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?

YANBU I wanted to exclusively breastfeed. when my milk didnt come in within a day midwives seemed confused that I wasn't topping up. It came in just fine on day two and I think had he not been constantly suckling (due to not bottle feeding) it might not have come in so quickly or in such large quantities. The only reason I knew this was because I already had an older DS where I had had a very helpful midwife who explained it to me.
I think the low breastfeeding rates are often due to topping up early when it isn't necessary and babies then don't stimulate enough milk and it becomes a vicious cycle.
On the other hand it is obviously absolutely essential that a baby that can't breastfed effectively for whatever reason receives formula, or a mother who's milk never comes in is told to give formula.
It works both ways but I do feel really sorry for so many mother's that are let down so early in their breastfeeding journey and I think there should be more information given about how regularly a newborn breastfed baby will need to suckle. If they are full and satisfied after a feed and then are hungry again an hour later, this can be very normal.

I had similar experience but not in the beginning. I found that whenever they were unwell and I took them to a doctor, the doctor would always ask how many ounces a day they drank. I'd say I didn't know, they'd cut me off and look at me and say 'Ounces. How. Many. Bottles?' Then I'd say I was breastfeeding and they acted like it was a huge inconvenience to them. Then at my eldests 1 year check I was told I should express into a cup as breastfeeding would ruin his teeth and cause them to fall out out be misaligned.

I'm a mw and kind of agree with you.

We have policies in place with plans for excessive weightloss in the neonate.

And to be completely honest, bf support takes up a lot of time. Often at the expense of other visits.

I always refer to bf specialist services who are far far better than I am at bf issues.

Yes but if you talk to people who didn't want to breastfeed they'll say the opposite. I always wanted to breastfeed so didn't get any pressure but got no support in the vital early days to establish feeding and was just given a pump to express, asked if I'd thought of formula and my baby took away for unnecessary blood tests as they said he wasn't getting enough milk.

I felt no pressure either way to be honest. I had a few issues with second refusing to feed for 24 hours but we opted to give him some formula from a cough mixture cup (a suggestion on a leaflet from the hospital) as he hadn't eaten or slept for about 16 hours at this point and was over tired and hungry! When I spoke to the midwife she was fab at helping getting him breastfeeding - although did point out an over hungry and tired baby is not likely to be good at doing anything.

Oh and yes to the social pressure to formula feed. I didn't want to give a bottle but there is this pressure to try a bottle after a few months to 'get your life back' and be able to meet people more easily etc.
I think giving a bottle when you are breastfeeding is a royal pain in the arse. You need to express at the same time to make sure milk doesn't reduce for that feed and to stop you getting engorged, it can mess up your babies feeding preferences etc.
If someone wants to mixed feed then crack on but it's perfectly possible not to.

Also a lot of people present formula as a magic solution to a non-sleeping baby, there’s a lot of pushing to get the baby sleeping through the night and formula is seen as the way to do that.

I actually agree with you.

I was desperate to breastfeed and hadn't even considered or researched bottle feeding. I had a major haemorrhage during my emcs and I had a blood transfusion. As a result of this, I had no milk come in at all. None. I was told by various doctors that my level of trauma stopped the milk basically.

I tried and tried and tried to breastfeed my daughter and the midwives just weren't interested. @Yamaya I don't really think your comment is helpful. Four hours after I gave birth, I was desperately trying to breastfeed and all a midwife would tell me, in her words, was that I was "starving" my baby. I was completely traumatised by my horrendous birth, in which I nearly died, and the word "starving" broke me. For reference, she wasn't starving - she was given formula twice when born.

My experience was that it was easier to just formula feed as it would require less midwife support. There were 3 midwives and 33 women most days I was there (5).

Ime there is more social pressure tbh, the things I heard off my mum was ridiculous “you should give him a bottle of formula before bed, her next door does, you’re the only one who doesn’t” “he’s a big boy, he needs formula, he can’t possibly be getting full on your milk, a boy he’s size needs more” “if people knew you were still breast feeding they would laugh at you”

I definitely agree there’s a societal pressure and that’s awful about the doctor (I have no idea how much ds has, he gunks half his feeds back anyway.)

Obviously no one, especially the parents, want malnourished babies. But it makes sense to me to try to help establish breastfeeding before this happens. If it was bad before, covid has made it worse.

strangekind - I don’t think I see what happened as my personal failure but I do feel ds and I were let down, to be honest, not so much by individuals but by the system.

I couldn't disagree more. I suffered from PND as a direct result of midwives pressuring to breastfeed. I wanted to, but didn't get the help I desperately needed. Midwives were unhelpful and downright nasty with their comments and offered little to no help when I asked for help to pump instead (I was told to stop being a nuisance and just keep trying).

I was told constantly by a 'friend' that formula was me being lazy and an uncaring mother.

So no, there isn't pressure to formula feed.

Know exactly what you mean, I'm just grateful that the next day the midwife was a lot more patient and believed in breastfeeding - she had worked in Refugee camps and seen the malnutrition and disease from badly mixed formula/dirty water. She sat with me for 2 hours to establish feeding, gave me the confidence and really encouraged - 92% of women can breastfeed with the right support I was told.

Couldn't disagree with you more.

Feeling 'pressured to FF' is about formula feeding being tied up in the narrative of failing at breast feeding as @Strangekindofwoman said.

I actually think there is too much emphasis put on breastfeeding, and feeding in general. Ultimately, you feed your baby in whatever way is most suitable for you, as long as they are fed there is no failing and I really don't think it's something to get caught up in, it is so unimportant.

stella in that case we actually agree. You wanted to but didn’t get the help. Exactly the same situation here and yes, it led to depression.

But that friend of yours sounds HORRIBLE!

So no, there isn't pressure to formula feed. just because YOU didn’t experience it doesn’t mean that there isn’t 🙄

It’s important to me ruby

It always was.

No one ever shuts up about breastfeeding when you're pregnant, when I told them I was planning to bf I could feel the waves of approval. Not much support when I tried and it wasn't working though, tbf I don't think there was anything anyone could do about it.

I felt it was the other way around. But also that it was all pressure to breastfeed but now support.

I think you're right OP, my experience was that there was so much pressure to BF (from midwives, NCT and my MC baby friends), almost zero support to make it happen, then I was made to feel like a failure when I ended up having to FF. For DC2 I couldn't face it and went straight to FF. Both of mine had tongue ties and I was told it doesn't affect BF so just get on with it.

Yep, in my experience, medical professionals pay lip service to 'breast is best' only. As soon as there is a hint of a problem they push formula. I think the issues are 1) a lack of trust in the process/in mothers 'reading' their baby's cues and 2) a lack of education about what normal breastfeeding looks like and solutions to common breastfeeding issues.

Of course, added to this is the fact that we live in a culture where formula feeding is the default. Babies on TV are always shown feeding from bottles, expectations of babies routines seem to revolve around the default of a bottle fed baby.

Then there is the pressure from family, friends and society at large. Relatives who don't support breastfeeding because they can't feed the baby or have them overnight. comments about 'being used as a dummy'/ 'making a rod for your own back' etc. Pressure to pump and bottle feed (if you are breastfeeding) so you can leave the baby for long periods of time, comments about the baby being 'too old'. And don't you ever express any form of positivity about breast feeding, my god! Unless you are apologetic about breastfeeding, everyone who formula fed takes it as a direct insult to their parenting or doing it for the 'wrong reasons'.

Basically, people are super ignorant and nasty about breastfeeding and there seems to be a complete denial that this is the case. It's like some form of gas lighting!

Then there

Its because formula can be measured. They can see how much formula they have drunk whereas with breastfeeding its always an unknown. Some babies feed for 5 minutes and get plenty, others feed for 30 minutes and are still hungry. Its impossible for doctors to know how much milk the baby is getting.
I don't think its right but I can see why it happens.

The complete opposite. My child would not latch, that’s after having feeding experts sit with us for hours on end trying to help us. Not from the experts (who were amazing) but the pressure from midwives to not give my child formula was horrid.

The experts conceded that my child would be much better on formula with me trying to express - something I was totally on board with. The main midwife was awful, he alone made me feel like a worthless mother who couldn’t be bothered trying to feed my child. The expert I mainly dealt with was shocked at the rubbish he’d written in my notes. After all I went through I’m extremely proud to say I formula fed my baby.

So the pattern seems to be:

Pressure to breastfeed when pregnant (in fairness I didn’t experience this but I don’t actually remember it coming up at all.)

When difficulties occur whether straightforward difficulties or more complex ones women are pressured to give their babies formula and in some instances made to feel bad for that!

Women get shite whichever choice we make, it's all luck of the draw depending on the HCPs and support we get. I definitely felt pressure to formula feed when mine were little, especially with my first.

I remember with DS1 in hospital, I was told by the midwife that I had "deep milk ducts" (which I still don't know WTF that was meant to mean) so he likely wouldn't be getting anything and she demanded that I consent to him having multiple heel pricks to "prove" he was being fed before we would be allowed to leave. She went on about me being the only one in the ward doing this, any time he cried for a bit she blamed it on that, she even ended up lying to me that social services wanted a word (the wonderful social worker told me that she'd been told I'd wanted a word with them and we talked about the situation). I was scared for years about that could have played out and how easy it seemed to be for the midwife to lie to me.

That was after a pregnancy of every time I was pushed to talk about breastfeeding (I don't like talking about pregnancies), having pretty much everyone but my spouse feelin a need to qualify that state with 'if you can' and family going on about how disgusting it is. I've dealt with a lot of nasty comments.

I find it more than a bit dismissive when people act like it doesn't happen just because it didn't happen to them. I'm well aware some HCPs and other people are nasty about not breastfeeding, even though I've never experienced anyone saying much nice about it.