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?

What kind of actual pressure is there to breast feeding before the baby is born? From health professionals? Or friends and family?

I had a leaflet about it from the midwife, but no pressure.

I’ve found the opposite to be true. My son was sick when he was born and we really struggled with breastfeeding and I had all sorts of strangers in feeding rooms making comments like “did you not want to breastfeed” I was suffering from terrible PnD because of the feeding issue and I was so ashamed I couldn’t feed him. My stance is now fed is best, you want to EBF for 2 years great! Good for you. You want to bottle feed great good for you. Why must we judge women on this issue!?

There is undoubtably more societal pressure to breastfeed and formula feeding is looked down on and midwives will always encourage bf. However they can’t let a baby who isn’t feeding leave the hospital and if bf isn’t establishing they will encourage formula.
In my experience and from what I have seen, if bf doesn’t happen easily it takes a huge amount of dedication and perseverance to get it going.
On one of mine it came easily, on the other it didn’t and I didn’t really try very hard and on the 3rd it was a bit of a struggle but I stuck with it.

I found breastfeeding support woeful if well intended.

I found this a lot of bf support wasn't as knowledgeable as I'd expected so find decent support and information meant more work on me - despite having done fair bit of research in pg.

I also experienced social pressure to stop bf but I had friends and family who ff - and they said they was a shit ton of judgment there as well.

Mixed feeding or pumping bm and bottle feeding almost seems not to exist and there's even help and more judgement for mothers there.

I really sympathise mylovelyhorse, that would have really upset me

@Funfairballoon

I felt the total opposite. I was pressured into breastfeeding by every single medical professional I came accross and they were horrible when he lost weight and essentially blamed me, his jaundice didn't go quickly either and they said it was because I wasn't feeding him enough.

I stopped trying to breastfeed the same day.

There was 0 support after that. When he had reflux I was told well maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you breastfed. Yeah brill thanks that'll take his pain anyway and help him keep milk down.

I agree with this. I was massively pressured into breastfeeding and with my second, when they asked how I planned on feeding her and I said “formula but I might give her some colostrum in hospital” they wrote in my notes “wishes to breastfeed” while telling me “oh it might be easier this time”.

I honestly think that women can’t win no matter what they do.

Before birth breastfeeding is pushed on everyone but after birth the first sign of any issue then formula is the answer.

Proper breastfeeding support is more expensive than a bottle of formula which is the real reason a lot of people stop bf when they would have been happy to continue with the right help. The doctor/ medical people recommend a top up without explaining how to stop them eventually.

There’s social pressure to “get that baby on a bottle” so you can leave them / work / have family feed them / not get your boobs out.

It basically ends up with almost all mums feeling judged by someone regardless of how they’ve fed their babies.

For me it was the way formula was treated like a taboo subject before birth and the push for EBF. I was devastated when mine had to have formula in NICU because of this.

I think we should just give honest and realistic advice about both feeding methods before birth because unless donor milk is made available to every baby who needs supplementing some formula will be needed. I'm not convinced that acting like formula doesn't exist will convince anyone to breastfeed.

I found breastfeeding support very poor. I was also told off both times in hospital for feeding my baby too much - the midwife walked in and actually said 'is the baby still at the breast? You need to put him down and rest!' I know it was well intentioned but I felt so self conscious after that and quickly took him off whenever she was around!

@daffodilsandprimroses thank you. I did want to breastfeed. So when people asked did I not want to or was i feeding him I used to feel so ashamed. Even my cleaner asked me if I was breastfeeding.

It isn’t really about judging though. No one should be judging because it’s no one else’s business.

If you want to formula feed it’s wrong someone is pressuring you to breastfeed. But that has to work both ways. It’s not right, in my view, to say it’s unkind and wrong for a woman who wants to formula feed to be pressured to breastfeed and then in the same breath tell a woman who is struggling with breastfeeding ‘formula won’t harm him, you know.’

I think it’s a lottery. I had a hard time getting breastfeeding going but got huge support from midwives at the hospital and in the community. I am pretty certain that without that support in the early days, there is no way we’d have breastfed for two years. My baby lost almost 10 per cent of her weight at the start and there was no suggestion of formula. They just came round to weigh her a couple of days later to make sure she was gaining. I am so grateful to all those women who helped me in those early days and months, but I know I was very lucky. (Even though this should be standard for women who do want to breastfeed).

A friend in the next town over at the same time got no where near the same level of support and was pressured into topping up with formula when her baby dropped a centile (not after birth but when a couple of months old). When my baby dropped (and went back up again etc), they never even mentioned it.

I am over it now I think mylovelyhorse but I felt the same at one point. I didn’t like giving him a bottle in public, even if it was expressed breast milk.

I breastfed for a week, lots of support and encouragement. I was in hospital the whole time. Midwives did know that I had no milk and that it was unlikely to come in for health reasons, I didn’t know that and they encouraged me in making the attempt.

By the end of the week my baby was having some top up feeds with formula and my nipples were open wounds - I was reassured there was no problem whatsoever with latch but nothing coming out.

Sometimes I regret switching fully to formula, but general pressure came more from the parenting community - which was entirely pro breastfeeding, the midwives were very much more on the side of do your best but don’t starve your baby. Which seems fair.

More education on mix feeding and re-starting breastfeeding after a bad start would be helpful.

There is a lot of pressure to breastfeed combined with woeful breastfeeding support...which can absolutely make the difference between continuing and stopping. Breastfeeding is not easy everyone but most can achieve it with proper support, which is sadly lacking (HV cut to the bone etc).

I say this as someone pro beast feeding who managed to do it for 2 years. Don’t make women feel bad if you’re not going to offer support with latching, engorgement, baby tongue ties etc.

@daffodilsandprimroses i know! I found my self explaining loudly to no one and everyone that it was expressed milk with my second child who I could pump more with due to him not being unwell. I def have issues surrounding it. Sorry you felt like this too. It’s rough.

Encouraging the switch to formula is much easier and hence cheaper than proper bf support from HCPs when a baby is failing to thrive/establishing bf is difficult.

It is cruel that a system which puts so much emphasis on bf pre-birth is pretty poor at supporting women who struggle with it. I had a hellish first month with both of mine.

Personally, both times I struggled I was encouraged to top up with formula, I did because I felt like they knew best (they probably did, I’m very grateful for that formula) but once my milk came in I was able to top up with expressed. I felt like I was a massive inconvenience for the HCPs in neonatal though. We were in for a week, pumping/bottle feeding expressed every three hours, on doctors orders. They seemed incredibly pissed off each time I asked for the pump or a bottle of my expressed milk. They would also bring me bottles I had just pumped a few hours ago rather than the one that had been in the fridge a few days so I had to throw a few away.

For me, the main promotion of ff came from my family and friends though. HCPs were promoting it for their convenience, some of my family and friends promoted it because they think bf is gross. That’s a very different situation.

But formula won't harm them. And to be perfectly honest if someone was really struggling to BF and the baby wasn't gaining weight then the advice to FF is not a judgement on you as a mother, it's a solution to the problem.

I was under huge pressure to breastfeed. My first never once latched on, lost way too much weight, had signs of dehydration (sunken soft spot and the orange crystal things in his urine/nappy) and was readmitted to hospital at 5 days old and not a single doctor, nurse or midwife suggested formula.

Clearly, but that still doesn't make it matter in grand scheme of things. It was important to me that my children all got the same Easter Egg but does that mean it actually matters? Women are always being given more and more to feel guilty about.

How we give birth or how we feed our baby, every option is equally valid, and these conversations do nothing but undermine other women and reinforce the idea that they have failed in some way because they were pressured into take the less desirable choice, when in reality we do the best we can and then move on.

I found it frusting that any problem then ff was suggested - I was worried it would not solve the bf problem I was having.and lead to end of bf.

However I later found that one of the bf support people who'd be so adamant I shouldn't give one bottle of formula had given her own child one at night for reasons and many of the longer term bf mother I knew had ff to get out of postnatal ward and home - that just wasn't something I was aware could be done.

So I agree more education on mix feeding and re-starting breastfeeding after a bad start would be helpful for many mothers and actual support for bf so those who want to get past any problems.

@ComDummings

I do agree that their should be more support for breastfeeding but I don’t agree there’s pressure to formula feed at all. Quite the opposite in my experience.

I agree.

Total opposite. Everyone usually rams breastfeeding down your neck when it was the absolute last thing I wanted to hear.

I had the same as you sort of; when I told my midwife when pregnant I was pretty dead set on breastfeeding she said I wouldn’t bank on it, just see how it goes, there will be formula in the hospital for you. Then when I gave birth DC took to it like a dream I was very lucky, but it physically made some people uncomfortable to be around me whilst I BFed, you could see them avert eye contact, start making shit conversation about anything other than DC/me. This was followed by lots and lots of comments like ‘he’s not hungry, stop Bfing and just FF’, ‘you’ve done the best already, stop now’ (2 weeks in!!!!!), ‘there’s no need to Bf’, ‘you’re doing it for you’

My baby was tiny when these comments were made. I was the first in 3 generations of my family to BF, it was awful trying to stand my ground around people who thought they knew best. I felt judged for feeding DC how I saw natural.

When DC started having crazy intolerance symptoms starting at 4m the doctor and HV didn’t once mention leaving BF behind. They didn’t say to stop, take a break and FF for a while on hydrolysed formula, they wouldn’t help me find out what he was actually intolerant to, just ‘carry on BFing, only trace amounts will be in your milk so that isn’t a problem’.

It was.

I spent 7.5m as a proud BF mum and so far 2m as a proud FF mum.

I’ve learnt a lot this year becoming a mum; leave everyone else to do what the fuck they like, smile and carry on in your lane.

The problem with lack of support/research into why some women don’t product any/enough milk is minimal because there is absolutely no money to be made out of it.

As a species we have, for centuries, used the milk from another mammal rather than our own and now companies are just cashing in on that. Why would they fund PhD students to research biological issues around lactating? They can just do an add which will give an 8 fold return, money much better spent.

It simply has to come from the government as a public health concern, otherwise things will never change.