to ask you to STOP using these unhelpful phrases?

[StopCallingMeTeresa]

i apologise if this turns into an essay, but...

"Supply equals demand"
or
(worse) "low milk supply is actually quite rare so probably not your problem"

I've just read yet another MN thread where someone said the 2nd one (basically suggesting that a poster with suspected low milk supply probably wasn't in the "tiny tiny" %age of women who don't produce enough milk). It fucks me right off to keep reading this nonsense on here and other breastfeeding support groups/forums because it makes women feel like their actions or perception of low milk supply are the cause... rather than a genuine medical issue which might never be fixed. If a man had erectile dysfunction caused by a non-mental health issue, would we tell him that the problem wasn't a real problem if only he'd try the right thing, mentally?

Personally, this is (obviously) an upsetting issue. I'm 2 months PP and have low milk supply; as in, I produce about 5ml per 1hr pumping session, and I can get about 30ml on an entire day's worth of hours and hours of being hooked up to a pump inbetween breastfeeds.

My baby was delivered and within 48hrs lost so much weight he was admitted into NICU for monitoring. He was shrieking with hunger when he wasn't latched on, whcih was hours and hours of every day - i got about 3hrs of sleep in the first three days of his life, after which i was pretty much told he was in such a risky position we HAD to start supplementing with formula. My baby was literally starving.

• I'm on domperidone to increase milk supply (dr is talking about stopping it now as it has had no affect).
• I've spent every day of his life on a double hospital grade pump.
• Oatmeal breakfasts, flapjacks to inrease milk. I feel sick thinking about oats these days i'm so sick of them.
• I've taken fistfuls and handfuls of supplements every day: goat's rue to develop milk ducts, fenugreek, brewer's yeast, you name it, for 2 solid months.
• I've tackled slow let down by doing extreme skin to skin kangaroo style care the last few weeks; I listen to relaxing music whilst feeding and pumping, smelling my baby and looking at him/pictures of him.

His latch has been checked. No tongue tie.

• I've done about 4 feeding "resets" where I sat in bed and did nothing but skin to skin and feed for 3 days straight while my boyfriend and mum ran around doing everything else.
• i've had other stuff like bottle feed technique checked at my local LLL group, as well as the health visitor.
• GP has checked my thyroid and prolactin levels twice now - all normal.
• We've done a weighted feed at the local support group but i'm simply not producing anywhere near normal levels of breastmilk.

There's NOTHING i can do now to ever exclusively breastfeed as intended. i simply don't produce enough milk for some reason.

... and yet i keep reading on here especially that "low milk supply is rare" (no scientific source or attributation, of course!) and "supply=demand", just like all the other lies i was told at the antenatal group about breastfeeing.

can i ask you to consider the impact on women like me the next time you are writing something like that?

by washing over what is a genuinely distressing problem as if it weren't a real problem, it doesn't contribute towards good maternal mental health and suggests it can be fixed.

sometimes, it can't.

and now i'm trying to accept that it's ok. but then i read BF support threads on here with misleading / ambiguous phrases like that and i struggle.

@Helix1244 - the ‘research’ I read is that Metformin can often help improve cognitive ability in some children with ASD. Whenever this has been tested in real life, however, the benefit has only been shown to be seen in female mice - no benefit for children or indeed adults with ASD. There is no proper scientific study linking Metformin with ASD either - and in fact in Asian countries, where PCOS and diabetes amongst pregnant women is fairly common, the overall risk of having a child on the spectrum is lower.

Also Metformin only decreases Miscarriage risk if there isn’t another condition. When I went to my fertility clinic I was told that PCOS usually comes with Thyroid, autoimmune and (sometimes rare) Clotting conditions - often, when a woman who can conceive naturally has recurrent miscarriages, then it can be these other conditions at fault. Always a good idea to get further tests, pay for them if needed as the NHS won’t test for all of them properly.

True thyroid issues also cause miscarriage and you need a tsh around 1.

It's a pity that the metformin isnt fixing the miscarriage isses. Hopefully you can find a cause.

I guess there may be different causes for pcos. As there is thin pcos too. And many symptoms. Some not having anything except the excess eggs and high T.

The increased asd risk still only raised it to 2.6%.

More asd people could get pcos due to disordered eating (binging/anorexia/ignoring body signals).

NRFT but Yanbu. I like you exhausted every avenue as I was sooo determined to breastfeed. I had no midwife and my child ended up dropping 12% even though she was permanently latched. Everything I read and heard suggested otherwise then when she was finally weighed and sent to nicu one paediatrician said I had been starving her. It broke me, I ended up with pnd and ptsd and still blame myself. One thing I did was pump a few ounces and breastfeed to sleep at night. Every other feed was formula. When she got to 4 months plus and I was starting to slowly introduce solids I started breastfeeding more and phasing out the formula and she got my milk until aged 3. One thing that can reduce supply is retaining placenta.

I've been a midwife since 1983 and sadly there's always been mums who cannot seem to lactate adequately enough to satisfy their baby/ies and it seems that those who aren't going to continue or never start breast feeding lactate and those like yourself, despite amazing feats to lactate are not always successful. You've given it your best shot. We've always questioned how this is but you've done your damndest to achieve sufficient lactation. You deserve a medal but your baby will thrive on formula too, or mixed feeding. Well done regardless!!

One thing that can reduce supply is retaining placenta

Is this true??? I had a freaking nightmare trying to feed my first - she was constantly frustrated, and kept going on nursing strikes. I never felt like I had enough milk, but "low milk supply is rare, blah blah blah". It was totally different with my son, who seemed unable to keep up with my supply. But with my first, I retained the placenta, and lost quite a lot of blood. Nobody ever mentioned that this could affect milk supply.

Oh my I am so sorry you aren't able to breastfeed, which is what you so clearly want for you and your baby, and have worked so hard to achieve, but you both are suffering. It sounds like switching to a bottle, will make both of you happier. People are arses and this isn't going to change, it's hard to have your parenting criticised, but my advice is learn to ignore it, it's a skill that will serve you for a long time, not just during the baby phase.

Good luck and enjoy this magic time.

YANBU! That is sooooo much stress and it’s literally not worth it. Enjoy your baby!

I struggled BF with my first as low supply - I lasted about a month. Second I lasted a bit longer, around 5mts and nos 3 Was better and got through to just over a year! However never successfully pumped or even leaked between feeeds.

You are right, the phrases are rubbish. I expressed all my milk so I know exactly what I produced, and one side always produced at least four times the amount of the other, no matter the pumping schedule. If I'd been feeding a baby it would have been very hungry every other time - both breasts on the same woman!

YRNBU. I also did not produce much and had the wrath when decided to use formula as top up. Best decision I ever made. I got to sleep at night and baby had full belly with bottle at night 10pm feed. We are not living in third world with no access to clean water. Using formula is more than Ok - it’s a saviour. Fed up of politicisation of breast feeding by the anti brigade.

I exclusively bottle fed and now have a healthy, 6ft, almost 16yr old daughter. I was exclusively bottle fed too as I was adopted at 6 weeks, hence my decision to bottle feed my own child. They will grow up the same regardless of the way they have been fed, this obsession with breast feeding at all costs is ruining people’s first few years with their babies, and making them unnecessarily difficult.

If you couldn’t breast feed, don’t beat yourself up, your child will grow in to a healthy adult anyway 💜

OP I’m sorry for everything you are going through.

I wouldn’t take the amount you can pump as an indication of supply. My 2nd child was ebf for 6 months and bf for 18 months (she never had formula purely because she refused to drink from a bottle). Anyway I could never get any milk from pumping. My first child I gave up after a few weeks- I had no concept of how hard bf was. Dd I fed on demand which was pretty much constant and coslept with her which helped.

My children are now teens and the huge upset and anguish I had back when they were babies seems a very distant memory.

YANBU: breastfeeding or not being able to in your case is a big deal to you and the comments mentioned are not only hurtful but they are factually incorrect crap, peddled out by smug breastfeeding mothers who clearly had little to no issues feeding their children and it's just BS.

I couldn't feed either but it really wasn't a big deal to me: so long as your baby is fed, happy and healthy that is all you need to concern yourself with.

There has always been a certain militant breast is best element amongst some mothers (and midwives) and whilst it's undoubtedly true, there are women like us for whom it just isn't a possibility and that's absolutely fine.

The women you refer to are insecure, inconsiderate, ignorant bullies and they're not worth your time.

Breathe out. Give your bambini a smooch and don't think on it for another moment.

And don't go on anymore breastfeeding threads! You don't need to be on them anyway.

The trouble is women believe they have a low supply purely because their baby wants to feed a lot. There’s seemingly lots of misinformation out there regarding breastfeeding. Newborns breastfeed a lot, it doesn’t mean your milk isn’t sustainable at all or that they are dissatisfied in some way. It just means they are a normal breastfed baby with a tiny stomach.

I hear so many people claiming they were unable to BF because they didn’t produce enough milk and I do think it’s most often nonsense. They’ve been led to believe that because their baby probably wanted to feed around the clock and they figured this meant their milk was not enough.

It’s normal not to be able to pump much in the first few months too fwiw.

To be fair my baby shrieked constantly too and lost weight initially. Turned out she had silent reflux. I’ve never got more than a few ml from expressing but once the shrieking turned to comfort feeding she then ended up doubling her birth weight by 10 weeks so despite producing nothing via the pump and her seemingly getting nothing from me as she fed constantly, supply can’t have been the issue (although or certainly felt like it at the time)

Some of the woman blaming and disbelief on here is appalling.

For a site that places such emphasis upon believing women in the case of issues like rape and assault... then the second someone is having a shit time with breastfeeding they're constantly accused of lying - and that's OK... it's a disgrace.

OP you have more than given it a try. I had to exclusively pump with DD1 and at one point, praying she'd go back to sleep so I could get straight on the pump again I finally realised that it was fucking ridiculous - I'd desperately wanted this child and now here I was praying she'd just shush and go to sleep out of the way so I could sit there expressing milk. I let the internet mother police get far too far inside my head - and now, as older kids, it's DD2 where I gave far less of a shit about doing it all "right" according to the internet - who is the more laid back, well adjusted, easy going child.

Oh and she still shrieked between feeds (the short time there was)

I produced no milk whatsoever. Actually, that's a slight lie...by day 4/5 I had one drop. Literally one drop. My son latched instantly but nothing ever came. He was 10lbs at birth and very hungry, therefore had to supplement with formula almost immediately. It makes me feel sad enough without others judging. Health visitors tried but even they admitted I just didn't have any...no explanation or medical advice given.

I’m sorry to hear you’re going through this. Didn’t want to read and run.

I had low supply too with my first DC. Didn’t help she had jaundice and she was always tired and hungry in the beginning. She couldn’t latch properly as well and after seeing 3 different LCs couldn’t help with my BF. I ended up just topping up with formula as Baby was constantly starving. My BF journey only lasted 3 mths... but glad I gave it a go. I admire your persistence tho!💪🏼💪🏼 My experience people who have a ‘normal’ BF experience would find it hard to understand it can be a massive challenge to some people who have low supply.

I remember so clearly the BF midwife coming to see me in hospital when I was readmitted with my first son. She gave me the whole spiel about low milk supply being vanishingly rare, that if I tried this, did more feeds, ate this, sat like that it would be fine.

She then asked to look at my breasts. And said "Oh". No-one looking at your breasts should say that. She then realised and examined my breasts to discover I have "insufficient glandular tissue to ever feed a child".

No-one will ever believe me when I tell them, I get a head tilt and "well some people find it harder than others". Yes, those with breasts that work may well find it easier than me..

YANBU. DS1 lost too much weight in the first few weeks. Even though he fed constantly (when he wasn't screaming of hunger) and latch was checked several times and was fine. I will never say I 'didn't produce enough milk' though. I switched to formula to avoid being readmitted but just avoid explaining my reasons IRL, I don't 'offer advice' either way. Everyone has their limits before they either 'succeed' or 'give up'.

OP, I had exactly your experience. Just no milk! I was told about latching on, had knitted wooden breast waved in my face and sent home. I kept saying I didn’t think I had milk, but, hey hi, everyone makes enough milk for their baby!! After her 5 day weigh in she had lost so much weight we were sent back to hospital where she was put on intravenous antibiotics and fed through a nose tube. I kept saying that I thought she was hungry and I had no milk, we should just give her a bottle of formula and hold off the drugs and force feeding. No, she must have sepsis because of course I had enough milk, everyone blah blah. They should not prescribe domperidone. It is an ant nausea drug that in very rare instances causes lactation. I was given a massive dose which resulted in horrendous diahorrhea, of course - it prevents vomiting by speeding up the emptying of the stomach. But because I was in hospital of course I had to be tested for C. Difficult infection, because they wouldn’t accept it was a side effect. After we finally got home, I spent absolutely months trying to pump, and doing all the stuff you described. I never had enough milk but did learn to mixed feed properly so that my supply didn’t get less. But honestly, the stress and exhaustion, looking back I wish I had just formula fed. As my GP said ‘formula isn’t poison you know’.

*Plunger

The breast Gestapo*

I’m sorry but whatever your views on breastfeeding casually equating pro-breastfeeders with the Nazi regime and its plans to exterminate Jews, gay people and others they deemed undesirable is enormously offensive both to bf-ing advocates and to the millions murdered in the holocaust.