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?

@JaneEyre07 Yes that's incredibly sad... hope your daughter is okay ❤️

I found there to be lots of verbal support of breastfeeding in hospital but very little practical support. My colostrum didn't come in after I lost a lot of blood and the midwives just didn't believe it wasn't there so they kept hand expressing very painfully but none was coming out. Then they just left me and handed me a bottle of formula after my son lost 12% of his weight in 3 days. I ended up persevering through the pain and kept trying to express and we eventually got there.... but the midwives always seemed too busy to help.

I think there needs to be better training for midwives

Namestheyareachangin - similar to my story. I went on to feed for 23m.

I'm not entirely sure what motivated me, but I sought every bit of help going, online, groups, bf support, begged for a lot of help. I just knew I wanted to do it, and new I didn't want to stop. I too would have laughed if someone had told me day 3 (in the mist of 24 hour feedings cracked nipples, everyone telling me just give her a bottle etc) I would have fed for 2 years.

Live in a predominantly WC area, most FF locally, but I went to a breastfeeding support group with a mix of woman/ages (all late 20s+)/classes/education who all had a similar goal, I think had I not went to that group and remained in that friendship circle I possibly may have given up.

So for me it's hard to answer the OPs question whether I think it is a class thing or not. A bit mixed in my experience.

I feel like a bit of an oddity on this. Grew up in a poor area but with, comparatively speaking, well off parents - some would say middle class, but they weren't actually middle class - I certainly never fitted in with the genuinely middle class children, but didn't fit in that well with the working class children either. Essentially no education post 16 (failed A Levels due to ill health) but self educated.

As a family now we're both on way below average wage.

Breastfed for 14 months. Would have carried on, but DS stopped on his own.

Hi OP. Another poster said : All members of both NCT groups I was in EBF at birth, introducing expressed or formula bottles at a gradual rate

and you asked

Is this so they could go back to work do you think?

I am very much in the mould of the poster who said all her NCT classmates EBF from birth, as did I. I would describe myself as solid middle class, albeit from WC roots at grandparents’ generation.

I’m not sure if your question was a little bit critical of women who go back to work, hoping you didn’t mean it to come across that way? Anyway, to answer your question, amongst my fellow North London middle class Mums who would never have dreamed of going straight to FF without giving BF a good try, we tended to introduce bottles of expressed milk first so that our partners could sometimes feed the baby and we could get a rest. I moved to mixed feeding at about 6 months and then FF from 6 months to a year because after 6 months I was happy that he had had sufficient health benefits and he was starting to bite me regularly! (His teeth came in quite early...) However I never planned to go back to work a minute before the end of my full year’s leave so the return to work and the change in feeding patterns were not remotely related. The vast majority of my friends and colleagues have taken their full year (despite being career-driven people) but have altered feeding routines earlier than that. By the time I went to work my DS was one and drinking cow’s milk.

Hope that answers your question.

I work with families that are going through some problems with their teenagers. Often there is s new baby. I would say the split between MC and WC is pretty even to be honest.
I havent got figures, just observations over the years
My mum didnt feed me as she was seriously Ill for a log time after birth and we were WC.

@JessieMcJessie

not critical at all, just wanting to understand why she thought mums went through that trend of BF>expressed>combo feeding>formula. I live in a crazy expensive area and if I wasn't self employed I would definitely have to go back to work early so we could pay rent and that would defiantly inform decisions.

I hadn't thought about other factors that you mentioned so thanks for sharing them - makes total sense!

I’d probably be classed as middle class, from a firmly working class background. Currently BF my third baby (tried and failed with the first, didn’t try with the second as I was scared of getting PND again). I’m the only one in my immediate family to BF, my mum says it ‘wasn’t a thing’ when I was born 😂

My great aunt has made comments about her daughter in law bfing her son at 9 months, as if it’s weird to feed babies that big. My mum made comments for the first few months whenever I mentioned being tired - ‘time to get her on a bottle’ etc. Recently she was concerned that I’m holding the baby back because she’s not learning how to hold a bottle 😂

BF rates are strongly class-correlated: the mother's age, level of education and income levels are all indicators of the probability that she'll BF or FF her baby. The fact that some posters here have a different experience to that doesn't mean that it's not true; nor should any woman feel judged or like a failure if she didn't BF, for whatever reason.

I strongly feel that women should feel supported to make the choice that's best for them and their children. Breastfeeding still isn't socially normal in many places: people make jokes about 'bitty' and tell women not to feed in public; and extended family want to 'have a go' with the baby or question if the baby's getting enough milk when it's cluster feeding. If we can tackle some of that stigma then it might be possible for women to have a genuinely free choice, and neither BF or FF would feel judged or criticised for their decision.

No worries OP. Interestingly my NCT friend who gave up BF first (after 8 weeks or so) is French- middle class French, but it was clear that BF was not as culturally the norm in middle class France. She basically gave it a go because the hospital and health visitor and NCT encouraged it, but it wasn’t for her.

I am now racking my brains to remember other reasons why we moved to formula at 6 months (DS is only 2.5 so wasn’t that long ago)- the biting was a big one, I think also the cycle of boobs getting full and sore and the leaking were maybe just a bit much, and DH was doing more and more equal care when he was at home. But I absolutely loved breastfeeding and I am sad that I’ll never do it again.

I BF because my mum did - I still remember her feeding my youngest sibling. It didn't occur to me not to (plus I hate washing up, so bottles were unappealing). My mum, my dad, and their families are working class - although I am now a high earner, so I don't know what that makes me (I'd say working class attitudes, but with money to buy some freedom of choice). Out of my cousins, I think they all bottle fed (at least, I don't remember anyone whipping out a boob at a family event, unlike me and my sisters) - their mothers (my aunts) all bottle fed.

It's a small thing - but I think my aunts bottle fed because they had the money to do so, and lived in cities where shops were accessible. Whereas mum and dad were absolutely skint when I was growing up, and the nearest supermarket was a 45 minute bus journey away, so I don't know what my mum herself would have chosen if she lived somewhere where formula was accessible

Where I live breastfeeding rates are positively correlated with the education level attained by the mother.

Im not sure what class I am according to Mumsnet but almost everyone in my peer group breastfeeds or tried very hard to breastfeed but had to stop for a medical reason such as allergies.

I had a lot of trouble establishing breastfeeding. I received almost no help in hospital. I had to pay privately for the huge amount of support I needed to continue. I paid consultants, i paid private doctors, I bought equipment, I took drugs, I needed help with meals etc. My husband and I said to each other repeatedly at the time 'we can only do this because we have money.' If our disposable income had been lower, I wouldn't have been able to breastfeed.

As long as there is a lack of publicly funded information and support, then class will continue to play a role in breastfeeding rates.

Younger, wc women are not expected to bf, and often people meet expectations.
My cousin, as wc as they come, with her first baby at 20, breastfed, carried him in a sling, was very earth mother, but she is trained in childcare and interested in child development etc. Didn't stop every HV and doctor assuming she was formula feeding (and patronising her beyond belief).
Whereas I ( bit older, bit more well spoken lol) introduced bottles at 3 months so I could mix feed and hand my baby over to someone else from time to time! I felt no pressure either way but certainly had no help with bf-I was just lucky it came easily.
I do think that on the whole people do what their wider community expects of them.

We are breastfeeding after a rocky start (baby wouldn't latch for first six weeks), but I think if I hadn't have had the money to get a lactation consultant, pay for chiropractor sessions, hire a hospital grade pump, and also if I hadn't have had support from my partner, the temptation to give in would have been too much. So perhaps that's related to class in a way.

I was fortunate that I could afford those things and I have a partner who has been incredibly supportive, as well as a mother who breastfed me and had exactly same issues, but breastfeeding isn't always easy or straightforward and sometimes timely support costs money that some mothers do not have. Breastfeeding was extremely important to me so I've persevered with it, almost to the point of madness but it's been worth it now DD can latch on and feed. It certainly hasn't been free, though. I've spent upwards of £500 on lactation consultants, chiropractor, buying and renting several pumps, different teats for bottles for expressed milk to find the right one, etc.

In the UK it is an issue related to class, education and age of parents.

In Sweden it is less so. You can't walk into a coffee shop without seeing a few BF mums.

In the UK we still get newspaper stories of women being told to cover up in hotels, restaurants etc.

We need a bigger public education programme.

No we don't need more education about it. Everyone knows it's better for the baby. But if it costs 500 quid to get there, well not everyone is going to be able to!
Also, maybe it is better for the baby but it's not always better for the mothers sanity, and that has to be taken into account.

I’m the only person in my family since my grandmother to BF. My DM and aunt ff all their 3 children, and all their children (until me) ff too. I come from a very WC family and I’m the first one in my family to go to university. I’m also the oldest in my family to have DC1, early 30s when others were all late teens-mid 20s.

My older family members are very suspicious of bf. I think they don’t understand it, think I’m mad, I’m making DC “clingy”. Every crying fit, bad night or fussy session was met with “he’s not getting enough milk”. Luckily I’m stubborn as hell, have done a lot of research and can ignore it all.

It seems to be a common attitude amongst that generation who were having children 1970s-1990s. Older than this and it seems bfing was the norm. Did something happen during this time to put women off bfing?

My son was born in the mid 70s and I fully intended breast feeding. He was born in the early hours after a very long labour, taken away and returned to me at 9am. In those hours someone gave him a bottle. As a result the breast was too much like hard work for him and, after many tearful (me) and screaming (him) attempts I just gave up. I felt horribly guilty for a very long time.

Molly the coffee shops in some parts of North London are also bursting with breastfeeding women. But the ones in the less well-off areas are not. In Sweden, is this definitely something you’d see in lower-income areas?

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.

I have never heard this, but it makes perfect sense. I am from a working class family, and before kids genuinely thought breastfeeding would be easy. I remember watching a video of a newborn baby crawling up to its mothers nipple and started feeding. It all seemed so easy.
My DPs mum breastfed as did his older sister. He knew, which I didn't, that babies breastfed far more frequently than bottle fed babies.
I have actually only read about the realities of breastfeeding on MN, nowhere else have I ever read anything actually useful.

The NHS goes on and on about the benefits of breastfeeding, but does not, or at least did not used to talk at all about what that actually means. So no wonder many mothers think they are not producing enough milk because their baby is feeding almost constantly.

@wevraver I think it's not so much that women were put off breastfeeding as that formula was being heavily advertised and pushed in that period, as well as more women entering the workforce than previously. When I was born in the mid 80s, I was taken away to the nursery as was usual to let my mum rest. When the midwives brought me back, they had already given me a bottle of formula. My mum was furious!

We lived in a very working class area. People we’re formula feeding left right and centre. Where I live now it’s all about breastfeeding. In the early days I had some friends (both middle class women) who experienced massive guilt and shame over not being able to breastfeed. I don’t think it helped that the default was to breastfeed. There is definitely a culture of not formula feeding in some places but I’m not sure it’s necessarily a class thing. It may just be more popular as the default in more affluent areas or something.

IfNotThenWhy But simply being told breastfeeding is better is not education. It is meaningless because it assumes that the only reason mothers do not breastfeed is because they don't think it is better.

Excluding those who have tried and had problems I think someone upthread nailed it.
One of the main reasons must be convenience.You get your breasts have to non leaking status.Have bottles ready to use.Its quicker and other people can do it too.
I breast fed,went back to work part time at 7 months and was able to continue feeding until 18 months,for me because I found it fine once established and because I'm to lazy to make bottles.
But leaking at work I can totally see why many mother give up and find bottles the easy option.(not a criticism as mothering is hard enough).
We are used to convenience now and this is just part of it.

See, I didn't realise until coming on here when dc was 2 that people saw breastfeeding as continuous. I fed about every 2.5 hours, filled the belly and rushed off to do other stuff. I must have been really lucky? I really don't think I would have done it if I had had to sit there for hours on end.

And yes,no one tells you how long breast feeding takes!