To wonder if giving any breast milk is that important?

[Tiredstressedmum]

Posting on AIBU for traffic.

I’m a FTM to a gorgeous ten day old.

Prior to delivery, DH and I did a lot of research into feeding. We both read a lot of studies and reached the conclusion that any potential benefits of BFing are likely to be marginal; we couldn’t find any conclusive swings in outcomes for BFing and found a lot of the outcomes were confounded out by factors such as socioeconomic status and parental behaviours. I reached the conclusion that I would try BFing but be quick to switch to formula if it wasn’t working for us, although secretly was confident it would work and I’d have one of those snuggly milky newborns all mumsnetters seem to have .

As it turned out, the birth did not go to plan and BFing was really hard; I don’t think LO ever had a feed (lots of latch issues) and was on top up formula from day 1. Feeding was becoming distressing for both of us and I could feel myself becoming very anxious, low and obsessive about it despite a lot of midwife support. On day four, DH bought formula and we had several days of bliss.

However, despite our previous research I felt (and still feel) wracked with guilt about being selfish and depriving LO of a good start. I decided to try pumping with good effect and have started replacing one or two bottles a day with breast milk. This sounds good in theory but LO is very unsettled after these feeds and ends up constantly crying (screaming) / taking top up breast milk until the next formula feed ‘resets’ her. I’m worried my attempts to assuage my own guilt are actually leaving her hungry and possibly causing digestive issues and discomfort.

I can’t find any information on how much breast milk is beneficial (have seen as low as 50 mL quoted a lot but no idea where this comes from) and whether my feeding regime is actually helping her in any way at all. AIBU to wonder whether giving her these bottles of breast milk is really helpful to her or whether I’m just complicating her feeding to make myself feel better?! It’s so psychologically difficult to be producing good milk for her and not giving it to her. Selfishly, I also fear judgement from other parents and professionals - I wish I could be wonderfully logical and rational like DH, who thinks formula is the best thing ever, but I’m just full of emotions and guilt and it’s stopping me enjoying my darling. Every time she cries (which is a fair bit because she’s a baby!) I end up crying too because I’m worried she’s hungry and I’ve deprived her, and DH ends up taking over.

Hi OP, I sympathise as I went through similar with both of my children (youngest is still a baby). One thing I did differently with baby 2 is I used nipple shields, she could latch fine then. I would stress I don't think they're as efficient as directly feeding in terms of milk transfer, she bf on demand and wasn't putting enough weight on, however I switched to mainly formula with a couple of feeds using the shields plus a morning bottle of expressed milk. She did great then and it didn't feel anywhere near as onerous as solely pumping did with my eldest (I stopped that at 4 weeks, my MH in tatters) and I managed to get to 10 weeks doing this combo relatively stress free, which is when I decided to move solely to formula. I used to take up the shields with me to bed so she went on the boob overnight to help milk supply and mean I didn't have to go downstairs to make a bottle.

Please do treat your mental health as a joint priority though. You're doing great, and the fact you are thinking these things and have made this post shows that.

Hi Op, please just go easy on yourself and don’t feel guilty. Breastfeeding doesn’t work for so many women and formula is life saving.

My son never ever latched. I also had a EMCS and struggled to get colostrum out, let alone milk. I tried for weeks and weeks to get him to latch but it never happened.

Ironically, it was an appointment with a feeding specialist that made me stop trying, as she was on about cutting a hole in the bottle, putting a tube in it and putting the tube in the baby’s mouth next to my breast so the baby would think my breast was the source of milk and start latching. Utterly ridiculous and I immediatey went ‘fuck this shit’.

I then pumped for 5 months but i could only get 40% of what he needed. It was exhausted also having to pump overnight and eventually gave up.

I’m pregnant again and i will try and get some colostrum out, but I will be going straight to formula after that.

FWIW, I was formula fed (after initial colostum) and my brother was breastfed for 6 months. Zero difference between us in terms of health and I have no eczema/asthma/allergies/hayfever. I’m no scientist but i believe health is more down to genetics and lifestyle, not who was breastfed.

Also @Xlap not everyone has other children and as for chores - what’s that person with the penis called again?

Could your baby be allergic to something you're eating that's coming through in the breastmilk? This was my issue

It sounds like you may actually want to breastfeed. If so please see a proper IBCLC certified lactation consultant. Midwives are in my experience well-intentioned but hopeless at helping with breastfeeding issues. I would also contact La Leche League if you haven't done so already. If you don't want to breastfeed give formula. In a few years you will probably not care how you fed your baby. This is just a moment in time. Wish you all the best.

I fully agree with this voice of reason.

Op, the fact you are so conflicted about this (going so far as to try to rubbish the WHO'S sources to justify yourself) tells me you do want to make a go of breastfeeding. As many pp have said, if you want to FF just do it. But I think perhaps you want to mix feed and are just struggling.

Veg out on the sofa/bed with your baby. Don't check the time, just lounge there for hours and try different feeding positions until you find the one that gives an easy latch. Try this for a few days. Housework can pile up, that's fine. Do FF top ups as needed. Skip showering if necessary. Get DH (or DM, DMIL) to fetch you everything. Co-nap. Relax. This worked for me and many mums I know, and moreover is part of the traditional postpartum "confinement" of many cultures.

If after a few days of this you're still struggling, you can FF knowing you tried and "forgive" yourself (obvs nothing to forgive, but your loud protestations and self-justifications make it seem like you feel you do).

If you do actually want to give breastfeeding a further shot, I would say only contact la leche league if you are goint to be given some f2f help. As i can say from my lockdown experience, breastfeeding advice on video calls is frustrating and useless.

Ironically, it was an appointment with a feeding specialist that made me stop trying, as she was on about cutting a hole in the bottle, putting a tube in it and putting the tube in the baby’s mouth next to my breast so the baby would think my breast was the source of milk and start latching. Utterly ridiculous and I immediatey went ‘fuck this shit’.

Actually this isn't ridiculous. My sister, who was struggling to BF, did this and it worked. She started combi feeding and went on to BF for 18 months and was super happy about that. Fair enough that it wasn't for you, but there is no need to ridicule methods that others might find helpful.

Breast milk is great stuff but all factors have to be considered. If mum and baby are happy with breastfeeding, then wonderful. But if it's not satisfying baby, causing stress or is difficult then it's better to switch to formula to avoid stress and upset. In my case, I tried to breastfeed both of my late sons and they passed away (unrelated to breastfeeding) before we got established. When I had my daughter earlier this year, the idea of breastfeeding gave me too many flashbacks so, for my mental health, I didn't even try. One midwife tried to shame me but no one else ever commented.

Mum needs to be happy and baby happy. If not,the benefits of breastmilk do not outweigh the negatives.

I think given the relentless breast is best mantra that's drilled into women while pregnant, it's totally understandable that you feel you should be giving your baby breast milk, even though logically you know they are happy on formula and as you said, differences are marginal. For me the big positives of breastfeeding are convenience when out, and cost, but it's only convenient for me because I am like a cow in the breast department and I enjoy not having to remember bottles etc. because I'm incredibly disorganised. The few times I've expressed milk it's felt like a chore and my baby seems to be equally happy with formula so that's what we do when I can't breastfeed.

Focus on the many benefits of formula feeding. It's great that feeding your baby can be shared. You don't have to consider boob access when you get dressed (especially good in winter). You can differentiate when your baby is hungry vs when your baby wants a cuddle. This is something I struggled with with DC1 who was exclusively breast fed. Back to the shared feeding thing. It really helps to equalise things in your relationship when your baby isn't solely reliant on you, both at night, because you can take shifts, and in the day if you fancy having a break and going out alone for a bit. Your baby will love you and thrive either way and have absolutely no memory of whatever you do. Your happiness is important. I hope once you've decided which way you want to go, and made your peace with that decision, then you can stop worrying. I would never, ever judge anyone for formula feeding as think it's a great choice, and if you feel people are giving you judgy looks when out, they're almost certainly just eyeing up your adorable baby.

I had a planned section as I knew my baby would be going strait to nicu on birth. That breast feeding was likely to be hard possibly to hard to continue due to babies health, that I may not be able to feed due to the trauma that we were likely to encounter after birth stopping my milk production. I had previously breast fed a child. My research led me to believe that colostrum was the most important gift I could give my baby ahead of the struggles they would face. I expressed that before the section and froze it so that baby could get some no matter what. Having a healthy feeding baby is important and, perfection impossible and plans are impossible with babies. I expressed for months and months in a hospital setting. Its hard, really, really hard, but it was good for my mental health because I couldn't care for my baby, the doctors had to do that, at least i was doing something. The thought of expressing to bottle feed while looking after a baby full time seems daunting if not impossible. Breast feeding to my mind is not compatible with routine feeding mixing the two much be a nightmare. Id say be pleased you have a healthy baby and let go of guilt about not giving breast milk. Enjoy your baby in your arms.

Also OP if you just wanna ditch the pumping (I mean that is commendable effort but it must be hard!) ditch it. People are saying use an (expensive) lactation consultant, call hotlines, try again at the breast etc. which absolutely do if you want to - but it’s also ok to say ‘fuck that shit’ switch to bottles and be done with it. You’re a new mum and it’s 100% fine if you wanna take things easy.

Yeah sorry, it was ridiculous for someone who was going through severe PND and PTSD after a traumatic birth in a pandemic who had got bugger sleep in weeks, along with midwives telling me to pump 8-12 times a day to keep my supply up. Sometimes things just push you over the edge and it needs to be acknowledge that a mother needs to rest rather than fannying about with tubes. Great it worked for your sister though.

There is a lot of nonsense talked by breast feeding zealots, OP.
My generation - the baby boomers - were majority formula fed, and we’re the longest lived, healthiest generation in history.
My own DDs, formula fed, have IQs in the 160s - top 1% of the population. They have no allergies, eczema or asthma, but both are university graduates with well paid careers and engage in many sports activities.
The research suggests that breast feeding is of marginal if any benefit, once you exclude confounding variables, except in third world countries with dirty water supplies and no way to sterilise formula feeds.
By the time children are at school, you cannot pick out any advantages of those that were breast fed. Don’t put yourself through hell, it’s completely pointless.

It feels like breastfeeding should be best and in an ideal world, it probably is. I definitely cried a lot about it with my first, and spent some miserable months pumping away when my daughter wouldn't/couldn't latch. I read everything about it and had a lot of help from midwives and lactation specialists. I had always planned to breastfeed and felt embarrassed not to. But once we were fully on formula, I was able to relax, enjoy time with my baby and bond with her properly. Someone said to me, "If you take a class of reception kids, you can't tell which were breastfed and which were formula fed." That helped me a lot! All things being equal, breast milk is best but it doesn't outweigh the misery of mental health issues or simply feeling stressed around your baby. Formula is really good and healthy for babies. Being fed is the important thing.

@Tiredstressedmum My baby is 7 weeks old and I have gone through what you are going through.
I started with EBF as both my partner and I suffer with bad gut and wanted to ensure we give baby best chance to have a good gut health.

I am writing down my whole experience so that you can see if you want to try what I did.

With in one week of birth, my breasts were bleeding ( bad latch) and baby was constantly crying. We were sent to A&E after day 8 appointment as baby was losing weight. Baby and I were put under observation for a night where I was asked to pump and I could pump 10ml in 4 hrs. Rule of thumb is Baby must be fed 1.5*baby weight for baby to gain weight. Mine was nowhere there. So baby was fed formula at night, to track if baby gains weight next day.
There was no weight gain but the rate of loss was less. Luckily we ended up seeing a NHS lactation consultant before I got discharged and she helped us immensely.

The latch got better immediately after that. The rule was breastfeed, pump and if she is hungry, supplement with pumped and then if she is still cranky, give formula. Formula made baby sleep for longer so pump when baby is sleeping so that you keep up the supply.

I stared supplementing with formula. Formula stared giving gas and baby was unsettled for hours. With some home remedies, we managed to get baby settled. The hassle for washing bottles and pump and sterlising was putting me off using pump and bottles.

At the same time I did a baby moon for 2 weeks. I and baby were in a room for 2 weeks with lots of skin to skin and I got myself all lactation supporting food items, yeast, molasses oats etc. With constant breastfeeding , pumping,my supply did get better and I was able to wean off formula.

I am still pumping. 3 am is the golden hour where I can pump a lot, even after a feed. I'm travelling for 3 months in October and want to bring her to full breastfed , no pumping, to make travel easier.
I will still carry all the items, in case travel impacts the supply.

You could try some.of the things and see if it works for you. My main motivation was gut health and ease, especially with travel, to keep at it.
Also I read Science of Mom. The author is a researcher, and she has referenced a lot of trials/studies in the book. It might make your work easier, in future.

When DD lost too much weight at 7 days old and I had to pump/combine with formula for 3 days solid to get her fat and my supply up (as no one had bothered to tell me my traumatic birth and blood loss affected supply until 7 days later 🙄) the midwife said “pump 12 times a day for 30 minutes “ I said “I’m sorry and I am supposed to sleep when exactly?”. But as it was only for 3 days I stuck it out but bugger me I wouldn’t have lasted a minute longer, I’d have lost my mind entirely.

Yes and no - the bacteria in the gut change quite a lot at weaning as all the bacteria up to that point are there to digest milk.

When babies start eating other food the gut transitions to bacteria that digest plant matter, meat etc - the community of bacteria to deal with this becomes more established over time which is why the first foods often come out the other end looking barely digested.

Gut bacteria need to be fed - they digest the things we eat, and that's what keeps them going. The bacteria established during breastfeeding are still present in the gut when you start eating other foods, but if you eat nothing but crap that will feed other bacteria and they will be a greater proportion of the overall community.

Probiotics can introduce good bacteria but if you have a community initiated in early life and maintained by a good diet, that will continue. It's about fibre as well as fermented foods - good old wholefoods and unprocessed fruit and veg.

The whole thing is immensely fascinating and complicated, because bacteria also function in communities among themselves, so they impact each other. They are linked to inflammatory responses which underlie a lot of disease.

There's a concept of 'first colonisation' - the first bacteria that enter the gut kind of claim it and often stay there for life. If you're born by c-section you might be colonised by bacteria hanging around in the hospital, if you're born vaginally you will probably end up consuming a bit of maternal faecal matter on the way out and being colonised by the her gut bacteria. If you are breastfed then the milk contains HMOs that provide food for those beneficial maternal bacteria and help them to grow.

What this adds up to is kind of common sense - eat a healthy diet and you'll be more likely to be healthy. Mode of birth, mode of feeding, use of antibiotics that clear out the whole lot of your gut microbia etc - they can all interfere with the microbiome but none of them are 100% the thing that makes you healthy or not healthy.

Formula companies are spending lots of money attempting to see if they can produce the HMOs found in breastmilk to make formula closer to human milk, which would be no bad thing. But it's very complicated because human milk varies through the course of breastfeeding, the course of a single feed, the course of a day. And it has thousands of components we don't fully understand yet, some of it is might be junk left behind through evolution, similar to having an appendix.

Faecal transplantation is being attempted in some places to introduce the bacteria from one healthy person's gut to an unhealthy person's gut to combat things like inflammatory bowel disease, which tells you how important it is.

Exactly. I only managed about 7 times a day with help from my DH because he was wfh during lockdown. It was hell. I actually raised that whole ‘12 times a day’ think in my hospital complaint as it’s honestly like midwives just care about breastfeeding and give zero fucks about the mother’s wellbeing.

I'd suggest going to a bf support group. They won't be judgemental and will have had training to give you more evidence based guidance than some of the comments on here. They are there to support mums with their breastfeeding goals. If yours is to explore possible reasons why breast milk may not be working for your baby or perhaps reassure you they'll support your with that. If it's to move her onto formula either now or later, they'll help you with that. They can give guidance on bottle feeding too.

You're the longest lived because of medical advances. Not because of formula.

I completely agree, postnatal care is shocking and women are treated like cattle not humans. Awful.

There just isn't enough information about combi feeding. The breastfeeding fanatics make it an all or nothing thing. I combi fed fir 20 months. I couldn't handle cluster feeding in the evening and replaced that with formula. Look into giving the breastmilk at a time that baby is slightly hungry instead of ravenous. I have no research to back it up but if breast milk is filled with good stuff then it's still filled with good stuff when they drink formula as well. By the time they're 3 they all eat shitty stuff anyway. You'll end up wondering why you were so strict about the first few months anyway.

I think the issue is bad advice and overworked midwives. My experience was that the midwives gave very poor BFing support even though I really wanted to BF. They were super keen for me to move onto formula to avoid having to spend more time on it, or investigating/ treating the tongue tie I could see DD had. In fact they gave DD formula against my wishes when grabbing my breast and forcing it into screaming DD's mouth, surprisingly, didn't work to establish a latch. I only got decent advice once I was out of hospital and could seek my own, and from there it went really well. They gave zero fucks about my wellbeing OR breastfeeding and just wanted me out of hospital to clear the bed.