an IV drip into her - even though by then I was producing lots of colostrum into syringes, they didn’t think to ask for it or try it, until they couldn’t get the drip in. I think it was just assumed that preemie=bottle.

All this even though there is plenty of evidence that premature babies do better with breastmilk.

The NHS posters promoting BF don’t seem to have translated into actual practical knowledge or training or help.

If bf is a task requiring an army of backup then when are we going to admit that for lots of women, it's really effing hard.

Also just to address this - child-rearing is a task that demands an army of back-up. It is intensive and consuming! And as we can observe in many other cultures, mothers are supported in this and not expected to manage it all on their own with some trifling input from a partner who is out to work most of the time. Even in our own culture mother and baby used to have a bit of 'lying in' together, women would have their mothers and sisters around them perinatally, there was a community. Nowadays we live so isolated from each other, when a woman has her own baby it can be the first time she has ever spent any significant amount of time WITH a baby. Women would once have had a week in hospital following a pretty uncomplicated birth; now women post surgery are supposed to ship out as soon as they can stand up and just get on with it. All of this is bloody hard.

Bottle feeding takes ONE aspect of this challenge away (feeding can be shared, no adjustment period while learning the skill that is breastfeeding required, normal infant feeding patterns can be overridden so newborns eat a lot infrequently rather than little and often).

But it also serves the 'just get on with it and act like you haven't even had a baby' culture we have in the UK, that insists women 'get their lives back' within days/weeks of giving birth instead of making any space or allowance for the fact their lives and bodies have completely changed. Maternity leave doesn't need to be extensive and well paid to accommodate breastfeeding, because you can 'just switch to formula/just pump' and get back to being economically productive.

All this can work for mothers who want that freedom and choice. But for those who want to sink deep into the motherverse, who want to be wrapped up in their child, feed them from the breast responsively, take time out from normal life to really privilege that life experience with time and attention - "you don't need to" becomes "you shouldn't" very easily.

I think it is fair to acknowledge breastfeeding is effing hard in the society and world we have created for ourselves. However, I think it is equally legitimate to question the sustainability of breastfeeding in that environment AND to question the environment that makes breastfeeding (an integral part of the mammalian experience) so effing hard.

Agree Wallaby. Even my most Pro BF and MC friends think BFing a day over 1 is weird. And I even know of one who is still BFing her 2yo 'secretly' as she is ashamed to tell the rest! How ridiculous is that? Why does it suddenly become weird. I think WHO recommends it up to 3 or 4? Not sure but it is very common across the world to BF past 1.

@MorrisZapp

I'm so sorry you had such a hard time. I can sympathise, I was also in a very dark place post birth and the pressure I put on myself was enormous. I think the pressures in all directions on new mothers are so contradictory and so colossal at a time we're already basically skinned with vulnerability already. It's rubbish.

The NHS posters promoting BF don’t seem to have translated into actual practical knowledge or training or help

Quite right minipie. It takes more than a 'breast is best' poster. I could right a book on stuff I wish someone had told me.

I find this interesting I do tick various middle class boxes and actually work in an area where we encourage and teach breast feeding. I breast fed over 2 years with all my children and no 3 to over 4 years. Many of my colleagues have done the same but we tend to keep it quiet. ( nurses)
All my family breast fed both Grandmothers ( had babies in 1940’s) breast fed as that’s the practical sensible thing to do. You don’t waste money. ( they also left babies down the bottom of the garden in prams so not earth mother types).
Over 20 years of dealing with babies/ children and breastfeeding the trend is very young mums lack the confidence, support and often come from more working class families where granny and great granny also bottle fed. I have had a patients great granny once tell me (very proudly) we don’t breastfeed in our family. We got that baby breastfeeding and the mum actually did become quite proud of it despite her absolute horror when we told her after the birth of her premature baby we needed her to express. Her grandmother stormed onto the NICU to tell us off for the “disgusting “ suggests of expressing we had made to her granddaughter.Older mums or more educated tend to breast feed more.

I moved from a middle class area to a deprived working class area - it was a very noticeable move from a generally supportive bf are to an active ant bf one.

Our families hadn’t been that supportive with bf with first, so I was lucky I had her in a supportive area – we moved soon after second birth and I don’t think I would have managed to bf second for as long without prior experience.

The HCP weren’t at all supportive and HV were a bloody menace. It was harder all round – lots of looks and comments – I didn’t even like the supposedly positive one that cause everyone to stare at me.

I also experienced a lot of other mother sitting next to me at groups staying they so wished they could of bf – or bf longer and it was always pressure from other family HCP and really bad advice that had stopped them.

They were putting in more support in the area since my second, but I image the general cuts have put paid to that.

I suspect there will be pockets of bf in some working class communites - were bf is normalise for some reason - and like many middle class areas it will be easier to bf there.

There is a correlation between the length of breastfeeding a baby and whether the mothers partner's mum (if you all understand, MIL most likely or DP's mum) breastfed, not whether or not the mothers own mother breastfed. This is because partners who are unused to it, and MIL's (to use a short cut here meaning all mothers of peoples partners) who did not breastfeed are more likely to criticise or to make the mother doubt herself. Whereas a partner whose mum thinks this is the best way (because she did it) will be more supportive of the downsides of breastfeeding. That was found in research but anecdotally my DSis and I both breastfed and out mum did not - but both of our MIL's did!! My other two Dsis did not breastfeed past week 3 but neither of their MIL breastfed.

There are obviously other factors but it was found to correlate. Great that your DP is supportive - you need everyone you can have supporting you.

My NCT group is 8 mc women who have decent jobs and supportive partners. All of us were still breastfeeding either wholly or partially at 4 months and at 6 months I think half still are, including myself. The main reasons for stopping are being bitten by new teeth and some of the mixed fed babies losing interest! It made it so much easier when we were all first meeting up that one or two others would also be feeding in public with me - without that I wouldn't have been nearly as confident. Now I don't even think about it.

I have to say though that I would have gone stir crazy if DS didn't take a bottle or two so I could go out alone for a couple of hours. Some of the young mums I know formula fed because they wanted regular babysitting by mums and grandmas which I totally get! I'm not that sociable.

I like to think beyond the UK as we are sort of a global exception in how little we breastfeed, even compared to countries like the US where maternity leave is poor etc. Breastfeeding is a HUMAN thing which happens as a matter of course in most parts of the world & has been the norm for thousands of years. Not sure class needs to come into it.

If MC mums have more time on their hands to BF because they have a cleaner, gardener and get their meals delivered then that is why there are more of them. It has nothing to do with education and class.

Not all MC mums have cleaners and gardeners! It's not Downton Abbey!

Many women BF and manage the house all by themselves with little support

Can't wait for Monty Don to latch me on at 4am.
😂😂

Just had a chat with DM I was definitely raised WC both parents left education at 14 and worked long hours in manual jobs. DM BF both of us until over a year and was happy to continue to do so until we were less interested, which she felt came about when we were eating three meals a day consistently, she had friends, colleagues and family members judge her for BF, especially 'for so long' and none of her friends did they all FF. That was in the eighties.

It's why she hasn't voiced an opinion at all to me or SIL who've made opposite choices, although she was very supportive of me early on when DS wasn't latching well, I had blisters, infections etc. She encouraged me to do what was right for me, the midwives and HCAs at the hospital were fantastic and determined to help us, showing me different latch positions and confirming tongue tie, my home midwife even told me about a local private midwife who snips tongue ties when the wait for our NHS appointment came through as a nine week wait that made me want to cry (as mentioned by PPs we are fortunate to be able to afford £160 unexpectedly if we couldn't I would've had to FF). The health visitors however have been surprised I was able/wanted to go from bottle to mixed to BF and one said to me ooh that sounds like too much work, but the centre I go to for weighing is attached to a children's (social) services building and I think they usually have bigger issues to worry about in the families they see.

We don't have a cleaner while I'm on mat leave can't afford it, and our garden looks like Jurassic park at the moment

I agree with a pp and do think it is usually MC to breastfeed among white women here, and just more general among women of other ethnicities. I used to work and live in a much more affluent suburb where everyday I’d see a mom or two bf’ing, whereas living in a more deprived (and majority white) area for 2yrs now I realise I’ve actually never seen any bf’ing mothers.

Obviously the important thing is the baby gets fed and both mum and infant are happy... but it is interesting, I wonder what causes this divide - lack of professional support in poorer areas? Stigma among the wc of bf’ing in public? I don’t know, but there is a divide.

Working class council estate 22 when I had my first and breastfed for 14 months. I was most definitely in the minority within my area/age group. Lots of weird looks and raised eyebrows, I was terrified of feeding in public. I have a much older cousin very middle class who supported me in the beginning as well as my lovely mum.

Now I'm 27 and EBF my 4 month old and I just don't bother mentioning it. The first question is always what milk is he on, including from a doctor.

My best friend (also working class) had her first 9 months after me and mixed fed her first (for 18 months) second (for 20 months) and soon to be arriving third baby will also be mixed fed and she always says she only tried it because I so stubbornly stuck at it.

We both comment on how it's a non existent topic throughout our social media/friendship groups. Everyone we know goes straight to bottles.

Emerald
I bf dd until 2 1/2. I decided to stop. She refused to feed 4/5 days in a row and then feed loads the next day. She then repeated the cycle. It really hurt and the pain was my reason for stopping. I could equally have decided to continue for the benefit of my child however I put my needs first. Complete bs about feeding over 3 being for the mothers benefit.

@Annasgirl that's interesting and the opposite of my experience. DH has been incredibly supportive even when I had Raynaud's of the nipple and BF would literally make me cry, he never got frustrated or told me to just give up, he did say to do whatever I wanted and he would fully support that including FF. MIL FF from the outset, DM BF over a year.

@SignedUpJust4This that's what I find really sad, these people could be supporting a mother to feed how she wants and put their own selfish needs to play dolly first

LOL at the person saying MC mums can BF because they have the money to employ gardeners, cleaners and have meals delivered. I am firmly MC and when DC were little, once we’d paid the utilities, DH season ticket and the mortgage, we didn’t have a pot to piss in. Our house had whole rooms unfinished because we couldn’t afford carpets or furniture. DC and I wore second hand clothes. That was another incentive to BF. The money I wasn’t spending on formula was extra money for food for the adults in the house.