To ask about breastfeeding advice in the mid 80s

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I'm sure most would agree that there's a lot of advice/opinion/etc about breastfeeding out there now.

But on the back of a conversation with my aunt, aibu to ask MN what it was like in the mid 80s in most English hospitals so I can confirm some of her (surprising) statement s?

Was there much support on maternity wards for bf or was formula pushed?
We're the benefits of colostrum in particular known/reinforced?
Would mum's on wards be given bottles easily by midwives?
Would mum's have been given much of a sway between bottle formula Vs bf?
Were pumps available??
Etc

Sorry I actually meant on wards and out e.g. by community midwives etc.

I'm asking as born in 84 and sounds like her experience was pretty shocking by today's standards.

Can’t answer many of your questions but I was breastfed in the early 80s and my brother mid 80s. My mum has always said that there was no fuss about it, she didn’t find it hard. She was told to give us 10 minutes on each side and then put us down, and to stop when we cut our first tooth.

I was born in 1984 and my mum was given an injection to stop her milk coming in. She was asked if she wanted to breastfeed, said no, and that was that.

My DH was born in 1983 and on his his hospital card - with his name, time of birth, weight etc in it - the whole back of the card is an advert for SMA! Which was apparently recommended by the hospital. His mum did want to breastfeed and gave it a go but I don't think she was offered much advice and support. I know he lost quite a bit of weight (not surprising if no-one showed her how to or helped her!), and then was given formula.

Obviously those are just two examples, I have no idea whether that's representative of the time or not!

Very interested to hear the experiences of those who were new mothers at the time also

I was born in the late 80s and know my mum was told formula was best. So that's what she did!

Information was available but breastfeeding, co-sleeping and child-centred parenting was ‘making a rod for your own back’ in the 1980s.

I don’t know about mid 80s but my brother was born early 1980 and all the babies were put in the ‘nursery’ ward overnight so the mothers could sleep. The nurses fed them with bottles but if you wanted to breastfeed they would bring you the baby. My mum said she was the only one who asked for the baby to be brought in to be fed. Everyone else just accepted the nurses bottle feeding and breastfeeding wasn’t pushed. Back then you stayed in hospital for 5-7 days so people who might have tried breastfeeding in the comfort of their own homes were well established with formula feeding by the time they went home.

I know when my siblings and I were born (70s and early 80s) that things like the mother and baby identity bracelets were sponsored by powdered milk companies.

I had my children in the 80s. I always intended to breastfeed and I was encouraged and shown how to get the baby to latch and how it would feel when she was latching properly. I wasn't offered formula. I was told to feed on demand and to keep a record of the time the baby fed, for how long and which breast and also to alternate which breast I started on. My first baby was put in the nursery the night she was born because I had a difficult labour and they told me I had to sleep. (although I couldn't) They didn't give her formula though only glucose because they knew I wanted to breast feed. Luckily I had no problems establishing feeding so I can't comment on how it would have been if I had any problems.

Some areas were still the same in the 90s. I was told I should bf for 6 weeks if I could for babies immune system but not to worry if I didn't want to. Formula was available on the ward but no pumps or anything and no bf help really.

Golly. Not eighties but mid nineties. Strongly encouraged to give up breastfeeding after day 3. Nurse gave DS a bottle. DS was out of sight at night to allow me to “rest”.
Still feel guilty 25 years later.

So NNEB (National Nursery Examination Board) trained here, in the late 80s, Breast is Best, is what we were advised.

I had a baby in Switzerland last year. You can stay 4-5 nights in a nice room with lovely meals so you can rest and recover. For me, this was a very big help in establishing breastfeeding. If I had been home after 24 hours with my toddler hanging off me I would have found it very hard.
The babies are taken to the nursery at night and brought to you when they cry. This also lets you rest, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.
The babies are weighed each morning. If their weight drops below a certain threshold they are syringe fed formula. For me this was also a benefit as it meant the baby had a bit of energy to latch and feed properly at the breast.
To me it works just fine although I know it goes against many of the guidelines.

I was born in 1985. The midwives took me away so my mum could sleep (apparently this was quite usual) and gave me a bottle of formula! She was furious when they returned and she found out! I didn't latch very well and my mum didn't really have much support but she manual pumped for a few weeks until I was able to feed properly.

These are really interesting, thanks for sharing. Also sounds similar to my aunt

They had a big cupboard of little ready made formula bottles and gave them out at the drop of hat. They did support bf, but at the sign of any hiccup, they offered the formula. I got the real help with bf from a La Leche League counsellor.

I was born in 1985 and breastfed til I was 1. I spent the first few weeks of my life in NICU so my Mum was expressing milk for me, which was given to me through my tube. Mum told me that she had so much milk, the hospital asked her if she would express for the other 3 babies in there too! Which she did happily.
I think having an abundance of milk is hereditary - I could’ve fed quintuplets
In terms of support, she was in hospital with me, so lots was there and on hand whenever she needed. Clearly this wasn’t the case for everyone though, I’m sure.

DMs advice in Italy...late 80s was feed 10 mins on each side every 4 hours. DM said if I cried before the 4hrs were up she just fed me anyway. She fed me for 6m till I started biting, after that I had cows milk and homemade purees.

No HV or weighings. Just got taken to peadiatrician if ill or for jabs.

Both my dc were born in the eighties breast is best was huge! We were strongly encouraged to breastfeed your rights respected if you chose not to however. We also had to stay in hospital for 3 to 5 days, establish feeding show you could bathe a baby and be able to shower or bathe yourself unaided before you could go home.

I had my two children in the 1970 era, I had them in a maternity home,well one of them,my daughter was born on the back seat of our car,husband delivered her, but anyway,then went to the maternity home. In those days,it was deemed sensible to stay in the maternity home for about seven or eight days,which I did. You could escape this so to speak.after 48 hours,but it was fairly frowned upon.

The midwives were all lovely and kind, and most assumed that you would breast feed, but were understanding if you didn't want to.

I had a bit of trouble with breast feeding at first,as in was quite engorged if that is the right word, so the nurse brought in this breast pump thing to try and get things going, it was a weird kind of contraption,and using it I felt like a cow being milked ha ha, it was rather painful at first,but I tended to laugh along with the midwife whilst it was being used.

Everything was fine later,so managed to breast feed my son for some time.. but he was a bonny baby as they used to say then, and he needed more milk after a while,so I used formula later on. Much the same with my daughter later, a few months of breast feeding,and then it wasn't enough,so had to go on to formula..

One thing though, the midwife and health visitor,both told me,or advised me, to drink a pint of stout beer every day, as it was supposed to be good for milk production. Probably frowned on in these days haha.

I suppose if she had any queries she would have asked DM/a friend as they all breastfed.
My nonna (born 1927iirc) still remebers wet nurses when she was a girl. The babys would be left with the wet nurse and the DMs would go back to their farm work.

My older sibling was born in 1982 and was formula fed because my mum was quite ill after they were born. No pressure to pump or guilt or formula shaming (like I was subject to 35 years later), it was just seen as the sensible thing to do in the circumstances. Me and my younger sibling were breastfed later in the 80s. Tbh it all sounded like less drama back then, you breastfed if it worked out and if you didn’t then that was also fine. My mum was surprised I was so upset when I failed at breastfeeding, they weren’t subject to the same hyperbolic propaganda back then.

I breastfed two around that time and don't recall much advice or steering in either direction. I had assumed I would breastfeed and remember being shown how to do it in hospital. In those days a new mother was kept in for a few days so more time to support then I suppose.

Yes you were allowed an opinion and to make a choice in the eighties we live in far more restricted and regimented times now

Individual bottles of formula were on the wards and freely available so mums helped themselves.

Pumps were available but only 1 per ward. Very little support ime, my son was born in early 90s and there was no support at all.

My son was born premature and very small in 1981 and whipped away into an incubator so that I didn't even hold him until he was seven hours old (I had had an epidural and couldn't walk or I would have gone and found him, which I did the moment I could stand up unaided), and for the next two weeks I was in the hospital every three hours to feed him, until eleven at night and starting again at eight in the morning plus a couple of bottles of expressed-and-frozen milk for his night feeds. I think I may have been a bit terse about feeding him myself even if I wasn't allowed to do anything else; nobody tried to argue about it, though nobody gave me any advice or help either until my mother did. But I do remember a lot of advertising for formula on all the leaflets and information sheets we were given, and there were little sample sachets of formula in the SCBU.

After that little nightmare there was nothing wrong with him at all after a couple of days, not even jaundice, and he was 9/10 on APGAR, he just had low blood-sugar at birth possibly because I was hypoglycaemic and they wouldn't allow me any sugar while I was in labour for 42 hours, and once I finally met the paediatrician who was meant to be in charge of him and explained that he was allowed home the following morning I had the other two at home, in 1985 and 1989, and breastfed them; again, nobody tried to alter my decision about it, or even mentioned that formula might be better.

I remember being told about advice to drink a half of Guinness a day. It was meant to be before the birth as well, during the last three months, so you got extra iron and it helped you deliver the placenta, and it was a complete myth because Guinness doesn't really have much iron in it at all. I don't for a moment think that advice would be given now! I ate raspberries for their iron instead because a friend of mine's dad had a huge raspberry patch full of fruit at exactly the right time of year.