So is formula milk UPF?

[bumgripes]

It is, right? I mean, the ingredients list certainly is. And it’s listed on the BBC website as an UPF.

Going to be interested to see if this influences the BF/FF debate now that it looks like awareness of UPF is about to skyrocket. Does it even matter when they’re only on it for about a year? Does that fact that it’s an UPF actually add any info to the pre-existing evidence on BF/FF?

I don't know if it is or not, but I fed mine formula with no adverse effects.

Obstetric consultants aren't taught about infant feeding. Also are you sure he actually said that because it's clearly rubbish. Maybe you misunderstood. Or maybe he was referring to mothers on particular medication or something?

Exactly.

I have formula fed since birth simply because I didn't want to breastfeed. This means I have no guilt so the judgemental comments roll right off of my back but I definitely feel for those who tried and for whatever reason, it didn't work on these threads.

No axe to grind here as I fed mine formula but that kind of anecdote is just like saying that you know someone who smoked but lived to be 98... Or you never wear a seatbelt and have been fine.. it doesn't mean anything apart from that formula isn't obviously detrimental to every single baby who drinks it

choose the easy way out

Fuck this to infinity and beyond. One of the most offensive things I've ever read on Mumsnet. Vile.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

@SouthLondonMum22 I agree tbh. I breastfed both my kids for 2 years each and just weaned my 2 year old due to pregnancy and honestly this baby I'm about to have I've chosen to formula feed. I'm taking the easy way out myself.

I'm being hypocritical but I also know it's not because I "can't I'm choosing this time not to do it myself

Fair play. I do wonder why there can't be a middle ground where everyone knows breast is best but at the same time there's a more sensible response if people can't make it work. One can objectively know breast is best but not be devastated or heartbroken if it doesn't work out, surely? It just seems a trivial thing to get so distressed about. I mean there could be many reasons why formula makes more sense for a particular baby or family. If FF means the parents don't split up, or the mother gets enough sleep, that probably outweighs the benefits of BF in many cases.... And that's not to mention the medical reasons why there may be difficulties. There are so many worse things than feeding a baby formula. I really don't understand why people care so much.

I think people care because when a baby is so tiny, one of the only things you can do for them is feed them, so feeding takes on a disproportionate importance as it takes so much time and can occupy a lot of thought. When a baby just eats and sleeps and you can't do the eating part the way you wanted, it's upsetting and when you are already vulnerable, it can become something of a trigger point.

I had problems with both DDs in getting feeding established. My first I pumped for around 8 weeks till she could latch. My second I got a breast abscess. But the thought of not breastfeeding was very upsetting to me and I couldn't bear the idea that I would have to stop and use bottles, not for any logical reason, but just an emotional one as I always envisaged myself breastfeeding and it was something I really wanted to do.

I managed to keep going with both, but had I had to stop I probably would have found that very upsetting, even if logically I knew it was 'fine'.

Oh come on with your silly snide remarks and ‘picked on a pregnant woman’ rubbish. She didn’t say she was pregnant until the last post. She wasn’t picked on and she was carrying on and on and failing to listen or think about anyone else’s feelings.

And as for the thread topic, it was very clearly going to upset women who couldn’t breastfeed to get them thinking about how the formula they had no choice but to feed their infant with is even worse for them than we’re constantly told. So piling in with how wonderful you found breastfeedjnf was insensitive at best. Excusable if you’re new to MN and unaware of how some other women feel. But to die in a ditch about it once things are explained to you is going to get a reaction.

Hi, all. We know full well how emotive this subject is, but please do try to post with the Talk Guidelines in mind so that the discussion can continue. Mumsnet is here so that we can support each other as parents, not attack each other.

I think you need to take your bitterness elsewhere. I'm sorry you had a traumatic experience but its not my fault, nor my problem how you take my comments the wrong way.

Thank god you are not someone I know in rl.

Oh heck, sorry.

That sensitivity coming through in spades there. The other poster is meant to restrict what she says about her feelings on a general-interest thread just in case someone else who could be upset with it might read it, but you can pick and pick away at someone as much as you like, because you can't possibly be expected to know she might have any particular vulnerabilities.

This.

Thanks for your one-sided feedback. I’ll give it the consideration it deserves.

So is tofu. So are all non-dairy milks. Yet Japanese people who consume these things in massive quantities are the healthiest and longest lived in the world.

I'm entirely neutral in the whole argument; was just struck by your repeated unpleasantness to the point of commenting. Take that as you will.

I think because in that moment when you are exhausted, overwhelmed and more emotional than normal it does feel very important. I think years later, some will probably reflect that maybe it wasn't that important in the long run, especially because it is such a tiny part of parenting overall but it's easy to be more rational and objective when you're on the other side, not exhausted and maybe also feel more confident as a parent.

So I can see why emotions can be heightened and someone may feel really upset about it, especially if they are told things like they just didn't try hard enough or they took the easy way out.

What a disingenuous comment. There is a huge difference between producing milk and breastfeeding, as demonstrated by the low breastfeeding rates in the UK. If breastfeeding were as simple as just producing milk, then the vast majority of mothers would probably be doing it.

Very strange comment. And yes huge difference

You don't get to tell women how they feel, how they should feel, or what matters to them. One of the hardest things about breastfeeding is, whenever things were in any way difficult, as they usually are initially, people told me not to bother - just use formula, it's fine, she'll be fine - with no consideration of the fact I wanted to bf, yes for my baby but also for ME - I wanted that experience and was willing to work hard to have it, and having the work I was doing constantly pissed on and told it didn't matter and wasn't worth it was so fucking invalidating, as if all I was was an adjunct to a baby now and what I wanted didn't matter.

Because most women aren't exclusively breastfeeding in hospital discharge because they are given terrible advice, they aren't given evidence based support early and often, they are are not enough milk banks, there is poor community support, there is a lack of understanding of how breastfeeding works so advice is given which makes breastfeeding harder, there is poor Under of drug interaction and breastfeeding, there is significant predictors marketing (not only formula companies but pump companies and lactation biscuits/teas etc,) I could go on and on about the barriers but they are significant.

I think this is it.

I remember saying to anyone who asked when pregnant that I’d like to breastfeed, was going to do my best but wouldn’t beat myself up about it if it didn’t work.

But when it happened and I couldn’t produce a drop, after a pregnancy that was impacted by COVID/ lockdowns etc and a birth that was quite traumatic and ended in EMCS and both me and DD having sepsis, and I had to stay in for nearly a week and then brought my baby home during lockdown again and couldn’t have visitors or access much support - it just became this huge, magnified thing. I couldn’t talk about it without crying till my baby was well over 1, it really really affected me.

Plus I so wanted to be the gentle, attachment style parent and I wanted to do the whole Sarah Ockwell Smith thing but it all seemed to be contingent on you breastfeeding - certainly in a lot of the online spaces I was looking at because , again, there wasn’t much real life support available due to Covid.

And what happens on threads like this is you always get people saying ‘oh don’t be silly most women CAN breastfeed they just choose not to’ - as we’ve already seen with the comments about taking the easy way out on here, and whilst they do still sting a bit now I can mostly ignore them because I do recognise my response was disproportionate. If I’d read them at the time though they might just have tipped me over the edge.

It’s so bloody patronising and sneery and smug - this assumption that what women are telling you about their experiences isn’t really true, that really they could have breastfed if they’d just tried that bit harder, if they’d just cared as much as you did but, sigh, not everyone can be as good a mother as you. Maybe that’s not what people mean when they post this ‘women just give up too easily’ stuff but it’s definitely how it comes across when you’re in the tried but failed camp.

Thank fuck I’m through the other side now because the UPF thing would have massively impacted me. Now I know that I did the only thing I could and the best thing for my child and honestly I wish I’d taken the ‘easier’ option a lot bloody sooner and not wasted so much of those first precious weeks on a losing battle, and then so many of the following ones being so bloody sad about it.

To be honest I'm less interested in what people choose to feed their babies. In the cast majority of cases, the babies will be fine either way and will know what they get given and that will be their normal and just fine for them.

I also don't give a stuff if women make a conscious decision to formula feed. In fact I bloody love those women and am always happy when they show up on a bf/FF thread, because so often the narrative is around "I tried to bf and couldn't, so don't talk about bf or FF or anything because it is TOO UPSETTING" and given the numbers of women who try and can't bf it makes it seem like this impossible task to people trying to find out more. If more people were confident to say "I positively chose this, it was the right choice for me and that's fine" it would be good news for FF mums, bf mums, and mums to be whatever choice they either make or is thrust upon them.

What I worry about are all the women I've met and spoken with who really, genuinely, desperately wanted to breastfeed and were unable to not because of any medical issue with them or the baby but because of zero support, zero bf culture, shoddy and incorrect advice, and cultural pressure to "let dad join in with feeding", "get her on a bottle so you can have your body back (usually with a view to giving it to someone else)", "get her on a bottle so she can have overnights with granny", "get her on a bottle so she'll sleep through the night", "get her on a bottle now she's got teeth/can eat/can talk/some other bullshit milestone"... And of course hostility when feeding out and about from people who say they are "whacking them out", "making a show of themself", etc, etc. Women who couldn't breastfeed basically for reasons that have nothing to do with breastfeeding, but to do with the fucking parlous state of understanding and acceptance of breastfeeding in this country (a situation brought about at least in part through decades of aggressive formula marketing).

That's why I get involved in these discussions. And why I think it is important to talk about the positives of breastfeeding, and the risks of formula, and the differences between the two - not to hurt mothers who couldn't breastfeed, but to help mothers who want to.