To think men shouldn’t come to a breastfeeding support group?

[Sexnotgender]

It’s a group SOLELY for breastfeeding support.

I know I’m probably being a grump but a man there totally changes the dynamic.

Baby was 5 months old so not a newborn with an overwhelmed mum which I would kind of understand.

Dons tin hat...

Where did I say I had no empathy?

Well TBF you haven't acknowledged the conflict at all. Other posters have suggested ways in which everyone's needs could be met. You have simply said tough, and implied that not leaving the group makes women kind, decent adults. What does that infer about women who would leave? Women like me?

Ah OK. You've actually come out and said that a normal woman "wins" over a disabled woman who physically needs assistance. Cool.

So how do we validate the needs of both, without women feeling uncomfortable?

A simple solution would be holding sessions in spaces where there could be private rooms or separate areas to accommodate both needs.

I also think women shouldn't be expected to be on post-natal wards at all and should have private rooms. But of course funding for his would never go ahead because women's needs in this area are not recognised. I had to be moved to special ward while my DC was in intensive care, a ward for other parents whose kids were also in NICU, it's was harrowing and frankly didn't make me feel any better than when I was on the ward with the Mums who hadn't had their baby rushed away from them. And I sure as hell needed DH with me to get through that torture.

I am another one who finds the prevailing attitude on here a little odd. Does the attitude that breastfeeding groups should be female only zones come from the attitude that breast feeding is something that should only be done very discreetly or in private never in public? I would have been very annoyed if someone had suggested that I should not feed in a place where men were present (like a pub or public transport) so it seems illogical to suggest that men shouldn’t be present where lots of women are feeding.

I really struggled with BF. It took about 8/10 weeks before DC and I were ok with it. If I had been lucky enough to have a group,like that near me I don’t think I would have even noticed if a woman had had a male partner there. All my attention was on me and my DC.

Even if as a general rule the meetings were ruled women only where would that leave someone who needed help but was too shy or depressed to attend on their own? Or who didn’t speak English well?

I can understand that some people might be embarrassed if a man was present but surely that’s what we should be addressing? That prevailing attitude that breast feeding is somehow private and embarrassing and should be hidden away?

NicciLovesSundays so presumably you would find a different group to go to then. Maybe you could even start your own partner included learn to parent group. That has a nice ring to it.

Problem solved.

Ah OK. You've actually come out and said that a normal woman "wins" over a disabled woman who physically needs assistance. Cool.

You can stop the manipulation Deflector, I have four adult children, three of who are disabled, with the youngest needing life long care. We accept that things that other 24yr olds do, would not be appropriate for her, so I make provisions for her. You absolutely should get support and equality if treatment, but that doesn’t mean other have to suffer as a result.

*what other 24yr olds do...,

You don't both need to learn how to breastfeed- that's not part of joint 'parenting'.

Oooop, I see I'm now on Reddit as being a troll because I have both physical disabilities and C-PTSD

Why that makes me a troll, I don't know. Just pretty unfortunate, I'd have thought.

No, she said the women who don't want to undress in front of strange men should win. Do you think your husband should be able to access any space with you even if it is single sex?

So there are women here who are entirely happy to sit in a room with unknown men with their breasts fully exposed while a lactation consultant squeezes their nipples to get milk out and manoeuvres their breast around to get their baby to latch on? Because that's what happens at some breastfeeding support groups.

Bullshit. It's fine when it's your own husband, but I'm sure you wouldn't be happy with mine sitting opposite you. Not that he would because he understands the importance of women-only spaces for stuff like this.

I hugely support shared leave -I actually think the extended mat leave we have now has shot women in the foot on many levels-BUT shared leave has bugger all to do with early stage breastfeeding.
My friend took shared leave with her husband. She did the first 6 months he did the next. It worked very well.
Men and their relationships with their children are not so fragile and tenuous that women need to sublimate their own needs right from day 1.

It's like those women who try and bring their partners on hen weekends and the like

S1naid - I absolutely don't want others to suffer. Not in any way, shape or form. I don't know what the answer is if separate consultations aren't available, and they weren't to me. Nobody should suffer and as I've mentioned, it isn't Top Trumps.

Of course men should be allowed! Support from family and friends is one of the major factors when it comes to breastfeeding rates. My life would have been very different if my husband hadn’t been knowledgable and supportive of breastfeeding.

Education is SO important.

What was your issue with him being there?

Male nurses, midwives, doctors are different, they are professionally trained and will be interacting with the patient as a professional care giver (but a women is well within her right to request female care givers). Unfortunately in many areas the nhs don’t really find proper lactation consultants in the community, so we are left with a situation where the only support is peer to peer. To become a peer supporter you have to breastfed yourself (usually for at least 6 months). Men can’t possibly offer support on a peer to peer level, and if they’re not professionally trained they have no place in a peer to peer support group. I understand that they might be needed to support partners occasionally but this cannot trump the right of other women to access what little support there is once you’ve left hospital. Lots of women have said that a man at a peer support b/feeding group would make them uncomfortable. Of course men need to know about b/feeding but what women actually need in those 1st few weeks is pure practical support, so manoeuvring babies and boobs around leaving them exposed.

You've actually come out and said that a normal woman "wins" over a disabled woman who physically needs assistance.

Bullshit, and I say that as a relative of a person dealing with extremely severe disability. You are twisting the discussion to suit your own agenda.

It is almost as if you are trying to shoehorn nastiness in where none is to make a nice screeengrab right?

xpost with S1naidSucks

I've never needed male support to help me lactate apart from getting me pregnant in the first place!

No, Deflector, you didn’t say it wasn’t top trumps, you actually asked,
Is it Top Trumps?

Good for you, Vulpine? Presumably your arms work?

WomenUnited, I would recommend you RTFT. Someone had said I should be excluded because I need my male carer's support. Someone has said that other women "win" over my needs.

It's not about winning. It's not about Top Trumps.

Of course men should be allowed! What about the women that don’t want them there? Women have the right to body autonomy and that includes the right to refuse to have men in the same room as them, when they are partly undressed. Should they get over their feelings of embarrassment, vulnerability, distress or in some cases fear, because men want to be there?

Nobody said you should not have a service. It is about reasonable adjustments.

I did read the thread.

I saw that you ignored the OP completely, relentlessly derailed and dismissed all women's essential rights to single sex spaces insulting them whilst doing so (whilst other posters made very understanding offers of sympathy and alternative accommodating options).

Disability is difficult to deal with, I get that and live it every day. This thread is about women learning to breastfeed in the comfort and company of other women.

FWIW, I would have left my breastfeeding group if men were hanging out there. My OB and my kids' paediatrician were both lovely men but I don't want to discuss lactation issues with a bloke.

I did not say that parental leave has anything to do with BF support. I said attitudes that men can fuck off when it comes to anything relating to childbearing or breastfeeding is unhelpful with men playing a greater role and considering taking parental leave.

I do not think we need to include men in everything related to those things. I do not think many women would want a man staring at her breast while she tries to learn to feed. Christ I didn't much want a bloody woman trying to express me either. But I really hate that this has to descend into slagging off unknown men for going to support their partners, rightly or wrongly, or their partners for wanting or needing them there. I explained early in the thread why my DH attended once with me and it certainly doesn't make him a lech, a perve, a tool or us a couple who can't do things on our own.

But how do you arbiter who is allowed to bring a male companion and who not? If there was a blanket ban on men going my DC wouldn't have been breastfed as I would never have gone back to the clinic. We need, as an essential, services that support both requirements, if we want to make breastfeeding support accessible to all.