To think it’s disingenuous to say breastfeeding is free?

[Jerrui]

When pregnant encountered lots and lots of breastfeeding promotion- often it’s cited it being free as a benefit.

I have personally found as soon as you actually have a baby and are feeding it there is absolutely zero support. In my area there is no infant feeding team etc just community midwife who told me to substitute BF with FF at two weeks old when baby failed to regain birth weight.

I have spent hundreds of pounds on lactation consultant, double electric pump, milk storage, trying to keep breastfeeding going.

I have added formula top up and was shocked how cheap it is. We got bottles for free in those Emma’s diary type packs, and Aldi formula costs £2 a week.

I think trying to promote breastfeeding as a more economic option to pregnant women is stupid.
I feel actually public funds would be much better spend on training and recruiting to provide actual support to mothers trying to breastfeed, rather than health promotion with misleading, simplistic and dumbed down messages.
I feel it’s no wonder breastfeeding is mainly the preserve of the middle classes when you have to invest so much money to get any help!

breast feeding is free compared to the paraphanalia for bottle feeding! the fact that you need better help from a midwife than your currently getting has nothing to do with the benefits at all, you just need to be more assertive with the midwife. im guessing your not full time formula then? aldi £2 wouldnt last a week normally, be lucky if it was a day with my babies.

oh and finally im hardly "middle classed" i bottle feed my boys and breast feed my daughter, because that is what suited them best, but just because its gone so wrong for you doesnt mean that for plenty of others it would be of a benefit, maybe they just had better midwifery care?

I’ve also heard: breastfeeding is only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

I kind of agree. Whilst if breastfeeding just establishes easily it IS free, there are plenty of people who have lots of issues trying to breastfeed. I spend over $2,000 on trying to fix breastfeeding issues I had, with ultimately no luck.

I think the support greatly depends on your area. I'm feeding DS2, aged 5 weeks now and BF my now 3 year old fir 10 months, I had visits from support workers both times and know where to go for more support if I need it.

I've not spent much tbh, but I do understand the argument of how much more time consuming BF is and my 'hourly rate' isn't free. However, I do feel that because I'm on maternity leave, that helps to balance it out, and I also the value in myself at being able to breastfeed. Its not easy and I get why so many women stop after only a few weeks.

• I also take value in myself rather!

@nanaparker

breast feeding is free compared to the paraphanalia for bottle feeding! the fact that you need better help from a midwife than your currently getting has nothing to do with the benefits at all, you just need to be more assertive with the midwife. im guessing your not full time formula then? aldi £2 wouldnt last a week normally, be lucky if it was a day with my babies.

oh and finally im hardly "middle classed" i bottle feed my boys and breast feed my daughter, because that is what suited them best, but just because its gone so wrong for you doesnt mean that for plenty of others it would be of a benefit, maybe they just had better midwifery care?

I’m not full time FF no it’s a top up to appease the midwives. I can assure you I have been very assertive with them- but ultimately they didn’t have the skills or knowledge to help me BF. The automatic response was ‘ah well BF hasn’t worked- onto bottles’

I appreciate the costs of FF may escalate as baby gets older but a months worth of formula top ups has cost £8 total as the bottles were free- compared to several hundred for all the paraphernalia to continue BF!

Its just statistically more likely the richer and more educated you are the more likely you are to BF successfully for longer periods. Probably because you have the money to get help with these early issues!

@EmiliaAirheart

I’ve also heard: breastfeeding is only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

That’s a pretty depressing view of your child

I also spent a fortune establishing breastfeeding.
However, I have come across many women who were intent on switching to bottle feeding ASAP despite having no difficulties breastfeeding. I suppose the ‘breastfeeding is free’ message is aimed at them.

I agree somewhat – we had to have a lactation consultant, two actually, because the support was woeful and a tongue tie was repeatedly missed, though it was snipped on the NHS (massive train fare to get to the clinic though). All the other stuff you mentioned like electric breast pumps and formula aren’t breastfeeding necessities, though?

There should be better universal support, yes. But breastfeeding is free. And once established, hugely more convenient: leave the house with baby, milk already on board. No prepping bottles or sterilisation required.

I can see both sides...

With my first baby I needed to pump to boost supply and give him expressed top ups due to jaundice/tongue tie/poor weight gain. So that required a breast pump, bottles and teats. We also paid for a second tongue tie division privately as the NHS waiting list was too long and we could afford to pay to bypass it. In addition, we paid for cranial osteopathy (recommended by an NHS IBCLC midwife, but not available on the NHS) to improve latch.

With my second baby, breastfeeding was a dream and I didn't even touch my breast pump until around 8 weeks (convenience to allow me to go out, rather than absolute necessity).

So. If breastfeeding is going brilliantly, I'd say it can definitely be free. However if there are issues establishing breastfeeding, yes, it can be expensive initially... however I'd still say that the long term cost (assuming a mother breastfeeds long term) is still less than formula feeding (taking into account the cost of formula, plus bottles and replacing teats as they wear out/faster flow is required).

A note on breast pumps, those such as the Elvie are heavily marketed at the moment, however they are very expensive (around £250) and in my opinion spending that much is unnecessary when you only need a basic model and could even use a hand operated pump (costs around £20)... most mothers I've met who exclusively breastfeed tend not to pump very often as it's such a faff, so spending lots on a pump isn't worth it (different story if you are, for example, going back to work early or exclusively pumping).

During antenatal education I recall "breast is best" with health benefits for mother and baby being the key message... followed by convenience and cost benefits. I do feel that antenatal education (especially that provided by the NHS in my area) doesn't cover nearly enough information about what to expect, troubleshooting and how to access support.

I'm lucky in that I live in an area with really good breastfeeding support provided by the NHS; in the early weeks I had access to specialist infant feeding assistants by appointment on demand, plus drop in feeding clinics run by an IBCLC midwife. Sadly I know of people who live in areas without funding for this and I think it's a real shame. If "breast is best" is going to be promoted, then there needs to be adequate support to ensure that women can follow the guidelines to breastfeed if they choose.

In summary, I guess I'm saying that breastfeeding can be free, however I agree that breastfeeding support provision should be better.

i can't speak for anyone else but myself and my dd breastfed without any back up bottles/pumps/disposable pads/coaching.
just luck and some genetics (big mouths and quick let down). dd travelled extensively with her child, international flights, hotels, camping name it with nothing other than the food she needed.
me as well i lived in a remote isolated community (boat or fly in only) with nothing, so for us breastfeed was free.

I'm sorry OP it sounds like you've had a hard time of it.

Breastfeeding was basically free for me. All I bought with my son was a Haakaa (£11), a few reusable storage cups for milk and Milton sterilising tablets. I made it to 15 months without a double pump etc. I can see how it's definitely not been free for you. I formally fed my first in 2008 and I think formula was £9 a tub and that seemed really expensive back then but I was quite hard up in those days!

@Mrbob
EmiliaAirheart

I’ve also heard: breastfeeding is only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

That’s a pretty depressing view of your child

It has nothing to do with how anyone views any children. It simply points out, as with so much that women do, that people frequently ignore the labour involved.

Breastfeeding definitely can be free, if you don’t buy anything! We have a great la lech league leader locally who provided support when needed (free). I did buy a second hand medella (£10) which helped when I had mastitis. Other than that I wasted money on bottles/steriliser in the belief that if I expressed DP could give me a break by giving a bottle at bedtime. That lasted all of a week before I realised it was just a stressful faff.
This time I’m buying nothing unless breastfeeding doesn’t work out.

If support is good and free I think breastfeeding can be free. It gets expensive if it’s not working out and you need products to help.

Aside from time it;'s only really free if you're always available. The minute you need to be able to have someone else feed the baby, you're on to a pump and bottles. It's one of those things that's technically true, but not really.

It does sound like you've had a hard time, but I wouldn't say that it is the norm. Myself and all friends who have breastfed have not had nearly so much outlay, all I ever needed was breast pads and nipple cream, same for my friends except those who went on to also express.

However due to the benefits of breastfeeding I would be willing to spend if it meant being able to keep it up, but I can see why you feel a bit cheated given the expectation that it would be free/cheap!

Everyone has a different experience though. I spent 5 quid on the Aldi version of a Haakaa and a few quid on milk storage bags for expressed milk. (Also a set of bottles and a microwave steriliser but I'd have needed to buy that if formula feeding as well). That's literally it.

I also heard that breastfeeding can make you ravenously hungry because you need extra energy to do it. Eating an extra 500 calories per day is obviously not free either.

Free for me. Secondhand manual pump (almost not used) and pads for leaking milk at the beginning.

Totally agree OP, breastfeeding is like anything, you can spend as much as you want. Some bfers end up with a pump (even 2-3 pumps if the first one doesn't suit), full set of bottles, nursing bras and clothes, lactation consultant, extra food, etc, etc).

In addition, some pro bf threads on here go on about how formula feeding/formula is so so expensive as a deterrant. That just isn't true, it's quite cheap compared to other foods. £5-10 to feed one human for a week! It's by far the least you will spend on your kids food for the next 18 years.

Don't get me wrong, I love bf and fully support it, but it's promotion should be based on science, not on half truths someone thinks will appeal to women. Also see - "bf will make you lose weight".

I mean if bf is that great, we should do it no matter what the cost, right? (within reason). Why does it matter if it's free or not?

I spent a huuuuge amount on private lactation consultants and private tongue tie division. It's not that I wasn't "assertive" enough to get help from my midwives, it was that they really were woefully uninformed about breastfeeding. In the beginning I took their advice and it made all my problems worse. I then spoke to an NHS lactation consultant who told me how bad their advice had actually been. I then paid for private LCs who told me that whilst the NHS lactation consultant's advice was better than the midwives, it was still scientifically inaccurate and unhelpful.

In the end, the only thing that helped was getting the tongue tie division, which I had done too late really as my midwives had insisted was unnecessary as it was "only a mild tie". The procedure was performed by a midwife who was also a lactation consultant, and she was utterly brilliant. If only I'd had access to someone with her expertise from day 1, I think I'd have had no problems. But unfortunately it was too late and by this point my baby was failing to thrive so I moved into formula which completely turned our lives around for the better. I'm still trying to breastfeed as much as possible, but my supply is so bad that I can only do it once or twice a day really.

So no, my breastfeeding experience has been far from free or easy. The idea that it's easier on the go is not true for me either. What's easier, spending ages trying to coax a baby into latching deeper and relatching him every time he unlatches and then spending an hour breastfeeding because that's how long it took my baby to transfer enough milk, OR getting a bottle out my bag which I put in an electric steriliser before I left the house and pouring in a bottle of ready to feed formula, and then giving the baby the bottle which takes me all of 10 minutes?

All that being said, I will still try and breastfeed for baby no 2 if I'm lucky enough to have one, and all the research I ended up doing this time around hopefully will help, as will knowing to ignore daft, unscientific advice and to call that amazing lactation consultant asap if there's any problems!

@EmiliaAirheart

I’ve also heard: breastfeeding is only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

This

Imagine if women just stopped doing the unpaid labour worth trillions.

It’s a lottery clearly- dd 1 no issues bf, dd 2 needed a little more help and I had help from the breastfeeding team at the local Hospital. Hand held pump £17 from Argos to help stimulate.
Formula is £11 a tub- that’s c. 200-300quid for the year.

8m in... still leak milk- £20/m on Pass. Hakka pump- £8, medula pump- £112, pump accessories £20 (filters etc), catch cups £20... its not been hugely cheaper so far- but I'm sure it will the longer I go on.