We can't mention positives of Breastfeeding for fear of offending

[Silverclasp]

Recently there was an interesting thread about a husband not wanting his wife to Breastfeed (he wanted to give formula) posters were highlighting the positives of Breastfeeding (since this was the topic) but there was a response essentially saying that by pointing out the benefits that we are shaming non bf mothers.
It got me thinking that I actively don't speak about bf for this very reason, I feel like if the person I'm talking to doesn't bf it can be seen as "shaming" like I never post anything pro Breastfeeding on SM in case I offend someone. It's kind of ridiculous.
Interested in both sides of the argument.

So say I reposted an article on SM which stated that studies have indicated that breastfed babies have a larger thymus gland than formula fed babies and more tcells as a result. Would this be unreasonable and cause offence to non bf mothers?

@5128gap people on this thread have literally said that they would feel it is a personal attack on them if someone on their SM posted that article.

[quote Silverclasp]@5128gap people on this thread have literally said that they would feel it is a personal attack on them if someone on their SM posted that article.[/quote]
A lot of people are giving other reasons why it would be upsetting too though. Given how controversial it is and how much potential it does have to cause hurt, I think you made a good call in not sharing it, as it seems the benefits if doing that would be outweighed by the upset.

The trouble with people posting about the benefits (and I do get this on my SM as I have relatives who are lactivists and obsessed about it!) is that a) the benefits are hugely bigged up with no reference to how poor the research is b) the negatives are never mentioned and c) there is no mention ever of the people who can't either partially or fully BF so it doesn't matter if it's beneficial or not, they can't do it. I should never have been encouraged to EBF as I have numerous risk factors for low supply.

It would be the same if someone was boasting about their perfect eyesight and the benefits of not having to wear glasses. Some of us don't have a choice!

There is rarely a mention of the high failure rate for BFing, which in the past, caused a lot of infant mortality. And that now, a lot of the things that cause low supply/total inability to BF would once upon a time mean someone wouldn't even have been pregnant, let alone trying to BF or they/the baby wouldn't have survived the birth (infertility, PCOS, diabetes, thyroid problems, difficult birth ending in a CS, haemorrhage).

76% of mothers in the UK are not breastfeeding their newborn at the 6 week mark. Where I'm from (Croatia) that number is 29% at the 3 month mark (I couldn't find the 6 week stat for Croatia)
I find it incredible on this thread the amount of people claiming that most of those doing so because they physically couldn't breastfeed. "It's not a choice". Unless there is something physically different about Croatia women and UK women there is no physical reason why 71% of babies couldn't be breastfed. This suggests that a large number of those in the UK don't breastfeed for other (also valuable) reasons. It also suggests that the support given to Croatian women must be significantly better than in the UK.

@roolz

Why did you post the study?

Why does anyone post anything? Op wants to share an article she found interesting or informative. How did this thread even get to 450+ posts?

I think @5128gap has a point -- the reason people post things on SM often bears interrogation, and, given that every woman who hasn't lived under a rock for decades is thoroughly informed about the health benefits of breastfeeding, it is pretty unlikely that someone who posts this genuinely believes she is educating the ill-informed, who might make different, healthier choices if they had this information.

One of the obvious other reasons, if not education, is to reaffirm the poster's own choices. Which, as we've established, do not need further affirmation, because literally everything in public discourses about infant feeding from The Lancet to some Instamummy posting 'You go, fabulous breastfeeding mamas!' validates breast-feeding.

Look, I am delighted other people were able to breastfeed their babies. Genuinely. But being repeatedly told about the health benefits for your baby I once had a practice midwife who, discovering I wasn't BFing at some check-up (at this point, I had stopped explaining why it hadn't been a choice), started telling me about the health benefits for me,as if, although I was clearly too lazy/feckless etc to bf my baby for his own health, might sit up and rethink if I were told it might reduce my risk of ovarian cancer is a bit like being hit repeatedly on the head with a teaspoon.

I mean, I'm not a stupid person. I have a doctorate, I conduct research, I understand stats and the difficulty of correcting for social factors, I don't take research personally, but God, I do sometimes find myself wanting to roll my eyes and say 'Breast-feeding is good for your baby? WHO KNEW?'

@Yoyomelon that's incorrect. According to UNICEF 81% initiate breastfeeding and 24% (in England) are EBF at 6 weeks and 17% at 3 months. Probably outdated survey.

www.google.ie/amp/s/www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/about/breastfeeding-in-the-uk/amp/

Apologies @Yoyomelon I misread your post 🤦‍♀️

@Yoyomelon

76% of mothers in the UK are not breastfeeding their newborn at the 6 week mark. Where I'm from (Croatia) that number is 29% at the 3 month mark (I couldn't find the 6 week stat for Croatia) I find it incredible on this thread the amount of people claiming that most of those doing so because they physically couldn't breastfeed. "It's not a choice". Unless there is something physically different about Croatia women and UK women there is no physical reason why 71% of babies couldn't be breastfed. This suggests that a large number of those in the UK don't breastfeed for other (also valuable) reasons. It also suggests that the support given to Croatian women must be significantly better than in the UK.

So? If you’re pro choice there is no ‘right number’ is there?

@Yoyomelon you'd have to compare other things though - like age of mothers (low supply/delay is more common if you're over 35, especially if you're a first time mum), CS rate, assisted delivery rate, numbers pregnant after fertility treatment, numbers pregnant despite other problems (PCOS, thyroid and other hormone problems are also common causes of low supply).

The stats for the U.K. also tend to be out of date - the infant feeding survey hasn't been run for ten years. There are also discrepancies in how stats are kept and even in how EBF is defined - I was combi-feeding at six weeks (which would have been recorded by my HV) but there is no record anywhere in mine or my baby's notes that she was BF to 3.5 yrs.

And the way BFing is promoted also puts people off continuing - it's made out to be the best thing ever, then you start actually doing it, meet all sorts of problems, lack of support for combi-feeding so it's no wonder people stop. And there is a lack of practical support as many of us don't live near our families and can't afford other help - it was noticeable in my area that the women who had a lot of support at home (family providing meals, cleaners, ability to afford takeaways/ready meals, one even had a housekeeper, nannies, maternity nurses) had much higher BFing rates.

@mishmased

That seems to match exactly with what yoyo said no? She said in the UK 76% are not ebf at 6 weeks, and you're stats say 24% ARE ebf at 6 weeks.... so that's the same thing?

@mishmased

Apologies *@Yoyomelon* I misread your post 🤦‍♀️

Sorry cross post

@Glassofshloer as i said in my post all reasons are valuable. I'm just a bit cynical about the "it wasn't a choice" brigade. If 76% of women couldn't produce milk humanity wouldn't have lasted very long.

[quote Yoyomelon]@Glassofshloer as i said in my post all reasons are valuable. I'm just a bit cynical about the "it wasn't a choice" brigade. If 76% of women couldn't produce milk humanity wouldn't have lasted very long.[/quote]
But I don’t think all the women that aren’t bfing had problems. Most of the women I know who bottle fed chose to do so for reasons other than physically not being able to bf.

@Yoyomelon in the past only the fittest babies survived if they had access to enough food etc to have babies of their own and infant/child mortality was incredibly high - it wasn't unusual for a high % not to survive into adulthood. Still enough to perpetuate the human race because enough survived.

@Glassofshloer I agree!! That's my point Most are not breastfeeding because they don't want to breastfeed. But if you read through the comments on this thread, the amount of people saying "the thing you don't get is the it's not a choice for most people" ..... I feel like a lot of people are not owning the fact that they made a choice. A choice that was best for themselves and their baby in that moment in time but a choice nonetheless.

@Glassofshloer

It depends in part by how you define "problems" though doesn't it?

Presumably only a relatively small percentage of people who don't breastfeed have babies with tongue tie or who couldn't latch. But there are a number of other factors which make breastfeeding difficult. Some of these have been mentioned already (work is an obvious one, lack of support is another).

Another which hasn't been mentioned much is lack of support from spouse/partner. A lot of men don't grasp how onerous breast-feeding can be if its difficult. My then husband was exasperated by the amount of time my attempts to breastfeed took and strongly encouraged me to stop - in large part because he was sick of the time it took me away from other things he wanted me to be doing. We're not together any more (this wasn't the only factor but it was part of a picture of lack of support). But there's a lack of acknowledgement that breastfeeding is actually profoundly at odds with the way a lot of women live their lives and a lot of factors have to come together to make it possible for them to do it.

Which is another reason why its really irritating when people draw comparisons with women in developing countries, for whom often the infrastructure of society and the way they live fits much more easily with breastfeeding.

I think sometimes it wasn’t a choice might mean different things to different people. I feel like not breastfeeding my first was not a choice because no one in hospital would help me get her to latch, kept telling me how my baby wasn’t eating and so I couldn’t go home and that I needed to give her formula as she wasn’t feeding from me. This despite me continually trying to ask the staff for help with getting her to breastfeed. It caused me no end of guilt, shame and post partum anxiety issues until she was more than 3 years old. I would still to this day be hurt by anyone describing formula feeding her as a/my choice.

@Teacupsandtrainers definitely a lack of support in the UK.

@Yoyomelon

Are you saying those of us who had physical barriers to breastfeeding must be lying?

What do you suggest I should have done? My milk never really "came in" as such. I couldn't express more than an ounce. Should I have let my baby continue trying to drink from a dry well? Maybe if I'd lived in Croatia my breasts would have magically started doing their duty.

You can be as "cynical" as you like, it doesn't mean experiences such as mine didn't happen.

@MeanWeedratStew I fed for 2 years and could never pump a drop so I don't think that's any indicator of supply. I don't think you're lying, I just think because there isn't support in the UK a lot of women feel like they can't do it but perhaps with support it would have been possible... maybe not in your case. But there is no physical difference between Croatian women and UK women so theoretically the same percentage of women could breastfeed if the choose to and had the supports to do so.

[quote MeanWeedratStew]@Yoyomelon

Are you saying those of us who had physical barriers to breastfeeding must be lying?

What do you suggest I should have done? My milk never really "came in" as such. I couldn't express more than an ounce. Should I have let my baby continue trying to drink from a dry well? Maybe if I'd lived in Croatia my breasts would have magically started doing their duty.

You can be as "cynical" as you like, it doesn't mean experiences such as mine didn't happen.[/quote]
Yep, that’s how it read to me too. Or ‘well you just didn’t try hard enough’.

My baby never latched and I never expressed a drop despite weeks of pumping 6-7 times a day with an industrial grade bloody milking machine. Maybe if she’d latched she might have got something out of them? Maybe if I’d had any milk there at all she’d have latched? I’m not sure which way round the issue was but either way beyond supplying me the pump and tilting their heads making sympathetic noises at me the only ‘support’ any health professional gave me once they’d given up attempting to manhandle the baby on themselves was ‘oh well it’s fine to give formula’.

And of course it is. But I desperately wanted to breastfeed and made myself ill trying.

There have been loads of posters with that kind of story on the thread and yet there’s still a band of posters determined to read that as ‘oh well if you’re determined to take it personally and be one of the professionally offended then what more can we do, we’re just saying how INTERESTING and FACTUAL it is that breastfeeding is so much better for babies, why would that upset you?’

And then inevitably ‘of course it’s a choice you just didn’t try hard enough/ gave up too soon, you’re not honest with yourself about it and owning it is all’. Because I didn’t/ don’t still lie there in the middle of the night hating myself for ‘giving up’.

I didn’t give up shit, I fed my baby. And yeah, the choice was formula or not feed her at all in my case and in the case of many posters here.

It’s been said over and over again - the issue is with lack of support for those who do want to breastfeed. But by all means, continue sharing more interesting and factual articles about how much better the thing they do want to do but can’t is, and then nitpick about whether they really cant or are just pretending they can’t. That’ll get the rates up, way to go.

I agree with both sides, to be honest.

I had milk, but I just couldn’t get ds to latch. I think if we’d been given proper support, we would have got somewhere, but the attitudes of staff was to resort straight to formula immediately, which I dislike intently.

I think fair enough if you have no milk but that’s fairly rare.for most people it’s a positioning / latch issue but no one can be arsed to help.

I think fair enough if you have no milk but that’s fairly rare.for most people it’s a positioning / latch issue but no one can be arsed to help.

Completely agree with this. A midwife in hospital rolled her eyes and exasperatedly said no when I asked about pumping when my baby wasn’t latching. The overall impression was they couldn’t be bothered with me at all and couldn’t wait to get me out the door on formula instead of supporting me to establish breastfeeding.

Oh god yes … and then not releasing you until feeding is established, but not supporting you to establish it!

Not everyone is in a position to throw everything at BfIng to make it work, or to increase it if you have low supply. I never got above 50% supply (my milk also didn't come in properly until 8 weeks so I only reached 50% after that). A lot of it requires flinging money at the problem which may not resolve it (breast pumps aren't cheap, neither is nipple cream and as for all the dubious expensive BFing supplements etc that's marketed now).

On a lot of the BFing groups there's constant suggestions to have 'baby moons' and just go to bed and feed feed feed to up supply. In my case, with my DH out at work and commuting for 10+ hours a day and I already had severe PND by 4 weeks caused by our BFing problems, staying in bed all day feeding my baby would have meant I barely saw another person or spent time in daylight or fresh air (winter baby), I'd have got even more depressed and veering into suicidal. Instead I prioritised mental health and spent most daylight hours out of the house instead of on my own. Maybe it would have been different if we'd had family popping in for company and to drop meals off but we didn't have that kind of support, it was just me and DH.