Terrible breastfeeding advice threads - AIBU to think MN needs to do more to reduce harm

[Manamala]

Breastfeeding misinformation is so rampant on here - anecdotal evidence and inappropriate advice which can be really harmful to a BF journey is dished out willy nilly.

On DV and MH threads Mumsnet HQ will post offfical links etc. recommending professional support, shouldn't they do this on BF threads?

Mumsnet is a trusted source of information for so many new mums and there are such serious health implications from bad advice.

I disagree, it is evidence based information.
Its all mainly american studies but at least it's evidence.

I was actually thinking the exact same this morning OP

Some of this isn’t universal though, which is the exact point that mumsnet can’t censor BFing posts because people experience things different.

Case in point you and multiple posters saying newborns don’t feed for over 40 mins at a time and if they are they are “starving” the mum has “insufficient milk” “it’s cruel” and “give them formula”.
I can tell you that in the early weeks feeding absolutely was regularly 40 mins for me. I tracked every feed on an app, looked for active sucking and stopped the time when active sucking stopped. My baby was not starving, I did not have insufficient milk. Baby was born very small and was gaining weight above the curve.
So if you or the other posters on this thread gave me that advice at the time it would be incorrect and would only have made me feel like shit. Telling me I’m starving my baby based on one tiny bit of info 🙄

The best advice is don’t take any advice from randoms on the internet, they don’t always know what they are talking about. Ironically this thread is proof.

I think there is a danger in thinking that just keeping trying will eventually sort supply out.
DD was literally feeding for hours and hours and hours. I was told in a breast feeding group and a breast feeding support worker to just keep going and your supply will come in.
It didn’t. My milk entirely dried up.
When I told the GP she went nuts as I do have thryoid problems and was very anaemic from
the birth. she said I should have only been doing mixed feeding from the start.
It actually made me quite unwell.

@Cuppasoupmonster my son was this weight at 2weeks old. He put 2lb on in the space of these 2weeks because he was taking 4oz every 2hrs. That’s shocking someone wouldn’t give there baby top ups

Co sleeping is fine/exactly as safe
as the baby being in a Moses basket IF you are following the safe sleep seven and only
if you are following ALL 7. It annoys me
that people here blanket say it’s unsafe without that key caveat (or that it’s safe). Research has been done to show that if:
mother is breastfeeding
mother is not obese
mother/father don’t smoke
mother/father haven’t been drinking
baby is a normal birthweight/not premature
the sleeping surface is a mattress no pillows or loose bedding around and
the mother/father aren’t exhausted to the point of not being able to leave the house

it is safe.

But, being honest, very few people hit all 7 so it’s risky.

Genuine question. Where did you get the information that the mother can't be obese? I haven't seen that mentioned in the safe 7 where I look (lullaby trust).

@luxxlisbon I can tell you that in the early weeks feeding absolutely was regularly 40 mins for me

Yes 40 mins is totally normal. My example is 1 hour or more continuous sucking is a sign that something is amiss. This is the problem - there are such subtle lines between what is normal or not.

@Notsoglamanymore makes me so frustrated to see women advised that having a newborn feeding at their breast without breaks for literally hours is totally normal. I just want to scream that the baby is bloody starving and it’s not getting enough milk!!! Give baby a formula top up for goodness sake.

Cluster feeding can be for hours and seemingly without breaks. The difference between normal or not is so subtle. It is not something that can be determined without trained support. Interrupting cluster feeding with a formula top up can prevent supply and therefor breastfeeding from ever properly becoming established.

Just to say my daughter was only just over 9lbs at 6 months and I breastfed and did give her a top up - she was just tiny and low birth weight and it took a while for her to get going. I constantly checked in with the HVs and went to the clinics and they said as long as she was tracking her own line each week she was fine - her nappy outputs were also fine and she was meeting milestones so looking at the whole picture, there was no reason or problem. I don’t know how much the baby you’re referring to weighed at birth or if the mother is seeking advice but sometimes there is a bigger picture and in my case, with close medical advice (she was also under a paed) I chose to continue breastfeeding during that time. I got a lot of judgement.

She’s now a very happy and healthy 4 year old, still little and think that’s how she’s meant to be!

Yes. The Lullaby Trust also updated their advice to include safe practices for cosleeping/bedsharing, they really changed their language about it and no longer consider it a priori unsafe. It was done a few years ago, yet posters here are often still quick to scaremonger and label even the most cautious cosleeping advice in line with LT recommendations as dangerous.

@Manamala Yes 40 mins is totally normal. My example is 1 hour or more continuous sucking is a sign that something is amiss. This is the problem - there are such subtle lines between what is normal or not.

But it was actually your post that said it wasn’t normal and it was a bad thing.

feeding for 1hr+ without stopping is normal cluster feeding (feeding on and off for hours, yes that’s normal, but over 40mins with no gap suggests inefficient milk transfer)

No, feeding for over 40 minutes for many people in the early days is not because of inefficient milk transfer.

If bad advice bothers you then don’t give it out.

@luxxlisbon i think we are in agreement here and are there’s a miscommunication.

Babies will breastfeed anywhere between 5 minutes to 45 minutes-ISH. And the time spent at the breast can change between each feed for the same baby. BUT if your baby is taking an hour or more at every or most feeds then this can be an indication that they are not effectively and efficiently removing the milk. Time to get an IBCLC or volunteer breastfeeding counsellor to help you look at the whole picture and assess whether or not your baby is getting enough milk.”

themilkmeg.com/cluster-feeding-normal-not/

I've never had bad advice on here, but I have found breastfeeding detrimental to my health and it very hard to wean and I have breastfed for ages. Not enough honesty about the negatives of breastfeeding and there are definitely a lot of them.

You are right - the one they all say is baby on it’s back!

i am sure I read it somewhere - maybe in the book I read when Dc1 was a newborn “sweet sleep”. I remember thinking it seems a bit fair as everyone isn’t their slimmest postpartum! I could be misremembering though in an exhausted fog way.

9lb at 6 months isn’t just ‘small’ in my view it’s incredibly extreme - smaller than some newborns. Did she put on weight when weaned onto solids?

Lots of posters mentioning censorship, I am not suggesting that - just a disclaimer and occasional interjections with signposting. As is the case with other medical and child safety topics.

I have the opposite perspective. I think the 'ignore your health visitor ' and 'it will all come good as long as you do x, y and z' is equally dangerous.

My baby would have died if I'd gone with that. Babies failing to thrive can deteriorate in a matter of hours. I really wish I didn't know this the hard way.

Like most things I go with the middle. Breast feeding is great but there can be times the risk outweighs the benefit and it is important this side is also put across.

Interrupting cluster feeding with a formula top up can prevent supply and therefor breastfeeding from ever properly becoming established.

I just don’t really buy this. If a supply is so delicate than one bottle a day will ‘disrupt’ it, then you’re not making enough milk for a baby anyway. It shouldn’t be the feeding equivalent of Takeshi’s Castle in order for them to finally get a decent feed.

Co sleeping is never safe, even if the supposed “safe 7” are followed, they may make it less dangerous but they don’t make it safe. Lullaby trust is notorious for unsafe sleep advice and the Uk in general is poor for safe sleep advice for infants.
If Co sleeping whilst following “safe 7” was actually safe then there would be no loss parents who lose their babies in this way, but there are, hundreds of thousands of them. Then the same people who bang on about the safe 7 then victim blame these loss parents by suggesting they mustn’t have been following the “safe 7” properly. There are countless loss parents who were practicing what they were assured was safe Co sleeping practices with perfectly healthy and robust babies and they still became loss parents. This is because there is truly no safe way to Co sleep.

Absolutely agree!

You say that, but I'm equally suspicious of your expertise. How can you say that you know better?

It can be done safely, unless your saying cots are never safe because some babies die sleeping in their own bed.

I suspect @Manamala has some formal breastfeeding training as do I. I can't waste the emotional energy on BF threads on Mumsnet very often as the amount of misinformation spouted by some posters saps energy that I could be using supporting bf families in the flesh. @Manamala I hear you, I agree with you. Maybe we treally do just need to report each and every post that we see that contains misinformation so that management see the scale of the problem? For those of you who don't like the USAness of Kellymom you might want to take a look at breastfeeding.support as an evidence based UK source of information.

This statement is not supported by multiple research studies . For those of you who dont know about BASIS they are part of the University of Durham

Because I do evidence based research. There is plenty of peer reviewed evidence out there within easy reach if you care to look for it. I don’t make decisions based on anecdotes of others and the evidence very much speaks for itself.

You don’t need to be suspicious of my expertise, just do the research for yourself.

Cots are not adult beds though are they, they are specifically made and tested for babies and toddlers. adult mattresses are not. At the very minimum, without the dangers of overlay, suffocation, entrapment, re breathing, an adult mattress is unsafe for a child aged under 2 years. That’s why cot mattresses are so hard, because a baby lying on an adult mattress is presented with a very real risk of positional asphyxia.

I would like to see what you’d say to a loss parent who has lost a baby whilst Co sleeping, a healthy, robust baby and whilst they were following the “safe 7”.

I would like to see what you’d say to a loss parent who has lost a baby whilst Co sleeping, a healthy, robust baby and whilst they were following the “safe 7”.

Not that poster but the same thing I'd say to a parent whose baby died in its cot (which is 50% of SIDs deaths). That it's awful and horrible and senseless but in many cases no one is to blame.

https://www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/07/Co-sleeping-and-SIDS-A-Guide-for-Health-Professionals.pdf

The statistics here show around half of SIDs babies die in a cot or Moses basket and half while cosleeping. But a whopping 90% of those cosleeping deaths are in unsafe situations, such as with parents impaired through drugs or drink or sleeping on a sofa, which ironically new mums sometimes end up doing because they've had the fear of god put into them about cosleeping so get out of bed to sit up so they don't fall asleep ... and promptly fall asleep while sitting on the sofa and suffocate their baby.