To think that "97% of women can breastfeed" is a load of crap

[elliejjtiny]

I've been seeing this phrase a lot over the years, about how 97% of women can breastfeed and all the rest of the people who say they can't just need support.

I would guess that 97% of women can probably produce milk (although I wouldn't be surprised if it was lower) but there is so much more to breastfeeding than the mum producing milk which never seem to be mentioned. Mums with disabilities/medical conditions, babies with disabilities/medical conditions, babies who are born prematurely, mums separated from their babies and mums on medication that means they can't breastfeed.

When people gaily spout that 97% of women can breastfeed I find is so annoying and inaccurate. It's usually the same people who want the number of c-sections reduced as well and think that everyone can give birth with no interventions, they just need to stay mobile and ignore the nasty doctors.

Wet nurses have been a thing for millennia. In ancient times babies ended up being passed around at feeding time.
Farmers give lambs to other ewes if their own mothers die/can't feed them.
Mammals care naturally.

Fed is best. You want unfed babies? Just mind your own business!

Apart from women waiting longer to start trying to get pregnant - which I acknowledged already - that article doesn’t make any of the suggestions you did.

In fact it’s about MALE infertility rising as a result of falling sperm counts, whereas you had said WOMEN taking birth control was messing with women’s bodies. Not the same point at all.

I think some of the worst advice given (it happened to a couple of mums in my nct class) is that you have to choose between breastfeeding or formula feeding. Their babies were losing a bit of weight so the hospital nurses told them they needed to stop breastfeeding and they went straight to 100% formula feeding. My nipples were in loads of pain and my best friend gave me the excellent advice that if I needed to give ds the occasional bottle that was absolutely fine. He had a couple of bottles of formula, a few expressed and just knowing I had the option somehow made it easier. He carried on breastfeeding until he was 2, alongside normal weaning. DD was bf until just before she was 4. Once milk supply is established and nipples no longer hurt in so many ways it is the easier option, in particular not having to get out of bed to sort out a bottle in the middle of the night/ability to comfort them particularly if they are unwell

Don’t think this was down to lack of milk though was it… It was more the lack of vaccinations, general hygiene and medication! Oh and if they did have low milk, it was also probably down to being malnourished due to poverty. I just don’t think many women genuinely can’t produce enough milk (premature births aside).

Several reasons really but mainly because you couldn't do it in front of anyone which would be a huge pain.

For me, I just never had even the slightest desire to try it.

I had a baby with a cleft palate - so they are physically unable to breast feed whatever my situation was. I do find some of the comments on here almost have a tone of ‘of course they’d have survived in the old days, because you would have fed them and not been so lazy/keen to get back to work.’

No, some babies would have died. Or been removed from the mother and left to die quite likely. The idea someone mentioned above that evolution would have ensured that only women who could breast feed would have healthy children to grow up to have more kids makes me feel a little bit sick. Get rid of my son, and just wait for the next baby i have I guess. Because formula feeding is only for evil purposes and not, for some of us, the reason babies with some birth defects can live.

You understand the difference between vaccines and breastfeeding yes? I’m imagining you understand that not vaccinating impacts others and their children, but Emily and all her friends not breastfeeding their perfectly healthy children impacts my child and yours how?

1/3 of women with PCOS don't produce enough milk.

Not always. My great grand-mother didn’t produce a drop of milk after any of her six births. (I don’t know what was wrong with her, I doubt she knew either.) All six babies were fed with the next best thing that was readily available, in this case cow’s milk. They all developed normally, went on to have families of their own and ended up in typical middle class jobs (teachers, a dentist and a veterinarian).

I was absolutely horrified when I first heard about this, especially since the milk wouldn’t even have been treated in any way, and they could have easily been accidentally given milk contaminated with bacteria that could have made them seriously ill. Nevertheless, I very much doubt that they were the only family in the history of humanity to have done this. We are very lucky to have modern formula available these days.

Source?

Fed is the bare minimum. If you don't feed your baby, they die and you go to prison.

I have given birth and breast-fed with no problem to 20m.

However, I'd say the hospital environment for breastfeeding is probably very contrary to the natural conditions it.

BF didn't click for me until I got home and got the bloody useless midwives to fuck off and leave me alone. That's a very different environment to cuddling up skin to skin in a dark cave with only members of your immediate tribe around you (which is partly why family visits are so contentious - in the wild, nobody would "visit" a different pack's newborn - my cat practically skinned a Old English Sheepdog when it sniffed at her kittens).

Google it if you care enough.

Because overall non breastfed kids are more likely to suffer from a number of conditions including leukaemia, asthma, allergies and autism. All of which are on the rise. Of course most who are formula fed don’t suffer from these but overall ff babies are more likely to than BF.

So it does affect society as a whole.

That’s why it matters.

I just did and it’s not true. I’m sick of people just making stuff up on MN. It’s the real Reform/ Trump way and it’s insidious.

I’m constantly shocked at the narrative that breastfeeding is always pushed. I volunteer as a breastfeeding counsellor and it’s certainly not the experience I hear. Formula is pushed more than anything (Midlands). It’s the easy option because babies will put weight on and then can be discharged. I had this experience myself when I struggled to breastfeed my first.

I think this ignores the fact that many many mothers want to breastfeed but lack support. For some, it’s easy. For others, much less so. I always tell mothers its a skill they both have to learn. I absolutely do not demonise formula. It has it’s place and I always say we’re lucky in this country that it’s very tightly regulated and we have clean water available.

It’s the same as giving birth vaginally, with the right support, most women will be able to. Of course not all. But being constantly monitored and a cascade of interventions, means that caesarean births are more common than they need to be. Which is major surgery, a tough start to life as a parent and consequently can have an affect on milk supply and breastfeeding.

Source on autism? I thought that was a myth

There’s loads of studies. Here is one. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1876201819309505

before MN delete me - it’s not that formula causes autism, of course not. It’s that BF has a protective effect. Same as with the other conditions.

That's the reason one of my babies couldn't breastfeed too. I don't know what would have happened to him if he'd been born before formula milk and specialist bottles were available. I had way to much amniotic fluid because he couldn't swallow enough of it so he was in a weird position and I had to gave a c-section. So he might have died during birth.

I struggled with breastfeeding a LOT with DD.
She had tongue tie, severe reflux and colic, I was in and out of hospital, I had PND, and low supply.
I was so lucky and so grateful that there is amazing support for lactation where I am. I would rock up to a milk and you class and just cry. A Health visitor told me to go onto formula and genuinely used 'fed is best'.
I didn't want to. I was exhausted and in pain and depressed but I'm so thankful and proud of myself I didn't. She's now 8 months and combi fed, but she was EBF for 6 months and I couldn't have done that without the right support, which I sought out.
I can't think of anyone else to be honest who had more of a reason to give up than me, and I wouldn't have blamed them.
The fact remains that UK has some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the western world. Any support given is so important.

Wish I'd said this to the HV who said this to me!

Ability to lactate is one thing, successfully breastfeeding is another.
I don’t know why you have approached this topic in such a bombastic fashion, if it is because you plan/have tried to breastfeed & are struggling/facing criticism then I sincerely wish you the very best but if you are looking to stir up trouble/ research then please don’t.
The pressure to breastfeed can be overwhelming. When you are desperate to feed your baby but struggling it can take you to a very dark place. Judgement of a mother & her feeding decisions is a private & deeply personal thing.
I fed all my babies colostrum. I stopped feeding the first when he was vomiting my blood & pus. I fed babies two & three until I cried with pain. Baby number four fed like a dream. All four grew into healthy children.

I'm sure it is 97%
And you just need support lol
If an ill child can have a bottle, why on earth can't they have the breast?
Bizaare perspective

Allergies aren't on the rise because people aren't bf, there are several factors including environmental, genetics, and the foods available from all over the world now.