I can't buy you formula but il help you breastfeed ?

[zuptop]

I have just seen this on one of the local Facebook groups . Can't help but feel this is adding pressure onto women who already have made decision to formula feed.

Something just doesn't sit right for me...
Although I am sure they believe they are being kind

"As well as donating items to a local food bank, I’d like to help parents who are struggling to afford infant formula. I can’t buy any for you but I can support you to maximise your breast milk production and therefore decrease how much formula you need to buy.
I’m a trained breastfeeding peer supporter and I’m part way through my breastfeeding counsellor studies"

So YABU- lady in question is just trying to help mums build milk supply or
YANBU- post is a little judge of formula and putting pressure on mums to breastfeed when they might not want to/ be able to.

[quote zuptop]@AnneLovesGilbert because mother has chose to formula feed so bloody respect their decision !!! [/quote]
but the mother doesn't breastfeed she formula feeds

Which mother?

@zuptop

it's like saying to someone I know you are vegetarian but I can only donate meat at the moment .. if you would like to try some of the meat ( and therefore not go hungry) then please let me know

Actually it's a lot more like saying "I know you usually wat meat and some veg, and right now meat is pretty expensive - I don't have a cow but I do have an allotment, would you like me to bring you some of my veg and teach you how to cook it/grow your own?"

@SnuggyBuggy

Also thinking about it since formula powder only comes in huge tins and you are told to throw it away once opened for a month would you really be saving money by just slightly decreasing how many feeds you do from the same tin?

Depends on how much they're using. I got through three tins a week. Normal family I guess then would be one a week maybe, £32 a month. If combo feeding a little maybe £24. If you could have that again that would be really helpful for many families

WIW I bf all my 3 DCs but I believe a woman's choice about how she feeds her child should be respected

It is really sad and very annoying this in't done TBH - I know DSis who ff right form the start was treated awfully by MW and HV because of her decision. It really shouldn't be something that comes with any judgement what ever the mother decides.

IME with second though when I had issue MW and HV were worse than useless and there was no help I could access where I was. I hope that's improved with time - but I either couldn't phycially get to the help or couldn't access as I had a toddler and no childcare and all I got was an oh well. Support can be extremely patchy as it was good in area I had pfb even MW and HV were knowledgeable and were aware how to sign post to additional local services.

Definitely judging. She gets to give them a little telling off for the their poor parenting, while bigging herself up and offering something they don't want.

Tbh op I’m almost certain you’ve made up this ‘Facebook’ post to stir up some froth.

@EerieSilence

she is offering unsolicited advice. If I want formula, I want formula. If I wanted to know how to breastfeed, I'd contact a lactation consultant, La Leche League provide it for free from what I know.

I posted on my local fB page recently giving away a bunch of my daughter's grown out of shoes, still plenty of wear left in them. Was I offering unsolicited footwear and should I wind my neck in? The people who wanted them seemed happy enough. I can only assume all the people who didn't are now fulminating with rage based on this thread.

Peer supporters are normally linked to an organisation. (LLL, ABM, local childrenscentre.) They have a basic training. A bf counsellor is a much more detailed course looking a lot more at anatomy/medical.. Just because one doesn,t know isn,t a reason to scoff at.

@SleepingStandingUp yes it would depend on the ratio. I just remember throwing loads away during my brief period of doing top up feeds. We could afford it but it felt so wasteful.

AIBU to have thought, when I first read this, that the FB post might be from some chancer trying to get his hands on some laydeez' boobies hur hur?

Cynical? Moi?

Yanbu

YANBU. Hits a sore spot for me. I tried until bleeding & never got the supply going. No idea why - it just was. Health visitor & two lactation consultants advised me to focus energy on formula feeding and calm bonding with baby. Formula costs a fortune but without it baby would not have survived. Gentle reminder that sometimes women cannot breastfeed for variety of reasons.

[quote EerieSilence]@MeringueCloud - she is offering unsolicited advice. If I want formula, I want formula. If I wanted to know how to breastfeed, I'd contact a lactation consultant, La Leche League provide it for free from what I know.[/quote]
No, she is only offering advice to mums who want it. Saying that she can help if you want help isn't giving unsolicited advice. The advice comes after you've said "yes please".

It seems a bit of an odd place to post it, but her intent seems good. I would just scroll past and not give it another thought to be honest.

@zuptop

it has been mentioned throughout not everyone can breastfeed so it is potentially reintroducing painful memories of it to women who are formula feeding for example they have had to have a mastectomy !

I'm very sorry but we CAN'T just stop talking about breastfeeding in public because it may upset some mothers who have been forced to or have chosen to formula feed. We just can't. The vast majority of women when pregnant want to breastfeed. The vast majority who have had to stop say they stopped because they wanted to. In our country, the statistics suggest a significant number of women would not have had to stop feeding if they got the right support and advice - our rates are so low, and our reported reasons for stopping feeding would indicate levels of medical inability to breastfeed that are completely out of proportion with the rest of the world, and indicates the other factors at play (lack of family support, lack of specialist teams and ignorance and misinformation by maternity healthcare providers, for example).

Having to stop feeding before you wanted to is often devastating for women. It can precipitate depression. It can be a wound that they carry for a long time, which is why so many are so sensitive and see judgment in every promotion of or support for breastfeeding, every study that indicates it has benefits etc. Because there is such a thing as breastfeeding grief and it is traumatic.

We cannot privilege the feelings of those who have been the victim of this grief to the extent that we create more victims by failing to publicise good evidence-based breastfeeding support. It's horrible if people are hurt, but new mothers struggling to breastfeed cannot be expected to shut up and recieve no help to preserve the feelings of the ones who went without help before them.

urgh of course this became a bf vs ff thread..

which is probably exactly what OP wanted, so congrats! :D

@Draineddraineddrained 100 percent. As much as formula feeding mums shouldn't be judged, we should be free to talk about breastfeeding without worrying it will upset someone.

@zuptop

Exactly ! I think it's fab that she is offering this free support but nasty that it's aimed at forums feeders to help the reduce what they buy, very judgmental .

Better for her to keep quiet and not help anybody, then? Just to make sure that the FF Mums don't feel left out?

I BF both mine, switched to combi and then FF for the second, though, as working full time and BF just didn't happen. Had this pandemic hit just as I was transitioning over to FF, I would have been more than happy to have advice on how to re establish a decent supply, thus leaving the tins of formula in the shops for others who were fully FF to benefit from. And in the same way, once I had switched over, I wouldn't have given a monkey's that somebody was offering to help those still in a position to re establish a supply. Because it's not aimed at me. And I certainly wouldn't be grumbling about it because she's not willing to bang out somewhere around a hundred quid on a few tins of SMA.

I would have felt mildly irked that when somebody's BF, they don't get extra food in the foodback parcels to allow for it. But not about saying she can't buy formula. Because she can't.

YABU

@MrDinklesOhSnap

Please don’t blame people like me for getting so emotional about BF issues. It brings up a lot of very intense feelings I never thought I would have experienced pre-kids, and it’s all still very raw as my son is only three months old and yet again my body has failed. I appreciate I cannot be objective about this due to personal experience, but it is 100% not because I hate or am suspicious of breastfeeding mothers. I take it too personally because it is very personal.

I absolutely do not blame you. Breastfeeding grief is very real and I have every sympathy. But precisely because so many mothers feel as you do (and not all of them will have been genuinely unable to continue, but will simply not have had the right support or information to continue) that breastfeeding support like the poster in the OP is offering is so important and has to be publicised. I'm very very sorry that it hurts mothers suffering breastfeeding grief. But we can't allow a whole new generation of mothers to go unsupported or it will just perpetuate the problem.

I agree with you OP – she might be wanting to do a very kind thing, but she’s worded it (whether deliberately or not) in a very judgmental way. The way BornIn78 worded it would have been perfect. Supposing she’d been raising awareness of a local food bank, you might say “If you’re struggling to be able to provide food for your family, these people are here to help you”; but the way I read the tone of how she wrote it (and I’m not saying this was intended), it would be like the equivalent of saying “If you can’t feed your kids because you’ve spent all of your benefits on fags and booze and the latest iPhone….”

Food banks are not allowed to give out formula because bf is considered the biological norm, and most food banks follow UNICEF guidelines on that.

So a baby with a mum who is physically unable to breastfeed – not even just struggling but who actually does not produce any milk – or whose mum has died is being told that s/he will be punished and not be supported to be fed and kept alive for the sake of the sanctimonious beliefs of those who say breastfeed at all and any cost? Can you imagine a person with type-1 diabetes being denied insulin on the NHS, because having a working pancreas is ‘considered the biological norm’? Or, at the very least, being sneered at every time they inject, as "It's not the best, natural way for your body"?

It seems that there a lot of people and organisations out there who will passively or outright condemn those who formula feed – whether through absolute necessity, difficulty with bf or personal choice; but when people try to cling on to their rights to ff, they take deep offence and act like they personally are being snubbed and criticised.

Thanks drained

@Ostryga

Food banks are not allowed to give out formula because bf is considered the biological norm, and most food banks follow UNICEF guidelines on that.

Formula is generally acquired through healthy start vouchers and the local council of parents can’t afford it.

Well this is just stupid. What if your baby is 6 months old and you fall on hard times? You can't just start breastfeeding. Complete and utter nonsense. They might have a point if a baby is 6 days old!

@unmarkedbythat

It's a bit like people choosing only to give food to street beggars rather than giving money. Some people are fine with that, others find it rather patronising and insulting.

It won’t be the homeless person that finds is patronising and insulting

It will be the twat who thinks they know more about what’s best for the homeless than the homeless themselves, which is truly patronising and insulting.

@Draineddraineddrained

The vast majority who have had to stop say they stopped because they wanted to

Bugger, that should have said before they wanted to! completely changes the meaning of what I wanted to express!