to not beleive that a women not breast feed is selfish and using 'i couldnt' as an excuse?

[aleciawalton]

im a mum of 1 who bf till 15 months, and now pregnant with second and will bf. i also am a breast friend and took training to support mums who are bfeeding. ( learned how milk is produced, history, attachment...)

i just think that too many women use 'i couldnt bf' as an excuse. its only been in the last 50 to 60 years bottles and formula have been around. what happened back then??? did more then 50% of the babys die? no cuase back then 99% women breast fed! why could they do it then and not now???
i just feel it a cop out and the mums are just being selfish.
yes its hard, but so was labour, so raising a kid. however they choise to have the baby. i know it takes time and comittment and not having that all important wine drink. but i personaly think that its for how long??? if i can give my child the best start and yes it can take a year or 2 but is my child not worth it??
if some one said to you while prego you have a choise to either have your baby and make your child as healthy as it can be or just have the baby, what would you want? why do we give the baby vitamine K, if not to help the baby be healthy. would you not get your baby vaccinated?

sorry just makes me mad. when i hear my nipples hurt and thats cant be normal so i stopped. or babys 3 weeks old and wanted feeding all the time so it ment i didnt have enough milk so i stopped. or there's a xmas party i want to go to so im not going to bf. the exuces go one. i really love the one 'bf is not natural, its disusting'. WTF were breast made for then and why does milk come out of them???

as i said before, though, i think a lot of people do secretly feel like alecia does. what's worrying is that she's a bf peer supporter...

He he he
^

I wasn't bf as I was too weak to latch on or suck. Does this make my mum selfish?

Perhaps if she'd had you around I'd have been bfed.

Crikey ginlay how many ^'s did you have to do to get that whole line in italic? I admire your commitment

You only bfed for 15 months, AW?

You do know the WHO says at least two years, right?

Selfish, aren't you, denying your child that last 9 months. Is your child "not worth it"? Why the "cop out"? "Couldn't" you do it?

(I do hope regular MNers realise the spirit in which I post this...!)

yeah, took a while. I'm clearly a breastfeeder then hey?

sorry i thought people were allowed put how they feel on this thing. if it make you ALL feel better then i wont bother.
but so you know i am 29 weeks pregnant with one ds and living in the uk after moving from all my family and childhood friends. i thought this mumsnet was a great thing where maybe i could talk about how i feel with other mums. nice mums that seem to be about to share if they are having a bad day or problems wtih MIL, SPD... ect. however i see i was wrong. ill just go back to my bed rest. sorry to have upset you all.
you will see no other posts off me in any section.
by the way i wrote wine drink becuase i can spell achohol. so here have a great laugh at that while your at it.

he stopped on his own when i fell pregnant cuase my milk changed. and medical advice ways at least 6 months to a year but 2 years for child to get all benitifts

No- you must stay.

But word your thread titles wisely in future as im sure you can see- some things piss us off.

I formula fed. Nobody elses bloody business but mine.

agree, don't leave because of this. You will always get a result like this if you post a thread in this way.

Hopefully I'll see you soon on a thread where we agree about something.

Alecia, I can sypathise- also pregnant (8 weeks behind you), moved away from family, have SPD, 3 kids etc etc etc- (and a lot of other stuff which isnt really relevant) but that doesn't mean I cant display empathy.

And that empathic part of me says, I should try and understand a womans reasons not to want to BF (which in reality is a good but TINY part of parenting, esp. if you look at parenting as a lifelong phenomenon). So even if it IS an excuse (as no doubt in some)- so? they may be the most fabulous t4acher, mentor, nutritionist in the world. It's but a percentage.

And the point of MN IS to support but also to discuss- and if you think suppot means everyone will agree with you- MN probably isn't the rigt place for you. In all honesty.

It's a bit rich for aleciawalton to get upset by some of the responses to her OP when it was in no way asking for support for her, but merely a tirade against other women.

By all means share how you feel, but if how you feel is deeply upsetting and offensive to many other women then be realistic and expect for them to voice their feelings back.

I suppose I would fall in to your category of selfish women who claim they couldn't bfeed and I found your OP quite hurtful as it totally misrepresents my bfeeding experience.

Instead of getting on your high-horse why don't you carefully read some of the responses you get and see if you can open your mind.

Alecia, mumsnet is somewhere people are allowed to write what they feel, it's what everyone on this thread has written!

It is a very emotive subject, especially with so many of us having been UNABLE to breastfeed one of more of our children.
MN is probably the most bf friendly site you could come across, however, it is also real, and although I would love every woman in the world to breastfeed their baby, and think that if possible then why not? it is not for me to say.

The attitudes around breastfeeding are what needs changing to encourage more people to do it, yours included, and yes, even mine.

Disappearing now only means you won't get to have your opinions heard on other subjects and won't be able to maybe change some of your own opinions with some advice/information with others, goodness knows mine have changed on all sorts of things since coming here!

AW you say' sorry i thought people were allowed put how they feel on this thing'

Yes, you are quite right.

and the same is true for us as well.

We can all say what we think about your attitude, which is one of the most unspotive and unsympathetic that I have ever read from someone who is supposed to be in the buisness of encouraging bf.

Please stay. You are of course allowed your opinion but on mn you absolutely must develop a more empathetic and less judgemental attitude towards breastfeeding.
Everyone is different and I can assure you that just about NO ONE on mn who formula fed did so out of lazyness or selfishness and if you say that you think that women who don't bf are those things you are just plain wrong. Woman around your area may be different but on mn I think I can safely say that we take breast feeding seriously.

Alecia, reread your OP.

Imagine that you ffed, but wanted desperately to bfeed.

And try to get some empathy. It's nice to be kind to people, you know. Especially when they're in bits about something they couldn't change. Yes, couldn't.

And then realise that posts like yours put women off seeking help, because they imagine that all the people doing the supporting are secretly thinking they're shit.

And stop bleating. It's unbecoming.

alecia you are entitled to your views as everyone is but I feel you have made a hugh sweeping statement that people who don't BF are selfish when for many of us it just wasn't happening.

I certainly didn't stop BF so I could have a night on the town and I feel it is unfair of you to make that generalisation.

I think that mothers should be supported in BF but if they choose not to or it is not working for them then that decision should be supported too. It is hard enough with a newborn without people insinuating you are a selfish mum for not BF

note to ones self

28 weeks pregnant with first. would like to breatfeed. dont bother with a breastfriend they sound very judgemental and un supportive ( not that i know what one is )

but you didn't come here looking for support, you came here to cast judgements on others and you expect people to support those?

You think mn is unsupportive because you couldn't freely call all women who did not/could not breastfeed selfish?

What did you expect? for people to all come out and say "oh yes, I so agree with you, there's no such thing as can't breastfeed, all those women are just selfish bitches and should be shot at dawn.".

Different things happen to different people for different reasons, and just because you came through without problems doesn't make you better than them.

So why don't you just get off your high horse and get a bit of empathy.

Oh and for the record, I don't drink, so my "inability" to breastfeed had nothing what so evr to do with me wanting a drink at christmas!

FWIW, If I was so desperate to drink at christmas, I would just express for the few feeds that Dc would be having afterwards, not decide against feeding totally!

About 4/5 weeks after having DS it was my birthday, and myself and a few friends had a huge joint birthday party at our local pub, so DS was given expressed breastmilk, I know it isn't ideal to express so early on, but for special occasions there are ways round breastfedding and having a life of your own.

phew, alicia, mn IS a great place to moan about SPD, MIL, christmas etc. and there is a fantastic, supportive here. but your op was always going to cause this type of reaction. . lots of women do try to bf and cant, lots of women try to bf and dont get the correct support/information, lots of women just dont like the idea of it. none of them deserve your contempt though!

we are made to feel inadequate enough about our parenting without being villified by other women who cant possibly know the full story behind every womans decision.

Ha Ha, the original post is a joke I take it - I can not believe is it serious and someone would be that ignorant.

AW - I'm going to stick my head above the parapet and say that I agree with you.

(Ducks to avoid flying formula tins)

To breastfeed or not is, for many in the West, a lifestyle choice, or cultural. Many women seem to give up after a couple of weeks - my friend, even though not returning to work for 6 months, gave up after 3 weeks so that DP could take turns with night feeds.
It is a lifestyle choice, and is selfish. Sad for the baby, and sad for the mother too.

Cultural - I bet the Queen wasn't breastfed, and I bet she didn't bf Charles & co. For the aristocracy, it's always been wetnurse, then nanny (in fact dch seen & not heard until old enough to entertain Ma & Pa's guests on the piano!).

I could easily have opted for bottle - DD born 10 weeks prem, given formula through a tube so she didn't lose wait before my milk came in, then I spent 5 weeks, every 3 - 4 hours on a breast pump, for her until she could suck, at 34 weeks. BUT I breastfed her until she was 13 months. I had support, but also had people early on urging me to give up the struggle (which it was) & go onto a bottle. But I'm bloody-minded, and got through sore nipples, mastitis etc.

You have gone in with your size nines, and there are exceptions, but today, here in the UK, yes people take a lazy & selfish option, and imo it means an unnecessarily 2nd class start for their dch.

It is a shame that MNers have shouted you down. It needs saying.

Blimey. I struggled through hellish early weeks of b/f, with cracked nipples, mastitis, toe-curling pain because I was determined to do it (dh has asthma, exzema and every allergy you can possibly have apart from food ones). But I would never criticise someone else for not doing what I did - I came soooo close to throwing the towel in many, many times. And was bloody lucky to have dh, my ante-natal friends and a fantastic HV helping me through it.

And anyway, someone else's baby, someone else's choice, none of my damn business!

What I do think is terrible is the way new mothers are let down by crappy advice from health professionals who know sod-all about b/f, have maybe attended one lecture, but pretend they know it all and perpetuate myths or even try to stop people b/f. It's a skill that you need to learn and mothers deserve decent, informed and available support. If we want to increase overall b/f rates, the NHS has to take it seriously, make sure all their staff are properly educated and employ an army of trained, paid, breastfeeding counsellors, rather than relying on the goodwill of volunteers.

But if an individual woman decides not to b/f that is absolutely her right. Who am I to question her?

it is marvellous you feel so strongly about breastfeeding

women are woefully unsupported very often

MWs & HVs often tell new mums to top up as baby not getting enough milk, or not gaining enough weight..

i had a friend whose milk literally did not come in, her breasts never engorged, she never leaked, there was an empty breast.. rare, but it happens, she tried for several days, but nothing doing

i am so glad you were not supporting her, i;m afraid you come across as really very judgemental. you might not put these views across in real life, but you are condemning many women on mumsnet with how you feel, and that is just not on.

breastfeeding is emotive and we need to offer unequivocal support, not guilt tripping

i sincerely hope you are able to breastfeed your second child as succesfully.