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!

@Momicrone

I always thought of bf as free and bloody convenient, milk always the right temperature, no faffing etc

This was another 'benefit' of BFing I was told about antenatally - yet my baby couldn't care less what temperature her milk was, whether direct from breast or in a bottle - warm, room temp or straight from fridge. Again, it sounds like another 'benefit' suggested by someone who has never bottle fed rather than something the NHS should be promoting.

@Cheekypeach no, because you're not swapping between a nipple and a teat. These require different effort levels and ways of sucking, so sticking to a nipple is less confusing.

That's an interesting opinion. I always consider breastfeeding to fall very much in line with feminism - rejecting the sexualisation of the breast to feed a baby, not buying into the idea that women's bodies can't be trusted to feed so they need bottles, formula etc, taking that time post natally to establish breastfeeding and not being rushed back to the rat race. I do agree a lot of the pressures around new mothers do stem from the patriarchy, misogyny and sexism but I don't see breastfeeding as part of the problem. I don't think formula feeding is problematic either - clearly it's an incredible invention that has doubtless saved a lot of lives and allows women the freedom to return to work as early as they need/want, as you say. I think the real problems occur when women are forced into feeding choices because they aren't adequately supported (bf failing due to lack of support in the early days, ff because they are worried about feeding in front of others just to give random examples I've seen on here).

@Poppins2016

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.

This.

I think it is appropriate to promote breastfeeding as 'free'. For many, many people it IS free (I don't think I spent anything on it).
And also, it should be seen not just in the context of the first months /years of childfeeding, but as a way of framing a lifetime understanding of the way that the food industry charges us multiple add-on costs for replacing natural foodstuffs with commodities shaped for their benefit not ours.

Every single advance in our understanding of what counts as healthy eating is corrupted by a food industry that only looks for ways of making £££ out of food trends. So for example the trend towards vegetarianism has been hijacked by manufacturers of highly processed 'plant based foods' -- because they can't make money by just selling vegetables.

We need to free our food choices from this sort of exploitation, and the 'breastfeeding is free' message seems like a good way to start parents and babies off on the right foot for life.

For many, many people it IS free (I don't think I spent anything on it).

The point is, as you say yourself, it can be free for ‘many many people’ but it isn’t free for everybody and a sizeable number will find they have to invest to be able to carry on with it.

Nothing wrong with that per se, but it is a lie to state it’s free as if that’s always the case.

@RidingMyBike

In a developing country ('Africa' is a big continent ) the women BFing will be different in many ways to those attempting it here. In some of those countries the ones who got pregnant naturally will be having babies. The ones who need fertility treatment or had conditions like diabetes, thyroid problems or PCOS are much less likely to be pregnant and then attempting to BF there. The ones who had a fairly straightforward birth because a haemorrhage or need for a CS could well have killed them and/or their baby. The prem babies or multiple births who just wouldn't survive to BF. A very different context to here.

Changing position or latch only makes a difference sometimes, and I found there was shedloads of support for this from midwives, lactation consultant in hospital. What there wasn't was any acknowledgment of all the causes of BFing problems and that you can't do anything about many of them.

It also seems to be common in developing countries for the baby to be supplemented initially (either by someone else BFing them or with something unsuitable like goats' milk) which avoids the problems like hypoglycaemia, dehydration etc. Whereas here, where ironically there is a perfectly safe means of supplementing, any formula at all is frowned upon, women aren't given a chance to rest and recover from the birth.

This

Another problem with banging on about it being ‘free’, when it often isn’t, is that you’re setting women up go feel like they’ve failed if they turn out to fall into the category of needing gallons of Lansinoh, nipple shields, lactation consultants etc.

And there’s already enough unhelpful messages around to make women feel like they’ve failed their child if they can’t breastfeed. It can be a significant factor in PND and PNA.

@TotalRhubarb I fully agree about it being an unrealistic and unhelpful message which does nothing to temper new mums expectations of breastfeeding and can definitely contribute to PNA/PND.

It certainly did in my case - I had expected breastfeeding to be ‘easy, natural, free and convenient’. I very much tied my worth as a new mum as to whether I could breast feed successfully and felt very anxious when we started to struggle after a good first couple of weeks.

In our case it turned out to be a severe posterior tongue tie that was missed by several midwives and my health visitor who all told me babies latch was ‘good’. We are still breastfeeding successfully now at 13 weeks but that is after the costs of a lactation consultant, private tongue tie division and cranial osteopathy, not to mention tubes and tubes of lanisoh, breast pads, nursing tops and bras, hakaa pumps, nipple shields, breast shells, milk collection bags and a set of bottles for when I need to do something as mundane as go to the dentist. We still haven’t managed to feed in public due to my oversupply/fast let down and having to feed baby in the laid back position so he doesn’t effectively get waterboarded during the feed.

However, despite all that, I wouldn’t go back in time and use formula as I’ve found breastfeeding extremely rewarding and a great bonding experience. I just wish I’d been given more realistic expectations, that there was better support offered by the NHS and that breastfeeding was less taboo so that we could have a more open culture of seeing/talking about breastfeeding and it’s challenges.

There are supportlines run by volunteer organisations which offer free breastfeeding support. Some of those supporters are also willing to visit, again for free, and attend breastfeeding groups in some areas. There is free support out there, so maybe it needs to be advertised more so that people are aware of it.

People just love a bf fight…will seemingly start one about anything.

I’d put the cost of an Elvie pump on there being literally no one in the U.K. whose sole or primary motivation for bf is financial. When someone develops PND after failing to breastfeed, it is not because of the money.

Also a bit mad to try and argue that on the whole bf isn’t cheaper. 100% of those who formula feed have to buy formula for a year, plus bottles and sterilising equipment.

There will be a large proportion of those who bf who spend nothing, others who spend only a little, and of the minority who fork out for lactation consultants, pumps etc, they presumably desperately want to bf and consider it money well spent.

You save a lot of money on dummies because you actually become a human dummy I found !

I always consider breastfeeding to fall very much in line with feminism - rejecting the sexualisation of the breast to feed a baby, not buying into the idea that women's bodies can't be trusted to feed so they need bottles, formula etc, taking that time post natally to establish breastfeeding and not being rushed back to the rat race.

There’s a lot wrong with that in my view.

Firstly some of the countries with the highest bf rates also have very patriarchal cultures, where women’s bodies are seen as primarily sexual objects and some are even culturally obliged to cover up. So how does that work? Generally the countries with the highest formula feeding rates have less - not perfect - but less patriarchal misogyny.

Secondly, ‘women’s bodies not being trusted to feed’ - this sounds very much like ‘your body is made for this’ type stuff, which feeds into feelings of ‘failure’ when women cannot breastfeed. Lots of threads around breastfeeding grief or feelings of failure around birth contain something like ‘I was told my body was made for this, so why did it let me down?’. Our bodies are organic machines, trust and faith and feelings of womanly power don’t come into what they are or are not physically capable of.

Thirdly the ‘rat race’ of which you speak is women working, a cultural shift which has meant we are no longer as dependent on men, more likely to be financially able to leave abusive relationships etc. Our maternity laws aren’t the best but they’re not bad either, very few women in this country rush back to work after 6 weeks. Breastfeeding isn’t important enough in the scheme of things to disrupt a woman’s career ambitions, financial independence or prospects, in my opinion.

@Cheekypeach

That’s all stuff a lactation consultant or peer support worker would tell you, or even MN for that matter. It’s not a fabled secret.

I didn't say it was a fabled secret, did I? I think only you said that.

Mumsnet cannot check your latch for you, you cannot assess somebody's latch on a text-based forum only RL help can do that. And it's not (as much) use if you can only access that latch support when you are in the presence of a helper - the point being if most other women around you would notice that your latch was off, you could get support with that much more of the time. Peer support groups are accessed by a tiny minority of people (and aren't available everywhere, particularly during lockdowns) and lactation consultants are not free. Hence the point of the OP.

You can counter some social/cultural messages about breastfeeding with support groups and so on, but you must be able to see it would be easier in the first place if everyone/the majority of people were on the same page in the first place.

But not everyone can or wants to breastfeed, Bertie. It’s quite self indulgent to expect a vast breastfeeding culture around you because it’s something you want to see.

@Cheekypeach ok, I disagree entirely with your points but you are, of course, entitled to your opinion. Also, I absolutely am not a subscriber to the whole "faith and trust" stuff around birth - I've had two elective c sections precisely because I DON'T trust my body to deliver babies safely! - just in case anyone else thinks my posts came across that way. Genuinely wasn't intended! No shame in any way of feeding, whatever the reasons!

as a way of framing a lifetime understanding of the way that the food industry charges us multiple add-on costs for replacing natural foodstuffs with commodities shaped for their benefit not ours

I don’t need a life lesson @Random789, it’s not just the foot industry that charges money for ‘unnecessary add-ons’, you’re typing away on that lovely phone/tablet/computer for a start. Why is it inconceivable that educated women can choose to make the logical decision to use a tool (formula) instead of their time and energy?
Do you not use a washing machine? Instead of hours by hand.
Do you not use a car? Instead of hours walking.
Do you not use a microwave? Instead of ages in the oven.
Do you decline the mri? Instead letting the limp grow bigger.
Do you not use nappies? Instead of cleaning and changing them every single time.
Do you not use creams/oils/wash products for yourself and the baby to stay as clean as possible? Avoiding infections.
Do you not buy cowsmilk? You could get the nutrients elsewhere.

It’s insanity to suggest that these things are purely for their benefit and not ours. I LOVE living in a western society where there are machines and tools to make life easier. You do too, you’re typing away on one. Formula is just one tool used to make life easier (or even possible at all in some situations). Stop the narrative that it’s poor little women with no agency being conned by big pharma.

Foot = food 😂

In my case it was made very clear by the NHS that the only acceptable way to feed my baby was to EBF. Constant promotion at every antenatal appt about how vital it was for mine and my baby's health, how free, convenient and natural it is. This included at a weekly obstetric diabetes clinic (nobody thought to mention diabetes causes low supply). Nobody wants their baby to be ill, stupid and obese which was the implication would happen if you didn't choose to BF. All my friends and family had BF. So of course I planned to EBF for six months and BF for 2+ years because I'd been led to believe this was completely possible and realistic.

And I was devastated, sobbing my eyes out in SCBU at five days old with DD having to be tube fed formula to save her life because my milk hadn't come in and all I'd done non-stop for 5 days was EBF so she was starving and I was exhausted. That started a spiral down into severe PND, not helped by triple feeding in an attempt to get my milk to come in.

That's why women become fixated on BFing and get sucked into spending a fortune on 'solutions' when problems come their way. You see them in the combi-feeding groups, having an absolutely miserable time BFing, pumping to try and up supply, spending a fortune on supplements and lactation consultants because they've been convinced it's vital they BF, they won't bond with their baby if they stop etc etc. It's very very difficult in those circs to say you've had enough and are going to switch entirely to formula.

I imagine the women who have spent a fortune on lactation consultants don't go into it intending to - they'll think 'if I just spend £100 on this appt then that will sort it', then another £100 on getting a TT cut (even though the evidence for whether this will make a difference is dubious), then see the LC again. Sunk costs fallacy - it'll work soon, keep spending the money. LC aren't a regulated profession, I imagine there are some ethical ones out there who will be honest about a woman's chance of success but it's an income stream for them. Same with peer supporters, at least the ones I encountered, they're women who have successfully BF (you can't do the training unless you have), so have entirely bought into BFing and it's 'benefits', have little if any experience of formula.

[quote RavenclawsRoar]@Cheekypeach ok, I disagree entirely with your points but you are, of course, entitled to your opinion. Also, I absolutely am not a subscriber to the whole "faith and trust" stuff around birth - I've had two elective c sections precisely because I DON'T trust my body to deliver babies safely! - just in case anyone else thinks my posts came across that way. Genuinely wasn't intended! No shame in any way of feeding, whatever the reasons! [/quote]
That’s understandable, but how can you disagree that there’s a correlation between strongly breastfeeding countries & a lack of progression in women’s rights?

Cheekypeach strongly breastfeeding countries tend to be lower income too though which might be the reason why breastfeeding rates are higher and women don’t work as much and inter generational women spend more time together. Also a culture of generally eating less processed food.

@stairway

Cheekypeach strongly breastfeeding countries tend to be lower income too though which might be the reason why breastfeeding rates are higher and women don’t work as much and inter generational women spend more time together. Also a culture of generally eating less processed food.

So basically they’re high rates because of a lack of financial choice? That doesn’t strike me as very feministic or empowering?

Life expectancies are also a lot lower so contrary to popular belief, in many third world countries it’s quite rare for women to be surrounded by parents, grandparents, great grandparents etc.

Parents maybe if they're having babies a lot younger than we tend to now here? Remember that report this week that more than 50% of women in the U.K. haven't had their first baby by age 30? Being an older first time mum is also linked to milk delay and low supply.

I was old enough to be a grandma (some of my school friends already were!) by the time we had DD! If I'd been in a developing country I'd have probably been 15-20 years younger having my first child.

It was free for me with three sons.............. Unless you count the inordinate amount of chocolate digestives I 'needed' to get me through each feed with two mugs of tea🍵🍪😜

@TotalRhubarb

For many, many people it IS free (I don't think I spent anything on it).

The point is, as you say yourself, it can be free for ‘many many people’ but it isn’t free for everybody and a sizeable number will find they have to invest to be able to carry on with it.

Nothing wrong with that per se, but it is a lie to state it’s free as if that’s always the case.

Yes, it's a kind of 'put your money where your mouth is' moment to the government, who promise it's free, whilst simultaneously cutting funding for support. So women often have to find and pay for that support themselves. In other countries, with better funded support, breastfeeding often really is free.

@Cheekypeach ...but they aren't being oppressed because they breastfeed? I don't get your argument at all.