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?

I'm always interested to know how the 1% is calculated. My DS had formula for the first week of his life as he was in special care but then I breastfed until he was 14 months. I wonder if there are quite a few cases like that?

2/3 of my nct group.did it for over a year. The others did at the start but had medical issues that got in the way. V v middle class cohort though!

You can never guarantee that you will be doing ANYTHING with babies of course.seeing as the baby isn't even born yet you can have no idea how feeding will go. The wedding post was just a pure Example I pointed out mine were breastfed for 12 weeks, 7 months and 5 months ( not exclusively on 3rd) so how does that tally with the comment that I don't think people do?

Maybe someone's already mentioned this, but I remember something that in the U.K. a baby is only recorded as being EBF if they are literally 100% breastfed. So if you give them a bottle of formula in the first week and never do again, the baby is recorded as not EBF.

If that's true, then it might explain the low figures vs how many women speak about having a breastfed baby

Yeah I have observed this too. I don’t know anyone who breast feeds apart, from the lady who does my nails and she only done it for 6 months. I didn’t get any pressure from the midwives, they just asked bottle or breast and I said bottle and that was that.

DS1 would have fallen foul of that definition before we were even out of HDU. I managed to establish BFing and we fed for 13m, but my milk was slow to come in due to a traumatic birth, he was exhausted with low blood sugars and the first week was just a battle to get any milk into him by any means possible.
I gave him one bottle of formula in desperation a 5 months and that triggered head to toe eczema, and a couple of weeks later he had a dramatic allergic reaction to cows milk in "baby porridge". The fact that he was BFed as his primary nutrition as he weaned to solids in that the NHS was spared having to prescribe prescription formula for him.

DS2 like DS1 didn't meet the criteria of EBF at 6m because he started stealing food off our plates at 23 weeks. He was BFed until 20 months.

It's a weirdly prescriptive definition that renders itself statistically uninformative.

That's not the impression I get from Mumsnet when I have posted. They don't even have a breastfeeding talk topic. It's called 'infant feeding' or something, so I don't really consider it a good place to ask about breastfeeding as people show up and say ' just give formula's which is obviously not the advice you would get at La Leche League for example.

If anyone posts about feeding a toddler on here, forget it. I've seen some shocking responses. People saying 'no child needs to breast feed at that age.' 'thats ridiculous, just wean them.' so there are loads of people who don't understand about breastfeeding toddlers or breastfeeding in general. I wouldn't consider Mumsnet a safe space for breastfeeding questions at all.

I can't believe it's less than 1%. Even if it's in bubbles of middle class women, it's more than that. Really sad that outside those bubbles there's a culture of saying 'just give them a bottle'. You don't need to pressure women but bf should at least be presented as a viable option.

Lots of reasons. Firstly, I imagine lots of Mumsnetters find the site when they are struggling with their newborn with something - for me at least that thing was beastfeeding. You need more help and advice to breastfeed so more likely to be here in the first place. And bottle feeders are less likely to ask about help for that specifically. So you get breastfeeding mothers here asking for advice. And people who breastfed giving it.
Also, lots probably intend to breastfeed who don't for long for various reasons. Of my NCT group of 7 all of us tried. 3 made it past the 6 months. Others had to stop for various reasons. And one of the ones who did continue was pumping at work, doggedly determined to when i'm certain most wouldn't. Obviously an NCT group isn't representative in itself of pregnant women - you have to pay and the focus is on 'natural'

Yes I'm wondering when some of these posters gave birth. Even ten years ago the advice would have been different. Nowadays, where I live, you would never get away with just saying 'bottle' to the midwives. They would put pressure on you and educate you on the facts.

I am the only one in our family who used formula from day one so another family variation.

Im degree educated with additional post grad qualifications and from a high income household so another variant from some of the information posters have used.

In real life no one is in the least interested in how you feed your baby, it’s a Mumsnet obsession.

I'm always interested to know how the 1% is calculated. My DS had formula for the first week of his life as he was in special care but then I breastfed until he was 14 months. I wonder if there are quite a few cases like that?

There were a lot like that even in bf friendly area I had first in with more straight froward situations. Friends who got stuck on nightmare post natal wards who gave a formula bottle so they could just get out and go home and then sort bf at home and often did it for months if not over a year.

I feel so sad to read about women getting pressure/comments about BF that made them stop.

The only people who should have a say in when BF stops are the baby and the mother.

I'd say it is a lot to do with demographics. BF rates vary considerably according to location across the UK and with other factors including educational level. There will be areas where breastfeeding is far commoner than the national average and others where it is much lower. The MN demographic is skewed to the former. It's the same reason that there are far more posts about private education than you'd expect if MN was actually representative of the population as a whole, and why there are so many posters who think that everyone's DC do 12 GCSEs when the government data shows that's actually pretty unusual.
Plus there is the tendency for people to post about subjects they have experience of or feel strongly about so there's a concentration of opinion. Then there's fact that there's a wide age range of posters. I breastfed all my children for years but the youngest is 19 now so it's a very long time since I appeared in any statistics. I do still reply to bf threads sometimes though as I can sometimes offer relevant advice. There are a lot of women here who have breastfed but are not currently breastfeeding but they still contribute to threads.
And I expect there are at least a few who aren't telling the truth but I doubt that's the major reason.

I agree BF rates in the UK are low. But I'm not sure that the stats are accurate either. I remember commenting to friends that I wasn't asked the question by my HV at checks beyond a few weeks and the box in my child's red book was left blank. Friends had the same experience.

I agree that it depends on the demographic. Most mothers I know were still breastfeeding at the stage. And many continue for years. Some that continue for years are too scared to discuss it openly for fear of judgement, so you're not always aware.

I think the wedding issue is a common occurance. Because of our low BF rates, mothers that FF from birth and women that do not have DC often presume you can 'just give baby a bottle'. I actually heard a similar conversation at the hairdressers a few weeks back, with a pregnant lady discussing her best friend's wedding, she had been asked to be a bridesmaid but her baby was not invited.

Exactly. Come to think of it, my DC1 wouldn't count as EBF under these stats. I kept passing out after he was born so his very first feed after birth was formula whilst the docs sorted out my blood pressure. I then went on to EBF him until 6 months and continued BF until he was 18mo.

Do you not think people do their own research on how they want to feed their baby? Midwives shouldn’t be pressuring any parent.

Yes very similar and actually quite annoying to not be in the ebf statistic as I was really proud of our bf journey after a difficult start! It can't help women in general who do want to breastfeed to have such a low statistic. Also loads of women combi feed and it's not recognising that!

It has to do (broadly speaking) with things such as socioeconomic strata and/or cultural mores in various demographics.

In your circle very few women breastfeed, so it seems unlikely to you that many women breastfeed, whereas in mine almost everyone does so for an extended period.

On MN the breastfeeding group will likely be more visible as they might want or need more support.

I myself breastfed my eldest for one year and my youngest for 18 months.

I am still breastfeeding 2 year old :)

And only 1% EBF at six months

This kind of misses the point. When you put it next to the figure for 6-8 weeks, it sounds like “by 6mo most mothers would have switched to formula”. In fact, the figure for 6 mo EXCLUSIVE bf is such because most babies start solids at or just before 6 months.

When I went for my 8 week check my GP
was gobsmacked i was still breastfeeding, and my baby hadn’t had formula.

kept asking did I give top ups. No. Did I give formula after a feed, no. Has she had any formula. No. Does husband give a night feed. No.

so I figure in that area bf past 6 weeks is pretty unusual.

The figures are skewed by the fact that if you give your baby half a bottle of formula at any point in the first 6 months, that baby is statistically no longer ebf. My baby took 1 bottle once and refused every time after that (hundreds) so I bf for all other feeds other than that bottle. For the purpose of going to that wedding I would be saying my baby is ebf not combi fed. If they don’t take a bottle they can’t be bottle fed….

1% does surprise me, if that is actually accurate - I have my doubts. When I'm out and about with my son at toddler groups, I hardly ever see FF babies being fed bottles. I most commonly see babies being breastfed, at a few months old. My son was breastfed until he was 2 years, 10 months (exclusively - I take it you mean in terms of milk only, he obviously had solids from 6m!). I did try bottle feeding occaisonly (with both formula and expressed milk) but he wouldn't drink it.

“Beastfeeding” is my favourite typo yet. And so accurate at times too 😅

I guess breastfeeding seems to attract more posts than bottle because it is restrictive. I don’t think either option is easy though.

The “breastfeeding is cheaper” one irritates me though. If all goes like clockwork, yeah I guess it is. If it doesn’t as in my case, £200 for private tongue tie release (or free on the NHS if you can stand to wait 8 weeks), £100+ for a decent pump to maintain supply…

I EBF for a year, introduced a bit of cows milk here and there after 1 and am still slowly trying to phase it down at nearly 2.

If 1% of women are breastfeeding more than a few weeks (ans much higher at the newborn stage) and the average wedding has 60-120 people, then most weddings are likely to include a breastfeeding mother (given the average age of getting married is around 30). So most weddings excluding all children are going to be difficult for someone

I think an important question is why the breastfeeding rates in the UK are still so low and what if anything could (or should) be done about it