To be sick of the breast is best brigade?

[Bex5490]

Currently sat in a maternity waiting room, waiting to be told that I have a condition which I’ll need to take another round of antibiotics for. Which as I’m breastfeeding will probably give my 1 month old baby ANOTHER round of visibly uncomfortable oral thrush.

There is a video on the TV screen about how everyone should breastfeed playing on loop and what a bloody wonderful thing it is…

With my last baby I had such bad mastitis and suffered through until it was unbearable. The only advice my midwife ever offers now or offered then was keep going with the breastfeeding because…breast is best.

One of my friends had a low milk supply and her baby screamed day and night almost giving her a nervous breakdown until she reluctantly gave in and guiltily offered the baby a bottle.

I know I don’t want to keep giving my baby thrush through the antibiotics or pump all day for a smidgen of milk…so I’m going to switch to formula but something inside still feels guilty and like I’m not doing right by my baby because of the 9 months of people chiming on about how…breast is best.

For the sake of a mother’s mental health surely the message should be a bit more nuanced…

OK - Probably hormonal and living on chunks of 2 hr naps. Rant over!

I just tried to reply to that to tell them they were being goady and to stop but their comment was deleted before I could quote it

This was in response to the ‘FF is selfish’ comment

Ok fair enough. I apologise.

I agree with this somewhat. I currently give DD 1 bottle of formula a day when DH has her (and I shower and have a couple of hours to myself).

All her other feeds are BF. I figured this out myself as a great method for me to both BF and feel human during these early stages. Maybe if I had have been more knowledgeable with first baby about my options I would have figured something like this out rather than just completely stopping.

And I face palmed it because it has already been said multiple times on this thread, adds absolutely nothing to the conversation and is rounded off with a ‘end of’ - I.e. let’s shut the conversation down because I have given a verdict of ‘fed is best’
It was a pointless comment

NP

Absolutely agree that combi feeding should also be supported if that’s the best choice

i reported - it was a previously banned poster

a woman exercising her right to bodily autonomy is NOT selfish. NEVER.

END OF.

Absolutely spot on

I tried bf but because I nearly died, lost lots of blood and couldn't produce enough milk, I had to mix feed. With my 2nd, my milk supply just wasn't enough, so what's the point of getting all irate over something that was beyond my control?

Mothers mentally berating themselves over this when there is just no need to, this debate always turns in to a massive bun fight on here when it doesnt need to because fed is best, end of!

I agree with this observation. I have seen some of the insane tictoks where every post is a record of how much the woman has collected. Competitive breast pumping is defo a thing in the US.
Do they also sell it on?
Just another example of the “influencer “ at work.
I have wondered whether it also feeds some of the fetish market aswell.

I’m sorry you had to go through that. And I completely agree that there is no need for a bun fight or people feeling guilty or for us to attack each other for our choices but, if you read the thread, there have been some spot on comments from both FF and BF moms about support that they desperately wanted and didn’t get. That’s worth a discussion in my opinion - not a ‘fed is best end of’ comment.

I get that, but no amount of hand holding would have changed my milk flow. Yes, getting help is a great thing but when all said and done, the most important thing is that baby is fed.

The poster who used the word 'selfish' was just being goady and was rightfully deleted. But I think it raises an interesting perspective. We hear the word as negative, but it doesn't have to be. It just means to put yourself first, and in this context, making a decision in the interests of themselves, the mother. But a mother making a decision in her own best interests, is very often in the best interests of the baby too, as illustrated by many, many good examples even just on this thread alone. I breastfed my children, but my decision could equally be called selfish in this context. I made the decision based on what I imagined would work well for me, as well as my babies, for many reasons, including ease of feeding (after the initial start-up challenges of course), sped-up weight loss (I hoped), and a few others.

We make the decisions that are right at the time, and over the course of the last decade, I've made plenty of decisions that have put my children first, and some that have put myself first. The result is that we have a happy, healthy (physically and mentally) family.

Of course it wouldn’t have but there are a great many women out there who want to BF and probably could BF if they had access to some practical support. I can’t imagine a woman who is struggling to BF and tries to access support would be ok with just being told ‘fed is best end of’ and sent on her way 🤷‍♀️
Not the mention the fact that there has been a lot of misinformation on this thread (about both Formula and Breastmilk) that needed to be countered.
It is all worthy of a discussion and a discussion can absolutely be had without it resorting to a bun fight

I completely agree with this!

But it's not always best for the baby.. there are many circumstances where it's not.

I find it so odd that people are disbelieving that mothers natural milk meets a babies needs, better than a highly manufactured powder made of bovine milk. Isn’t it just obvious??

I've never heard of a child (or adult) who is unwell as they were bottle fed rather than breast fed.

Do what's best for you!

Some very ignorant and poorly trained/educated midwives there then!

@Somethingsnappy thankbyou for your empathetic reply.

I did BF from the breast 97% of the time but the 3% there was expressed bottled was whenever I needed/wanted to be away from the baby.

It’s not as simple as just going out and your baby taking a bottle from whoever is watching them and off you go. oh no! You either have to have enough saved expressed milk ready to be given or even if you give them formula then there’s the other caveat. You will get engorged if you miss a feed. So either a pump needed to make yourself comfortable or you leak unless you have breast absorbers in. Or even if you have milk catchers (I did) you gotta find a place to empty it. So the. Your halfway through a meal out for a ‘break’ yet your either in a toilet cubicle pumping, sitting with painful engorged breasts with blocked ducts or having milk leaking through your top in public. Sometimes all of the above. all just to have a ‘break’ for a few hours.

I couldn’t even have a long nap to catch up on sleep without sleeping on several towels I’d soak through and waking up to painful engorged breasts.

This may just be a ‘me’ problem as for some bizarre reason I have a massive oversupply both this time and with the last baby.

It’s just not my bag. But I’m glad I did it these past 3 months but my goodness I am so happy I stopped (today!).

Hats off to every mother who does BF because it ain’t easy and you guys are selfless, strong and determined! X

‘Sharing their breasts with a baby’. Right. You do realise that breasts are intended for feeding human milk to human
babies?

And vaginas are there to be penetrated, to follow your reductionist view.

I dont know why women who cant breastfeed are lumped together with women who dont want to. Those who can't, can't - there is no debate and no shame. Women who dont want to, on the other hand,to me are selfish. If you can't put the needs of your child before yourself when they are a tiny , helpless newborn, then when will you? It really doesn't bode well for the future parenting that child will receive.