That breastfeeding is detrimental to maternal mental health?

[Chiikichik]

Before I start - I EBF both my children for the first 6 months of my life. Both took to it really well, but second time around the sheer relentless of it made me feel suicidal. Moving them on to the bottle was the best thing for us at the time.

There is always slot of discussion around how women are effected when they can’t establish BF through lack of support etc but not really for those of us who do establish but just don’t really enjoy it? Or just can’t cope with the absolutely bloody relentlessness of it?

For me it has been my proudest achievement, which has helped me mentally. I have suffered from mental health problems most of my life, and breastfeeding is the one thing that’s helped me. As a single mother who isn’t very organised at the best of times (could be ADHD), I couldn’t have handled formula feeding as I struggle with washing dishing and tidying, all the sterilising and preparing bottles etc. would’ve been too much for me, it’s so much easier for me to get my boob out! I did educate myself about everything breastfeeding related and problems that can be encountered with it prior to giving birth so think this also helped me. Breastmilk is the healthiest nutrition for a baby and I’m so glad I’ve been able to give my baby that.

It’s not breast feeding per se that is the problem, it’s the context in which it occurs. In the UK especially, it happens in a culture that is not sufficiently supportive of the practice. It happens in a sea of judgment and shame and in terms of ‘failure’ and ‘success’.

The instinct to provide the very best care to our infants is extremely powerful and the insecurities that brings can sometimes make mothers judge and criticise one other.

I have been banging the drum for years about forgetting the utterly useless Breast is Best useless mantra. Until social policy recognises women as complete, multi dimensional human beings who are inextricably linked to the wider community in which they live, absolutely nothing can change.

That is because there are a myriad of considerations that come with feeding choices and each one impacts mother, baby, family, work, finances, emotions, physiology, mental load and wider community in very different ways.

@endofthelinefinally living in the same building as extended family would be detrimental to my mental health.

This is more DC specific and I don't think has anything to do with bf.
My eldest only wants daddy during the night and to put him to bed....bf til nearly 2!
Youngest is 13 months and if he wants milk then only I will do but first thing in the morning and again bedtime only daddy will do (I don't feed to sleep)

I breasted one baby and formula fed another.
Not counting the first month, I can honestly say the breast fed baby woke less overnight and she was generally easier.
I think feeding choice doesn't always make a difference.

Given that the UK has the worst bf rates in the entire world it should have the best maternal MH in the world on this hypothesis

Personally I throughly enjoyed breastfeeding and it had a positive impact on my MH.

I know from day dot I didnt want to be the only one getting up during the night. My mental and physical health was important to me, I knew I would struggle with both if I exclusively breastfed. From birth I/we combi fed both, I look back on the newborn days and early months and it was blissful really. I felt very strongly about this so it never bothered me if people judged me, and a couple of my breastfeeding friends most certainly did. Water off a ducks back.
I have no opinion on how anyone else feeds their baby and I would 100% encourage a friend to go with their instincts, either persevering or swapping to formula. Despite reading on here not too long ago that you can totally tell which babies were bottle fed and which were formula fed 🙄you really really can't. Happy mum, happy baby is the most important thing in those early weeks and months! We put far too much pressure on ourselves to mainly prove to other people how good we are, it stops being about what's best for baby very quickly because as soon as baby arrives people are quick to pass comment on what you should be doing and you want to prove them wrong! Or prove something to yourself. I dunno.

It doesn’t, actually.

Anyway if you believe in a woman’s choice in this matter there is no ‘worst’ or ‘bad’ rate.

I would hate that. I don't want to sit there. I want to have an excuse to bustle around with baby in a sling

Found it easy (time consuming yes, DS had a tongue tie, but much easier than sterilising bottles).

We did some expressed feeds, particularly when I went back to work and had to do nightshifts, and I am SO glad I wasn’t having to do that multiple times a day while sleep deprived. Bottle feeding is a massive pain in the arse, with all the sterilising and cleaning and preparing stuff in advance.

It also made it much easier to go out for the day - put the baby in the sling, put some nappies in my handbag, and off I went for as long as I fancied, no worries about running out of bottles, warming up bottles, carrying loads of bottles, etc.

I never woke up at 3am and had to go downstairs to run the Perfect Prep. I never found I’d used my last bottle and had to do some midnight washing up. Never had to worry about how long that bottle had been in the fridge, and if it was still safe. Never came downstairs to find we only had one scoop of formula left and the shops were shut. Just put DS in the bed next to me and let him latch on while I went back to sleep. Made everything so much less faff, and took up so much less brain space.

I loved breastfeeding. Breastfed all four of mine past 2 years and never used formula or expressed. I would have been really upset if I couldn't breastfeed, I suspect I may have got PND as it was very important to me that I breastfed all my children for a minimum of 2 years for all our benefits.

So agree with this

I failed with breastfeeding ds1, giving up after 3 weeks.
More successful with ds2, but can't say I ever enjoyed it even when we'd got it established. I gave up after 4 months, which was earlier than required for going back to work at 6 months, because I didn't want to do it any more.

sounds lovely 😍