To think there is too much pressure to formula feed?

[daffodilsandprimroses]

I’ve been considering making this post for a while but was worried about being flamed - I probably will be.

I am definitely not speaking to or about the women who made a choice to formula feed, either from the start or after trying breastfeeding and deciding it wasn’t for them.

I am talking about the women like me who really wanted to breastfeed and tried.

I found the midwives were very quick to leap to pushing formula once breastfeeding wasn’t working. When ds lost weight after birth rather than helping support me to feed him we were put on a feeding plan involving formula.

Why is there no support for breastfeeding?

@FudgeSundae I’m sorry you felt pressured into buying a breastfeeding top.

I don’t mind people disagreeing with me but are you joking OP when I’ve posted candidly about what was a really difficult and upsetting period for me has really annoyed me.

And you do end your post with ‘being sick of the judgement’ so pardon me for assuming you meant this thread.

@FudgeSundae of course there will be companies selling breastfeeding attire/pumps etc. Where there is demand for something someone is there to make and produce it but it really is nothing compared to the money that is made from selling formula and milk. There is just no comparison honestly. Every formula fed baby will be consuming multiple bottles a day, and the companies benefitting are huge corporations. Lactation consultants are usually either self employed (what influence will they have?)Or paid for our of our taxes which is actually costly for the government.

It is actually frightening the influence these really big corporations can have over government health policy. Ever wonder why culturally we all think it's completely normal to have sugary cereal for breakfast? Kellogg's that's why.
Milk given to kids at schools? Who is behind that I wonder?
There really aren't huge corporations benefitting enormously from breastfeeding bras or nipple pads not enough to try to fund research promoting it.
As soon as there is evidence that formula provides the same nutrition as breastfeeding we will know about it, it will be everywhere. It would be a marketers dream. In the US alone by 2026 they expect the formula market to be worth 103billion!!

@JenerationH I’d hope we all agree in wanting some accuracy, whether that’s available at present is a different matter entirely.

FF is horribly expensive. We mix fed initially and spent £52 per month on a hospital grade Medela pump for 3 months (plus an initial £50 upfront charge) and £56 per month on formula. Bottles and teats around £26. Steriliser we already had from my first.

Now it’s just £56 a month but it’s still a huge cost. There is no bloody way I would be doing it if I didn’t have to. Can’t speak for everyone but I personally wouldn’t be swayed by incentives such as freebies from formula companies.

If I ruled the world I would make it so that mothers who wished to BF but cannot, either through anatomy or circumstance, would all be offered free or subsidised donor BM or free formula. In my fantasy land where life is simple!

Ds has cow and gate.

A box is £15. He gets through four a week, so £60. So around £250 a month.

I spent more on breastfeeding than most with an electric pump (£200) lactation consultant (£200) a special pumping bra (£30) batteries ... lactation tea which was £20 (I was desperate!)

That’s still less than two months of formula. OH commented the other day how expensive ds milk is now ive stopped expressing for him.

'Yes but that’s a different point. PP was saying that companies have an agenda to push formula feeding to make money, but no one has an agenda to push breastfeeding as it makes no money. This isn’t true - the people I mentioned have an agenda because higher rates of breastfeeding make them money, even if it’s not a mandatory spend.

In fact, as formula companies aren’t allowed to advertise (don’t think they’re allowed to give out samples anymore either? But happy to be corrected), you are arguably MORE likely to be advertised to by people with a breastfeeding agenda. This was definitely the case for me - I was given discount vouchers for nursing clothing and breastfeeding consultant details but nothing for formula.

I agree theoretically you could stay home naked all day and not need any breastfeeding clothing. But most women will end up buying at least a few nursing bras. It would be interesting to compare average spend over the first year - I suspect breastfeeding actually ends up being quite expensive for many, especially for those who pump.'

Apologies because I didn't make that first point very well. As a pp said someone like M&S aren't going to fund studies into the benefits of breastfeeding to sell nursing bras. It just wouldn't be worth it.

Formula companies are allowed to advertise. You must have seen the Aptamil adverts on tv with the baby girl who grows up to be a ballerina and the baby boys who grow up to be mathematicians and mountain climbers? They just can't advertise their stage 1 formula. But people remember the brands and advertising when buying formula.

Also formula (samples) is certainly provided on maternity wards and like I say people are likely to stick with a brand once their baby has had it.

You're right, everyone I know who has breastfed has bought a few nursing bras, but like I said no one is making a significant amount of money from that. You could argue that you were given discounts for nursing clothes to encourage you to buy them as you didn't really need them, where as if you chose to ff you will have to buy formula for the next year anyway and are tied into doing so.

There is so much support to breastfeed. It’s shoved down your throat from the second you find out you’re pregnant. Formula is treated like a dirty little secret when you’re pregnant and discussing what you’d like to consider. I cannot agree with this at all.

there is so much support to breastfeed

I can’t comment about normally but certainly not on covid times there is not.

If formula is a dirty secret and breastfeeding support is in abundance, why are our breastfeeding rates so low?

There is so much support to breastfeed. It’s shoved down your throat from the second you find out you’re pregnant. Formula is treated like a dirty little secret when you’re pregnant and discussing what you’d like to consider. I cannot agree with this at all.

I couldn’t agree more!

I don’t recall anyone once asking me how I planned to feed. (I’m not disputing it happens but it didn’t once come up when I was having ds.)

@daffodilsandprimroses

There’s no support for anything during Covid times. It’s not as if BF has been singled out.

I’m fed up with there always having to be a big magical ‘reason’ to why people don’t breastfeed. Yes, some have to end their journey sooner than expected due to an myriad of reasons. A lot of people just don’t want to, and I’d honestly expect that to make up the majority of stats on women who don’t breastfeed.

I find it awfully patronising to try and pretend that most women in the UK don’t breastfeed because there wasn’t enough of x or y. Some just don’t bloody want to. And, instead of that reason just being accepted, you get the standard responses of

• you didn’t even try, you must try
• you’re selfish
• you’re lazy
• you’re missing out on bonding and the ~magical~ experience

Et al.

Women who know from the get go that they don’t want to breastfeed are pressured so much during pregnancy, a lot of them end up lying and saying they’re considering it just to get people to back off.

I feel the total opposite. I felt so much pressure piled on me to breastfeed. I couldn’t. I lost too much blood during the birth and I had no colostrum and very, very little milk even a week later. I still came up against judgement from not only other mums but health professionals. With ds2 I wanted to bottle feed from the start and I yet again had a lot of people telling me to at least try and why would I not give it a go. The fact that I didn’t want to apparently wasn’t enough of a reason

I had the opposite experience. I think health care providers and midwives advocate what they think is best in various situations and they may or may not be right

Really, no one ever asked you how you were planning to feed? That’s a lie if I ever heard one. They always ask so they can hand you 5 million breastfeeding is best leaflets and tell you where all the breastfeeding support groups are run from. When you say you aren’t then, well, it’s very much okay you’re on your own goodbye 👋.

Yes, I was pressured to formula feed DD by a locum health visitor. DD is now a strapping 14 year old, 5 foot 10 and still naturally slim but not skinny!

Anyway, DD was a few weeks old when it happened and was alert with plenty of wet nappies but she was not gaining the weight at the right rate according to their chart. The locum health visitor was rude and made me cry, which is usually hard to do! The following Monday morning, my usual health visitor rang and was very different - not concerned at all. Interpreted the chart very differently. I continued to breast feed for another 2 years after that incident. I was keen to make breastfeeding work because my bastard employers had made me redundant the moment I gave birth and money was suddenly unexpectedly tight. But I would have been open to feeding formula had my regular health visitor indicated it was needed but she reassured me that all was fine to continue to breastfeed so I did.

I would say that kindness and listening to new mums is vital for health professionals, and generally this is the case. But also I wonder about the quality of the training for health visitors if two can interpret the same situation so differently.

@Twoobles

Really, no one ever asked you how you were planning to feed? That’s a lie if I ever heard one. They always ask so they can hand you 5 million breastfeeding is best leaflets and tell you where all the breastfeeding support groups are run from. When you say you aren’t then, well, it’s very much okay you’re on your own goodbye 👋.

I was not asked once

Do not accuse me of lying.

And I know some don’t want to.

I refer you to myOP.

i am definitely not speaking to or about the women who made a choice to formula feed, either from the start or after trying breastfeeding and deciding it wasn’t for them.

I am talking about the women like me who really wanted to breastfeed and tried

@JenerationH I did some reading this morning as a result of your comments. I found that the WHO and other medical bodies use observation based data because randomised control trials are seen as hugely unethical when it comes to newborn feeding. Randomly assigning some women to breastfeed and some to formula feed is unethical. As a result there is a very small number of trials compared to observation based trials which recognised health bodies use instead.

You are therefore basing your views on the interpretation of a very small amount of unethical data by an economist for a book.

Every woman should do what is best for them, I can’t quite understand why you are so intent on telling women who have shared their story of struggling but persevering why they shouldn’t have bothered.

@Twoobles

There’s no support for anything during Covid times. It’s not as if BF has been singled out

Absolutely this. When my midwife told me antenatal classes were not taking place, I asked what other information is out there for mum's to be and I was told to go online and find videos to watch myself. I left that appointment rather astounded at the complete lack of guidance.

Ah sigh - @JenerationH - I went and read most of it, it’s the same studies that everyone has available to them. Just written in a ‘digestible by all’ way, it’s nothing new there I’m not sure what you want from it. As I’ve said time.. and time again and as others have pointed out, there is essentially no research (no comparable amount anyway) that investigates why sometimes women’s breasts just don’t produce any/enough milk.

We’re not going to get accuracy when the people funding government and research is the industry itself. How do you think we’ve even got to a place where we have to actually have a discussion as to why the milk designed by our bodies for our infants is ‘good’? Advertising. It’s initial use as a life saving tool has developed into this multi billion pound market.

@Vursayles agree, it’s ridiculously expensive.

@Twoobles how is it a dirty little secret when by 6m 66% of babies are formula fed 😬 (bmj).

Twoobles
Really, no one ever asked you how you were planning to feed? That’s a lie if I ever heard one. They always ask so they can hand you 5 million breastfeeding is best leaflets and tell you where all the breastfeeding support groups are run from. When you say you aren’t then, well, it’s very much okay you’re on your own goodbye 👋.

Ds1 is 4.5yo and I was asked with him and given leaflets / offered classes.
Ds2 is 4mo and I wasn't asked at all during pregnancy, there were no classes on anyway. When I was having trouble delivering the placenta I was asked if I was planning to bf so we could latch the baby on to try and shift the placenta. That was the only time I was asked.

Why would op be lying?