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?

I think we all just need to acknowledge that we all parent differently, and thus need different support.
The majority of British mums don't breastfeed, so it's not like you'd be in the minority when you wean....
I personally find breastfeeding much easier than formula (1 ff, 2 bf).

It depends. The main thing that gave me shaky mental health was the lack of sleep, and I found it far easier to pick up DS, latch him on and then doze in bed until he was done than I would have to get out of bed to sort a bottle out.

The best thing I ever chose to do was mix feed but before you start, someone helpfully tells you that your supply will instantly dry up, or that it's the worst of both worlds.

There are going to be a subset of people who can't breastfeed because of the effect on their mental health. No doubt about that.

That doesn't however mean that switching to bottlefeeding is the universal solution for struggling mums that some seem to think it is. Some problems are going to be there however the baby is fed, sometimes the more logistically difficult bottlefeeding will just cause more difficulty.

Not everyone suffers mentally from waking up 2-3 times in the night though. If you are supported in other ways then it is easier as you're less stressed/using less energy in the day. My DH did the food shop, washing and all other housework until I gradually took on more as my DC's sleep improved.

I'd imagine it's detrimental to maternal mental health if you find it hard to establish but if you do, it must be so much easier than making up bottles every time! It's been proven that breastfeeding relaxes the mother (once you get it right that is, it was not relaxing for me when I couldn't do it properly at first). Once I learned how to do it it was a joy to do, no matter how often

I had lots of support available if I had wanted to breastfeed but I decided not to. Perhaps it's a postcode lottery? I'm in sw London/Surrey. Also free local NCT breastfeeding zoom workshops run by volunteer breastfeeding counsellors.

Well it certainly wasn’t detrimental to my MH, I bloody loved it. EBF both mine for 14 months each.

I don’t think anyone should be pushed into breastfeeding or bottle feeding though. Such lack of control over something so personal and important is very likely to impact MH.

I actually think there's a lot more support available for breastfeeding than bottle feeding. No one would tell me how much I should be feeding my son even though he was premature. I asked for advice on bottles, teats etc with no help. I was given lots of resources on breastfeeding though

Breastfeeding saved my sanity. Once it successfully established (no walk in the park, I had both terrible thrush and mastitis) it meant night feeds were easy., I could do them half asleep.

We could got out and about as much as I liked because I always had their food supply with me when others had to go home because they needed to make up another bottle.

Lots of babies wake this much regardless of how they are fed.

I’m feeding my 4th baby as I type. I’ve exclusively fed all of mine, so obviously I can’t compare, but I do know that, in terms of mental health, I have found it difficult being the only one able to feed the baby for that first 6 months. The tie of breastfeeding, mentally, is tough.

However, as the mother of slightly older children (primary aged), I think that knowing I breastfed them, has improved my mental health, as, when I’m finding things tough, I can assure myself I have tried my best by them.

But I have a poor relationship with my own mother, so a lot of this ‘need’ for assurance is internal, and I know not ‘real’ but something that I am grateful I have.

I’d love to see the response to a thread saying formula feeding is detrimental to maternal mental health.

I had a very frequent waker it wasn't anything to do with breastfeeding though he was just a crap sleeper literally every 45 mins he would wake!

We did gentle sleep training of stay and support and he stretched his sleep windows.
It's obviously worked our best for you to switch to bottle but for some women they find other ways which works best for them to cope be it gentle sleep training, co-sleeping or having a friend/family support network so they can catch up on sleep.
It's a complete myth formula makes them sleep better. DS2 was good at expelling this when I was very ill he actually woke up more!

Yawn. Yet another BF bashing thread about to start.

People should stop caring about what they perceive other people think about their parenting choices and do whatever works for them.

MN threads on BF vs FF aren't good for your mental health!

YANBU if your thread title said 'can be detrimental to maternal mental health' rather than 'is detrimental'.

My baby did want to feed 2-3 times a night when she was six months old, they both did... it was fine. It won't be for everyone and then they can stop if they want.

I don't really understand your point to be honest. Sometimes a hard thing is hard, sometimes it's not.

I mean, the stats and research disagree with you.

Also, ‘fed is best’ is the most bullshit statement. Fed is the bare minimum. Best is usually breastfed unless it’s really not working. We have some of the lowest BF stats in the world here so clearly this mythical huge stigma of formula feeding that everyone on here talks about is not much of a sticking point.

Do what you want, make the choices you want but false statements like your thread title just add to an already very low uptake of breastfeeding, something which some women, if they persevered through the initial phase of establishing, could find very easy and rewarding. But they’ll never get the chance to find out because so much of the narrative is so off putting.

At 6 months old you can night wean and just feed in the day.

I have mixed experiences and mixed feelings on BF so I certainly won’t dismiss what you are saying but of hand.

But specifically on this issue you raised about feeding through the night I slept mostly when my baby breastfed. He slept after feeds.

I found bottle feeding way way harder at night.

I think the often poor advice that is given about BF is often detrimental to maternal health. Anyone I know who confidently co-slept as part of BF, because that had been normalised as a part of BF for them, seemed to have the best outcomes in my experience.

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I loved breastfeeding! But I don't mean that smugly, as other aspects of motherhood have driven me demented

I don't like the narrative that if it's hard you can just bottle-feed, with the implication being that it must be that those who carry on must be the ones who find it easy. It is a sacrifice. The first year of breastfeeding is as many hours as a full-time job. It's hard sharing your body with a tiny human and putting someone else's needs ahead of your own constantly. Doesn't mean that it's not worth doing. I fed despite being very unwell and needing surgery, and I carried on when I returned to work full-time, deciding that the benefits to my baby outweighed the costs to me. They are little for such a short time.

This in spades 👏🏼

As a pp mentioned statistically successful breastfeeding is protective for maternal mental health. Trying to and not being successful is a risk factor for PND.

in a ideal world the mother would have no job other than to breastfeed; she would have meals provided to her, housework done for her, and nothing to do but co-sleep and feed.

of course that doesn’t tend to be happen in modern society and that’s part of the problem.

I do think a lot of health promotion and literature talks about breast milk and feeding without acknowledging the undertaking that involves from the mother.

It can be but you will be flamed for suggesting it. I gave up weeks after birth with both my children as I think I would've had a total breakdown otherwise. I realise not everyone finds it hard but it's exceptionally difficult to admit it's not for you or give up. People push and push you to keep going and make you feel selfish if you want to quit.

I also think there's an element of misogyny in it too tbh. It lets men completely off the hook. They don't have to get up and feed the baby and breastfeeding can be used as an excuse not to take paternity leave beyond the first two weeks.

No body would deny that there are proven benefits to breastfeeding but these aren't transformative in my opinion. A mother's mental well being needs to be considered alongside these and given a lot of weight. I found that advice I got on breastfeeding was very one sided and really didn't acknowledge that it could be difficult or value my mental health. No one tells you a about cluster feeding for example and that after the shock of birth and becoming a mum your baby may want to feed 24/7. Your hormones will be all over the place and you will be sleep deprived. This is a dangerous place for anyone who's experienced mental health issues.

I had a couple of decent health visitors who supported me giving up. One was a man. The other was aware I had anxiety and warned me that it could be exacerbated by breastfeeding. These were rare exceptions. Others told me that 'god created' me to breastfeed. Another kept repeating what a shame it was that I didn't 'stick' with it..