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!

@DropYourSword

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.

Then you are in a very privileged position to be able to do that!

Honestly! Don't be silly.
This whole THREAD is the definition of disingenuous. If you are a woman in a developing country, with little funds, then of course BF is the cheaper option.

Only in the very privileged western world would anyone think to spend £2k trying to breast feed.

@wtaf37

Sorry, but a 'lactation consultant..' As they say, 'a fool and his money...'

Do you even know what a lactation consultant is?

I’m sorry your experience has been difficult. Personally I didn’t need any of what you’ve had, so other than breast pads, it was definitely free for me.

Completely agree

He’s 4m old and I darent add it all up but we were exclusively pumping at first as he couldn’t latch. I had to send my mum to boots to buy “any electric pump they have” as I was discharged at 8pm with a baby that would only take expressed breastmilk, otherwise I’d have been kept in even longer than the week I’d been in hospital.

then add on steriliser, nipple shields, breast pads, nursing bras, nursing clothing, formula top ups due to weight issues

Oh and that’s without counting the cost of going to 4x infant feeding support appointments (thankfully Provided by the NHS) and a tongue tie snip which was in the middle of town, both in terms of time and money. I didn’t go private due to cost, but I did have to push for the support we got and I look back and wonder how I did it as I was exhausted.

You’ll always get people on MN saying they fed fine and you can repurpose a bin bag as appropriate nursing wear 🙄🙄 but after persevering for so long it’s important I feel confident when feeding in public, and the nursing wear helps with that

If one thing though, the amount of money I’ve spent and the number of problems we’ve overcome already has made me more determined to keep going. I feel very fortunate that we could (just about) afford the upfront costs, but I completely understand how someone who doesn’t have the money would just stop

@EmiliaAirheart

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

🚨 NEWS FLASH: 🚨

Only women can BF. And Kids require your time & energy. 🚨

Nah it was pretty much free. I fed both of mine until at least the 2 year mark. The first week was tough until I got the hang of it. I spent money on nursing Bras and a few nursing tops but I'd have been buying Bras and clothing anyway. Nipple pads (actually used thick maternity pads in my bra in the first weeks) aren't expensive or something required long term. Nothing else. No pumps or bags or bottles. It's something you can spend loads on if you want but for me it was free.

It was free for me. I purchased nothing.

Breastfeeding was free for me, with the exception of an electric pump I bought as my first DC was prem. I didn't bother with it for the others so I'd see that as an additional cost of having a prem baby, not a bf baby.
FF on the other hand required a sterilising kit, bottles etc. And was way more time consuming and way more stressful than BF.

I didn’t have to pay for assistance, but the cost for a last minute pump when I found myself engorged, nipple pads, nursing bras and lashings and lashings of nipple cream (which I needed to use loads of for at least 4 months) was still quite substantial!

It was free for me. I didn’t need any bottles/special clothes etc.

BUT I was extremely fortunate to have close family members, a few generations of them, who had breastfed. They were able to tell me ‘yes that’s normal’ and provide emotional support and advocate for me out in public (because I found it really bloody hard going on the first few months, not so much the bf, but the pain, the time needed, the boredom).

If I didn’t have that I think I would have gone to formula within about two weeks, and there should be no shame in that decision for anyone.

Well it’s true only women can breastfeed…not sure why that negates the impact of it on women’s lives in terms of their time, mental health and so on.

Sorry, but a 'lactation consultant..'
As they say, 'a fool and his money...'

Do you suggest parents identify tongue ties themselves? Then snip them with the kitchen scissors?

BF was expensive for me. Lansinoh, endless breast pads, bf friendly clothing, nipple shields, nursing bras, pump, pillow, etc. Private TT snip (because NHS wanted us to wait weeks while baby lost weight, all while shaming women who can’t bf), osteopath.

But the worst was the food bill. I was RAVENOUS and ate twice the amount I usually do. Didn’t help that I had to be dairy free and never felt full. Instead of filling up with cheaper milk or yogurt, I had to eat more meat etc, as carbs just weren’t filling at all.

It cost me a fortune and months of being miserable because I was never not hungry and my breasts were always painful.

I know that’s not a universal experience and some women are lucky enough for it to go well. But telling women it’s free is a lie in many cases. It would be more accurate to say ‘usually it’s a bit cheaper overall than formula’.

And it still makes me laugh I have friends without kids who say “ah you didn’t have any issues really you’re so lucky he takes bottles as you can go out more” … “come on this night away with us, you can just express” etc.
nope.
I didn’t tell anyone about the feeding issues as I knew I’d get told to just switch him, I was too tired to function, and now we’re hopefully sorted and feeding fully without a shield as of Monday just gone, I’m terrified of my supply dipping if I do give the occasional bottle of formula for convenience

All that said I wouldn’t change a thing but you do need some money and a lot of resilience if you have feeding difficulties for sure

I can only talk about myself but mine was free, however without google, I wouldn't have known half the shit I had to deal with and I will still say the pain was one of the worst I have known, not purely down to how much it hurt, but because I wasnt warned so didn't know it was normal.

But DS wasn't tongue tied, very easy baby and seemed to know what he was doing.

Breastfeeding definitely can be free

I think it seems free because you're not putting a £10 tub of formula in your trolley, but I don't agree it is. The mother needs to eat more calories - that it a medical fact, and food is not free. I bought new bras and clothes (nothing fancy, but vest tops and jumpers I could lift up rather than dresses etc - I fed both my children for a year and this was a necessity). In the beginning I also leaked massive amounts of milk so am sure I spent more on washing my clothes than I normally would! You can spend a lot on ff but it's not all necessary, in the same way a fancy Medela breast pump technically isn't. Milton tablets, bottles and teats really don't cost a lot. It's the formula itself that's relatively expensive. Ff babies also seem to wean faster in my experience - breastfed babies seem to rely on milk for much longer during which time the mum is buying more food for herself.

YABU. Where I live, breastfeeding is promoted as being the best thing ever! I couldn't breastfeed as my baby couldnt latch on. One midwife actually refused to discharge me until she did breastfeed. I made it clear she would be going onto formula but that was very much frowned upon.

Then, the bottles. We had Tommee Tippee bottles. My baby had reflux so we tried different teats. That didn't help. We tried different bottles. Again, that didn't help. We ended up on reflux milk which is £11.50 a week!

I think public funds would be better to not promote either way and instead, let mothers make their own decision!!

Are there any reliable statistics about the percentage of mothers who wanted to breastfeed but really struggled?

I don’t know really when it comes to cost as it may work out cheaper the more kids you have and the more experienced you get
But you are definitely not being unreasonable to point out that it’s promoted all the way through pregnancy and then once the baby comes there is no support in some areas or in mine it was hard to access (2 volunteers across a huge area).

It came at a huge human cost to me.

I agree with you OP. And I live in an area with superb NHS infant feeding support so I didn’t need to spend anything on that. I was struck by how expensive the upfront cost of breastfeeding paraphenalia was - a pump at short notice, a steriliser, breast milk bags, bottles (if you want to feed your baby the milk you’ve expressed), nipple cream, nipple shields, and nursing bras. And feeding friendly clothes (I didn’t buy special nursing clothes but I still had to think about whether I could feed in something).

I’m sure it’s much closer to free if you are someone who has no problems with it, but if you aren’t then it can get very expensive very quickly - especially with NHS feeding support being a postcode lottery.

I suppose the difference is that the cost of breastfeeding is more upfront whereas the cost of formula is ongoing.

Breastfeeding is only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing.

Many women struggle to breastfeed (me included) and it’s extremely time consuming for the mother (even for those who don’t struggle it has to be done by the mother so she can’t get a break). Suggestions of staying in a room and exclusively cluster feeding for 48 hours from breastfeeding advocates is tone deaf too. Women are humans who need sleep and food and may have other things they need to do (like look after other children).

If you are struggling to breastfeed and probably even for most who are not struggling, it’s not free.

First DC took a few weeks to establish but only top ups in first week in hospital.

Second established easily.

Still not free. Pump, bottles, nursing bras in my ridiculous size are ££££ and v difficult to find. She still would have a bloody bottle until I went back to work

It was free for me, 3 times. Never used a pump or bottles.

When they say it's free it's just a throw away comment though surely?

It's not meant to be taken literally.