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!

I only paid for two glass bottles and storage containers and cabbages. Are most people really spending hundreds + on lactation consultants?

Breastfeeding is great and free if you're able to do it.

I breastfed both mine but only for six months or so (1980s, when weaning early was a thing). I wore ordinary clothes and had two nursing bras. Hankies for pads. I was eternally hungry with not much money so ate huge quantities of bread and jam. Lovely times.
I think they then drank formula until about 12 months and then after that, ordinary milk or water.

Breastfeeding was definitely free for me as I didn’t buy any of the things you did, I didn’t need any support either I was lucky that it was easy for me and I had no problems with it.

[quote NumberTheory]@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.[/quote]

Even if you express into containers, that's really still free backseat there's no ongoing cost. You part with under £20 in one go and that's it for the entire time.

What else should the mother of a new born be doing with her time?
Well, she could alongside feeding her baby be doing things for herself and self care. Preparing herself nice healthy meals, sleeping, having a shower and washing her hair, exercising, etc etc all things which can be extremely difficult to do when breastfeeding round the clock but which are no less important

What a strange thing to say. I struggled with my first child so did it for a few months then formula. With the next three just breast fed.
That was free.
Do what’s right for you. The trick is to do what’s the right thing for you whilst avoiding critiquing other women - e.g. calling bf middle class because that’s unhelpful and stupid.

Sorry that was your experience. I you should have got that support on the NHS.

For me it was free. With first child I was gifted a bf cushion and paid for breast pads. That's pretty much it.

With the second I bought a pump and a few bottles so I could give expressed milk as well. But the breastfeeding itself was free.

Support wise I went to a local bf support group which was free.

Didn't cost me much at all OP if I'm honest...all I needed was breast pads initially, but after a few months I bought a sort of 'cup' thing that slipped inside my bra that caught any leaks.

That was pretty much it really. I had a hand pump that I was given...but I never used it.

I breastfed both my girls until they were 18 months. They never had a bottle.

I know everyone has different experiences of course...and this was 30 years ago. We didn't have all the stuff you guys now have access to.

Your middle class comment was absolutely ridiculous.

That's a shame you've had to spend so much money on help with breastfeeding but many woman do not.

Maybe it's a lottery in each area but most areas I know have a great BF support team, even if it's at the local hospital.

Formula cheap? Now, I did laugh at that. Good for you your child takes Aldi's formula I suppose? Some children are on specialist milk that can be nearly £20 a tub.. explain how that's cheap when you're paying more than one a week?

I feel like you're angry because your breastfeeding journey didn't pan out how you wanted it to and it's a bit of a bash to FF children.

Fed is best. The end.

OP, I could have written your post. Breastfeeding may be natural to some but not to most. More money should be allocated to breastfeeding support. I'm exclusively breastfeeding my little one now, but it took a lot of money and effort. And many women stop breastfeeding before they're ready. They feel like they're failing, but it's not true, they've been failed. And I don't mean that against health professionals, they're overworked and underappreciated. Just like with everything in NHS there isn't enough money and people and a lot of money could be put to a better use.

@Giggorata

Breastfeeding was free for me x2. I was a SAHM and really skint, so I bought none of the bras, clothes or paraphernalia that people have now.

In those days, mothers and babies stayed in hospital a lot longer, around ten days, and the nurses worked to help those of us that were BF get it well established and things like bathing and nappy changing.
So I went home reasonably confident with BF, etc.

Snap. I breastfed in the early 70s when it was pretty much out of fashion. I don’t remember much help though. I started supplementing within a year with DC1, DC2 was much bigger, changed completely to bottle feeding by 6 months. No angst.

I was exceptionally lucky and bf all 3 of my dc with no problems, but it was established in hospital,althoufh I was only in a very short time with each, and midwife/ health visitor happy to support on their visits if required , so for me it was free, I'm by no means middle class, just lucky ?

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.

Enjoying an extra bacon sandwich a day or buying a tub of powder. They both cost, but I know which I'd choose!

@LuckySantangelo35 round the clock? Come on now. Breastfeeding mothers can still cook and shower and wash their hair.

It’s much easier to do other things whilst breastfeeding as you actually have free hands.

RussianSpy101
I know what you’re saying but you only need to look on this forum to see how many women struggle with basic self care when breastfeeding a newborn especially when they’re cluster feeding , talk about being stuck to the sofa etc. At least with bottle feeding the responsibility of feeding can be shared between the woman and her partner (if she has one)

@LuckySantangelo35

What else should the mother of a new born be doing with her time? Well, she could alongside feeding her baby be doing things for herself and self care. Preparing herself nice healthy meals, sleeping, having a shower and washing her hair, exercising, etc etc all things which can be extremely difficult to do when breastfeeding round the clock but which are no less important

Whether a baby is BF or FF this takes time! Feeding and caring for your baby is non-negotiable and your responsibility as a parent. If you grudge the time to feed your baby then maybe don't have one?

I spent forever feeding 5 large babies (not at the same time!) I got through so many books, and managed to dodge lots of domestic drudgery: "Sorry, can't... feeding"

@UpDownRound

Unless all the women who breastfed and are saying its free had massive amounts of weight to lose or ended up underweight, it literally cannot have been free. Food costs money. You need to eat more when you are breastfeeding. Breast milk takes extra calories to produce - this cannot be disputed.

I'm not saying it's not cheaper than ff but it cannot be true that it is free!

Now that the average age of giving birth is higher the majority of women in the UK will be going into pregnancy overweight or obese.

A lot of this discussion is focussed on bf as something you do for your baby's benefit and of course that was a factor for me.

Having seen how poorly my DC got with D&V when I weaned them at 9 months and they went to nursery, I wouldn't have dismissed it as "just a tummy bug" if they'd had it at a few weeks old - that reduction in risk for tiny babies is a huge deal.

But the reduction in cancer and obesity risk for me was also a big deal. Widespread FF in the UK has cost thousands of women their lives over the decades, because a small increase in a condition as common as breast cancer translates into a lot of deaths.

It was free for me.

The amount of things we are told we "need" in our consumerist society is staggering.

I was a teenage mother and breastfed my daughter for 2 years. I had breastfeeding consultants thrown at me. I didn't realise how lucky I was for the support after reading this.

The best thing is family support and this is the hardest cycle to break.

I bf successfully but had a mother, grandmother, mother in law & sisters who all bf. So lots of free support and advice.

Most women dont have this as formula was so widespread during the 70's and 80s, instead they have mothers who ff and tell them they are doing it wrong because baby wont go 3 hours between feeds, or want to help feed the baby themselves with a bottle so aren't very encouraging of exclusive bf.

it will take several generations to get that knowledge back.

We had to buy a breast pump before leaving hospital because ds was unable to latch. I abandoned bf at 8 weeks because he still wasn't latching and I was only producing a few ml after 30 mins pumping so was on mostly formula anyway.
I was told in hospital that I wouldn't be allowed to leave until feeding of one sort or another was established and that I should give up trying to bf.
I think no support for those who want it is the biggest problem because most women do initially try to bf

I’m working poor OP, social housing, no degree. Breastfed first child for 2 years and second for 10 months. I didn’t have enough money for gas or electric at times when the second was a tiny baby due to my partner losing his job before I’d even left the maternity ward. People tend to spend in proportion to their finances, a lactation consultant would have been out of the question to me. So for me it was a cheap/free resource. (could’ve had free formula at the time anyways, I found it convenient and If I’m honest it probably was a bit of a two finger up at the stats that suggested I wouldn’t bread feed at all/for long due to my social class)

Breast feed not bread feed obviously (although I did mainly survive on 20p Lidl loaves back then)

[quote RussianSpy101]@LuckySantangelo35 round the clock? Come on now. Breastfeeding mothers can still cook and shower and wash their hair.

It’s much easier to do other things whilst breastfeeding as you actually have free hands.[/quote]
But that's the thing, if you have certain problems whilst breastfeeding it can be literally near constant. I realise my experience is probably unusual, but it still happens.

I had an app where I timed my feeds during the first two weeks. On several occasions I was feeding for 16-17 hours a day, one day even was 18. In hindsight, I know that's insane and that my baby just simply couldn't transfer milk well, mostly due to his tongue tie. He was taking at least a whole hour to feed to a point where he was satisfied enough to stop. He'd then wake up 20 mins or so later screaming. He was losing weight. Midwives just kept telling me to feed feed feed because "cluster feeding is normal" (yes, but maybe not 18 hours of it!). NHS lactation consultant told me that "babies rarely cry from anything other than hunger so just feed him whenever he cries" (yes, really!). I then went to a private lactation consultant who was horrified because clearly my baby was both starving and exhausted (and so was I!). Gave him a bottle of formula and finally the poor boy slept for hours and hours. We then tried to carry on bf whilst giving him one bottle a day, as well as trying to express and feed at times to give my intensely damaged nipples a break, but it just never worked out to have him mostly breastfed. It got slightly better after his tongue tie was fixed and his weight stabilised, but even though with a huge deal of persuasion he could sometimes latch properly, he'd basically learnt to latch shallowly by that point. He's now mostly on formula with one or two breastfeeds a day, and he's finally thriving.

So when I was feeding that much (and 0% chance of doing anything one handed btw due to the way I had to hold him in order to get any sort of latch at all, as well as the fact that he slipped off and screamed every few minutes), I could do absolutely nothing else with my time! I despair looking back and thinking how tired and sleep deprived my baby must have been. I'd never been around babies before and neither had my husband, and due to an unfortunate bout of covid going round my closest relatives I had zero family support for first few weeks to help me realise that my experience was frankly not normal!

@EmiliaAirheart

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

This