Breastfeeding and MN. Why so different to IRL?

[Gogogo12345]

I had read many many threads on here about the " restrictions" of breastfeeding. This morning is a child free wedding that the OP will apparently be EBF an 8 week old. This is a common theme. All these EBF babies.

Yet in real life there are only about half of babies that are still BF ( even partly)at all by 6-8 weeks
And only 1% EBF at six months

So why does it seem about99% of mumsnet babies are exclusively breastfed for months on end?

All my real life mum friends breastfed tbh I don’t know anyone who formula fed not that it’s a problem just an observation I think the figures are out of date

Because for weddings, when the bride sets out she wants a childfree wedding, and someone decides that doesn't apply to them and they want to guilt them into being allowed to bring their baby; saying they are EBF is essentially saying "my hands are tied" and puts the bride and groom in the position of looking like complete dicks if they say no.

Because people are more likely to post about challenges etc if the baby is BF.

Just thinking about the mothers I know, most break fed/are breast feeding beyond 6 months. My daughter is still BF her 7 month old. A friend BF until her child started school!

I saw somewhere it was very demographic dependant so therefore some areas rates are higher, some really low therefore you are more likely to see all of one or all of another.

This. It's not really that hard to figure out.

All my mum friends breastfeed too.

I agree with you OP. None of my circle did it, and I was adamant I wouldn’t. Wasn’t pressured by midwives neither, just got asked and the bottle feeding box was ticked on my notes.

Out of my 8 person NCT group, 1 formula-fed, 1 exclusively pumped, and everyone else breastfed.

But equally - there'd be no reason to start a thread about a formula-fed baby needing to go to a wedding, because the choice is clear. Baby can't go, so someone else feeds them, or Mum doesn't go. It's more complicated for a breastfed baby, because exceptions are often made, and nobody else can feed the baby easily.

MN demographics aren't representative of the general population. BF in the UK correlates with social class.

The figures are for 23/24 ,

and it is very much correlated with levels of maternal education. Women with degrees or post graduate qualifications are much more likely to breastfeed than women without.

I'm in the SW and have friends still BFing their 3 year olds. The BF rate here is v v high. I stopped feeding my first at 10 months and second at 7 months and am very much the minority

Interestingly back when I was in a baby club thread here on MN, we realised that the percentage of us on the thread who were still BF past 6 months was way higher than the stats. Maybe part of that is because people come on MN to seek support (I remember lots of Qs asked and tips offered about BF on the thread at the time), and often lack of support is a factor in why people stop BF?

I think it’s like the others said then must be location but I am in a relatively northern deprived area so that does suprise me and we always have chats about how cheap breastfeeding is maybe our midwives talk about that aspect haha

But also this. I'd never met anyone who breastfed before my lot. I hadn't considered it until we did NCT classes, which was mostly to make friends as we'd just moved to a new area at 34 weeks pregnant. It's very middle-class here and BF rates are high.

It's a demographic thing I think - MN tends to be wealthier and more middle class than the population at large, and those are the groups that are more likely to breastfeed.

FWIW, all of my friends EBF or breastfed with the odd bottle of formula. I can think of two who didn't, both of whom tried very hard on their first but it didn't work out.

Also there is a judgement element on here, so I can understand FFing mums not posting about it (which is a real shame). Plus, on a thread like the wedding one, BFing is relevant to the logistics, in that an EBF baby at that age can't be left, so given the OP herself mentioned BFing she needs to know that if the feeding works out, the wedding won't. FFing isn't a consideration as anyone can do the bottles, but obviously at that age lots of FFing mums wouldn't want to leave the baby anyway.

Everyone in my social circle has EBF until solids too, except 2 mums who had preemies - one needed a special type of milk right from the start, the other began mixed feeding a few weeks in due to digestion issues. I am actually more surprised at the “1% by 6 months” stat, which is not representative at all of what I see.

Edit to add - not currently in the UK, and here BF is not correlated with class. If anything it’s the opposite, wealthier families will usually FF as they can afford the extra cost.

Where do you see those statistics? I am seeing very different things when googling.

Anyway - agree that people are more likely to ask a question about something tricky, the subset of population who will find themselves somewhere called 'mumsnet' is self-selecting and the percentage of women breastfeeding varies wildly by area.

Personally I was still feeding by 6 months as was 99% of the mothers in my baby group. I only know a handful of people who were formula feeding at any point and they actually had more anxiety than anyone else due to the ridiculous judgement at baby groups etc.

Well if you start a thread about exclusively breastfeeding babies its going to a attract mother ,s that did just that.

Mumsnet is very unrepresentative of the population as a whole so you're looking at a very skewed sample that gives a misleading picture.

No baby is EBF or exclusively formula fed either at 6 months as that's when solids are introduced.

A six month old's main source of nutrition will still be milk, but the E does not apply.

The figures (which i think are from the NHS? Ive seen the 1% figure before I think) relate to exclusive BF from the breast. IIRC (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) there is a different figure for people who have formula top-ups and/or who bottle-feed expressed milk.

So the 1% still EBF at 6 months assumes that there is no bottle feeding yet at all (either formula or expressed) and that weaning has not yet started. My breastfed DC2 would be in that 1% - he is a bottle refuser and we started weaning shortly after he turned 6 months.

Do you think it is in anyway helpful, on that thread, to say to the Mum to be - well it doesn’t matter you will probably have given up by then?

Mine were both ebf at 8 weeks and, at that age, it does take a lot of time, it isn’t the same as ff and so people are answering to the OP that, should she be breastfeeding - as she plans to do - then this is the reality of it.

No the figures aren’t out of date. Bf rates are very low in the uk.

your personal experience of your friendship group does not extrapolate to the whole country.

in reality peer support is essential to the success of breastfeeding. If you know people who bf, if your mum and aunties bf, you have a sense of what’s normal. When everyone you know bottle fed and are saying the baby should only be feeding every 4 hours, should be sleeping through at 6 weeks, that your supply can’t be enough if they aren’t, why don’t you ff so we can all help out, you don’t know how much baby is getting, you might be starving her etc, (my experience) you switch to bottles because you trust and believe them, and are now worried your baby waking for feeds means you don’t have enough milk.

i know women still putting rusk in babies bottles at 6 weeks because their mum said it would help them sleep through. People take advice from those they know.

mumsnet figures will be skewed because posters are using the internet for advice, so are educating themselves on bf- they’re seeking out a bf peer group so they are more likely to successfully bf.

my mum is convinced bf is unhygienic and formula is better because it’s “scientifically designed” to contain everything baby needs. That’s what she was told when she had her children. So I found kellymom, and parenting websites like this and educated myself on bf, and successfully fed mine due to that knowledge. Had I not had those resources I would likely have taken everyone’s advice and bottle fed.

Interesting. Personally I'm working class. Had DC1 at 20. Breastfed for12 weeks HOWEVER she was at nursery after that

One of my DDs breastfed for 20 months even after returning to work at 5 months . She pumped milk for the DC. She's now had another and won't entertain the idea of BF at all

Another DD was very keen to bf. She lives in a pretty deprived area. When the baby was born with a tongue tie the health professionals were " oh just give him a bottle". Her eldest was bf for 5 months

So seems much variation even within one family