To feel irritated by this Facebook post?

[MagicKingdomDizzy]

I know, people can post what they want and I can just scroll past. But this has really annoyed me today.

I think it's safe to say people are very aware of the benefits of breast feeding, but sometimes it just isn't possible to do.

In my case, my daughter was born with a cleft lip and palate and I physically couldn't feed her. Then I read crap like this and it just reminds me of my failure to do something I really wanted to.

So, I guess my AIBU is does this kind of virtue signalling rubbish posted on Facebook actually have any benefit, or is it just there to make the poster feel good and people like me feel bad?

Here we go again! Breast is better on a population basis. It is not forcibly better on an individual basis. Breast is better, but it is far from being as better as some pro breast like to claim.

I couldn’t agree more @swingofthings!

Yes I agree, I also couldn't breastfeed my 3 dc's due to medication that I was on and I really resent that fact, it almost feels like I'm less of a woman/mum. Yes we know breast is technically best but it's not always possible, i feel like when I say I didn't breastfeed its assumed that I'm lazy and couldn't be bothered to put the effort in, even in the hospital after labour some of the nurses would say comments about me bottle feeding and I would have to constantly keep reminding them to read my notes and see that I wasn't aloud to breast feed, it was soul destroying. I think it's good to have awareness that breast feeding is good for babies but it doesn't make breast fed children or breast feeding mums more superior.

So much unscientific bollocks in there. The bit about calcium ‘in its most natural form’ is one of my favourites. What does this mean? Are women passing lumps of limestone through their nipples?

I really don’t understand why the presentation for pharmacists have stuck this image in there. The rest of it is fully referenced and intelligent - and then there’s this load of rubbish in there.

I wonder what the crossover is between people who peddle extended breastfeeding shit like this and anti-vaxxers?

I'm not sure why people feel the need to tell us heir FF child is super duper smart - it's not like formula babies turn green - and that a BF child they k ow is thick as mince.
I pictures scientists who've spent years studying the benefits of breastfeeding (and no point denying just how many benefits there are) reading this thread and squid "Shit! Susan from Surrey's son was formula fed and is top of his class while Bertha from Batley's breastfed child can't count to 10. Bang goes my years of carefully collated scientific research. These women are the ones in the know."

*saying, not squid 🤦🏼‍♀️

itsgoing well that's the point isn't it...chewing limestone isn't a great way to get calcium...breast milk is...I mean so are other milks too...but also breast milk.

I'm accutely interested in the bio-availability of iron due to my chronic anemia...its makes a world of difference what form the iron is presented it. Rusty nail...not so useful....healthy green vegetables...also not very useful. Liver...great! Disgusting to eat...but great.

@littlestrawby

Absolutely not. My daughter can be given milk, water, a snack etc etc and still come back asking for a breastfeed because it gives her comfort, helps settle her, soothes pain etc etc.

My comment was in response to someone saying that BFing is the opposite of independence. That is rubbish. I agree that BFing brings lots of other benefits too, which also do not preclude the development of independence

I wonder what the crossover is between people who peddle extended breastfeeding shit like this and anti-vaxxers?

Bloody hell - it’s just gets worse...

I wonder what the crossover is between people who peddle extended breastfeeding shit like this and anti-vaxxers?

🤦

@pegasusreturns can’t you read? I didn’t say it wasn’t better; I said it’s closer than we are led to believe and that bottle isn’t so much worse as the crazy BF lobby rants on and on and on about.

I am not “fine” with not breastfeeding. I was hugely upset about it, as I think I at least alluded to in my post. But it just didn’t work for us and it was a balance between flogging a dead horse and threatening my mental health and taking an executive decision to formula feed and moving on. I am as happy as I can be, what with virtue signallers like you reminding me that breast is better at every fucking cut and turn.

Obviously breastfed is best, no doubt about it, for those that say Fed is best I believe they say it just to ease their own guilt of not wanting to/being able to.
It's not like comparing Heinz ketchup to a supermarket brand and saying it doesn't matter which one you buy.
Formula milk will never be as good as breastmilk but is an alternative for people that can't/won't
The bare facts still remain there is nothing better than a mummies milk that is specifically made for that baby/toddler

Fed is best I believe they say it just to ease their own guilt of not wanting to/being able to.

Now that is offensive.

Nope. When we say “fed is best” we mean:

1. Fed is better than a screaming, distressed baby because you can’t feed them yourself.

1. Fed is better than your baby ending up in hospital, jaundiced and needing IV fluids because you listened unquestioningly to the “breast is best” lobby and your child didn’t get enough milk (something I’ve heard happening on more than one occasion, but which didn’t happen to us because I used my common sense).

It's not like comparing Heinz ketchup to a supermarket brand and saying it doesn't matter which one you buy.

Sorry, but this made me laugh!

I’m very particular about my ketchup and I go mad if my husband comes back from the supermarket with their own brand version of it as opposed to proper Heinz Ketchup

2. Fed is better than your baby ending up in hospital, jaundiced and needing IV fluids because you listened unquestioningly to the “breast is best” lobby and your child didn’t get enough milk (something I’ve heard happening on more than one occasion, but which didn’t happen to us because I used my common sense).

I work with a lot of these babies - maybe 4 a week on average and the reason they have ended up like that is because the mother has been failed and not helped or supported enough to ensure breast feeding is going well.

It certainly isn’t because a mother knows things aren’t going right but just carries on regardless and that’s a really nasty thing to imply. That’s a really unfair thing to say.

We treat the jaundice, support and teach mothers how to breast feed correctly and they they are discharged, breast feeding their baby successfully.

FFS fed is best is a bullshit saying, fed is not "best" it's the bare minimum stop congratulating people for not refusing to feed their kids

I work with a lot of these babies

You can say what you like, but how many formula-fed babies do you know who have jobs?

Ok, so here’s the craic: I didn’t get a community midwife visit until 8 days after discharge because the NHS couldn’t get its act together and undertake the simple task of getting my discharge notes over to the community midwife team (I had the audacity to have my son “out of area”). That visit was supposed to happen between 48-72 hours after discharge and I could not have been more proactive about trying to preempt the potently difficulties - because a friend of mine had found herself in a similar position and warned me it could happen. And still it happened.

So, yes: I was spectacularly failed and didn’t get support when I needed it most, was trying to establish supply etc. So I did what I could. In the end, the community midwife eventually pitched up at our house at the same time as the lactation consultant we had hired privately. It was an absolute farce.

But I severely doubt that, even if I had had the support, it would have worked for us. It just doesn’t work for some women and their babies and the sooner the BF lobby accepts that, the better.

for those that say Fed is best I believe they say it just to ease their own guilt of not wanting to/being able to.

I breastfed and would still say fed is best - so where do I fit in?? Breastfeeding if you can establish it with relative ease is ideal, but I don’t see how anyone can really say ‘breastfed is best’ if a baby is struggling to latch and getting distressed or a mother is struggling for various reasons and it’s effecting her mental health - then I would say bottle feeding is definitely best. And as pp have said, despite all the science in real life it really isn’t possible to tell the difference between a breastfed and formula fed child in a first world country - there are plenty of other factors that impact overall health and breastfeeding is a pretty small one. I would always argue that breastmilk is superior to formula to a certain extent, I don’t think many would dispute that as obviously there are some parts of it that can not be replicated, but formula is nonetheless an amazing invention on which babies thrive and really I think it deserves a bit more recognition - this idea that everyone easily breastfed in the past is bollocks. Some babies got very sick on cows or goats milk or undernourished on sugar water or simply had to be weaned ridiculously early. Breastmilk is great stuff, but so is formula imo.

Me: I work with a lot of these babies

You: You can say what you like, but how many formula-fed babies do you know who have jobs?

What? Have I missed something?

What has babies admitted with jaundice due to breast feeding not going well got to do with formula fed babies going on to have jobs?!

@Pinkblueberry thank you - agree absolutely with all you have said.

As a mum who only managed a few weeks of intense pumping to get whatever milk I could for my premature twins who were so tiny they had to be fed by a tube for the first couple of months of their lives, this sort of thing bothers me.

Those who can’t breastfeed are often treated like those who choose not to, but I wanted to, I really did, but it wasn’t on the cards for me, so to me, Fed IS best. Because what other choices did I have?

But I’d never use my situation as a reason to judge anybody who chooses to breastfeed or chooses not to, so long as the child is loved, happy and cared for what business is it of mine how they’re fed?

Scientifically it has been proven that in usual circumstances, breastfeeding is better to formula feeding, but that doesn’t take into account every other factor in a families life.

Comparison is the thief of joy, but I do wish the online virtue signalling on sites like Facebook would fuck off when it comes to subjects that are far more complex and varied than a meme can ever hope to cover! Plus some of the ‘facts’ are quite bizarre on this one 😂

Oh come on, this has got really unpleasant (as these threads inevitably do) breast is scientifically proven to be better than formula. That's not to say anyone who chooses not to or can't is any less of a mother and they should never feel that. I don't think calling people advocating breastfeeding a lobby or breast nazis (as I've seen them called in the past) is helpful or nice.

How so @Piglet89?

@GunpowderGelatine because you have said those of us who are formula feeding are doing the “bare minimum” and suggested we are lazy and not making enough of an effort when, for some of us, it was really the only option.

Did you face significant challenges with breastfeeding? Bet you didn’t, otherwise you’d never make such a hurtful and incendiary comment and might have a bit of empathy.