To lose my temper at MIL

[SwordToFlamethrower]

A while ago, we decided to give MIL the benefit of the doubt. She helped us out with IVF and has been trying her best to be nice after years of being rude, offensive, and judgmental towards me.

We've welcomed her into our home and she enjoys her new granddaughter.

Last time she visited at Christmas, she voiced her "concerns" that I was still breastfeeding my DD who was 13 months old, saying that there is no nutritional value and that cow's milk is better. This went on for half an hour and instead of getting angry, we calmly explained how she was wrong and milk has health benefits for 2 years and more if both mother and baby are still happy to do it. This was while she was sat right next to me as I was nursing.

Other things happened during that 3 day visit too, but I held myself in check to be nice. But I was very glad when she left.

Fast foward to last night and MIL phoned to say hi. DH had the phone on loudspeaker as he was cooking and he whispered "shall I tell her?" And i whispered back, "ok what's the worst she can say?"

So DH told MIL that I'd just had a miscarriage.

Well, I did say what's the worst she could say, didn't I?

The first thing out of her mouth was "oh no! Well you know it probably happened because OP is STILL breastfeeding".

I lost it at that point and told her that her comments were rude, offensive and wrong.

She said she was just being "dispassionate" about it.

I said we never asked for her to be dispassionate, we told her because she is interested in our lives and thought she would be sympathetic. Not blame me for my own miscarriage because I'm still breastfeeding!

After another half an hour on the phone, she finally backed down and apologised.

I'm typing on my phone so I can't open a poll, sorry!

AIBU to grey rock her from now on

Or should I have known better and expected her to say something awful, therefore it isn't her fault?

Go no contact. That is unforgivable. I'm so sorry OP.

Unforgivable. I’m sorry for your loss

I’m sorry for your loss. You did amazingly well not to just hang up on her. I think grey rocking her would be very reasonable.

I'm sorry for your loss but I think you've already had plenty of proof that she is not someone to go to with emotionally charged issues. You can't keep doing the same thing and expecting her to change - you need to protect yourself by keeping her at arms length.

Eh???

Do you any research to back that up?!

She was absolutely wrong. BF a child over 6 months (complementary feeding) carries no increased risk of miscarriage.

@Dancingtuna please can you share these facts. I just spent a few minutes googling and all articles contradict that. So where is your info from?

Google is available to everyone but here you go

“The miscarriage rate was higher when mothers exclusively breast-fed during pregnancy (35%)”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31524957/

She sounds like a fucking idiot to be blunt and I would have no more to do with her. You wouldn’t accept a friend or co worker treating you like this so why should it be any different.

she wants to see your child then your husband sorts it, else where and out of your house. You shouldn’t be forced to spend birthdays or Christmas etc with her. You husband should 100% have your back and see what a vile person she is although I understand it’s more difficult for him to cut her out but he should definitely back your decision to not see her.

This research say there is an increased risk when exclusively breasting feeding. The OP says her daughter was 13 months old at Christmas so she won’t be exclusively breast feeding.

Your “evidence “ relates to EBF which is pretty unlikely in OPs case.

I couldn’t forgive or forget @SwordToFlamethrower and wouldn’t want anything to do with her

Exclusively breast fed. As in, fed an infant under 6 months, providing their sole source of nutrition. Read your own links and try to acquire some emotional intelligence.

I have also spent a few minutes googling and found some articles saying it does and some saying it doesn’t. It certainly seems to be the case that in the past (possibly MIL’s generation) that women were advised to stop breastfeeding if they became pregnant, although it could be that this is outdated thinking now.

Google is available to everyone but pretty pointless if you don't actually read and comprehend what you google.

As a general principle, I think it's always unreasonable to lose your temper.

But in this case, I think you were entirely justified. Your MIL is crass and insensitive.

So sorry for your loss.

Even if mil wrote a 'factual' book about her beliefs she should have kept her big gob shut...

So you didn't actually read the article you've linked to then?

If you had even read the abstract, never mind the whole article, it is clear that the increased rate of miscarriage is only evident when exclusively breastfeeding. Given the op's child is now 15 months I very much doubt the dc is being exclusively breastfed.

In fact, the article states that the rate of miscarriage is actually lower for those who practise complementary feeding (14%) than those not breast feeding at all (15%).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10674114/
2023 Literature review.

“The results revealed that breastfeeding during pregnancy appeared to be unrelated to pregnancy outcome and miscarriage risk, notwithstanding the need for caution in women at risk of preterm birth and high-risk pregnancies.”

A quick google search means nothing unless there’s some rigour underpinning how results are framed.

And OP, I’d cut down the info train. MIL doesn’t need to know what’s going on in your life,

There are also increased risks regardless, it’s just higher when EBF.

Actually, they used to think you couldn't get pregnant, so extending beast-feeding was used as 'contraception'.
Of course, pregancies while breastfeeding should have exploded the myth, but some still believe it

Love how a factual comment with a link to a study is removed on here

people asked for research and I merely gave one piece

there is plenty more out there, it’s a controversial subject and lots has been done around it over the past 20 years