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.

Well of course both things can be true.
Even if we assume that the oft quoted 97-98% is accurate, that means 2-3% or about 1:50 to 1:30 are not physically able to breastfeed exclusively. That may be a minority but it is a lot of women over all. It seems probable that most of us would know at least one or two people possibly more in that group when you consider how many other Mums you meet over a lifetime. It's not that rare.
Equally there are lots and lots of Mums who are led to believe that they don't make enough milk because their babies feed fequently, cluster feed or are deemed to be "unsettled". I was born in the 60s, my siblings in the late 50s, and my Mum was very much of the "give a bottle every 4 hours and leave the pram in the garden" school of baby rearing that was prevalant at the time. Formula was promoted as "modern" and "scientific" and babies needed to be fed by the clock and keep in a strict routine. She was convinced that there was something badly wrong when I had a newborn who was latched on pretty much 24/7. Those beliefs and habits still hang over even now. A "good" baby feeds regularly, not too often, and sleeps all night. That's not biologically normal but it has become the social norm and lots of new mums get their confidence knocked when their babies behave, well, like babies.
So women with genuine supply problems most certainly do exist, but they are outnumbered by women who are made to believe they do. Plus of course that not infrequently becomes a self fulfilling prophecy as the suggested "solutions" do then lead to a drop in supply.

Lack of effective support and education are the reason so many women “can’t” breastfeed.

Of course there are several factors. As with most things. But BF gives a protective factor

ps how does ‘food being available from all over the world’ give a small child allergies. I’m intrigued.

It doesn’t matter really. What matters is women who want to bf getting adequate support and people not wanting to BF being able to ff without judgement.

Bf might offer some protection to start with but makes no difference in the long run because a person's living, eating and general health habits end up having the biggest impact throughout their life.

Foods from all around the world weren't available like they are today, so it's natural that allergies could be more common to foods less familiar. Celery for example is one of the 14 major allergies (within the EU) but in the UK it is not very common as it's been grown here forever and is in so many things our immune systems are used to it.

Yes, I was replying to a poster who suggested that babies who weren’t breastfed would have died. My point was that sometimes they ended up surviving on less than ideal options to breastfeeding. I was not trying to claim that most women aren’t able to breastfeed.

I also had a baby that couldn’t really feed which does seem to be overlooked. I think breastfeeding should be encouraged but also not to the detriment of the mother and child’s health.

My first couldn’t latch at all when born (a bit early, small and floppy but not unwell per se, tongue tie and a tongue tie snipped on nhs, and regrowth re-snipped privately). He was syringe fed then finally took with a nipple shield and my partner still thinks this is why he was so unsettled and smaller as poorer milk flow this way. Despite going to so many breastfeeding classes where they would all start confidently- just try this or that presenting the breast - then looked shocked at his angry 0-100 Red face screaming at my breast until the shield went on and had no other ideas.

My more robust second latched easily but after a day it was excruciating each feed. I remember being in tears thinking I’m not sure do this again but it settled in a week or so with some tips and persistence.

In both cases it would have been easy to give up - for the second I’m glad I had support and experience so I didn’t, for the first I’m kind of proud of my persistence but I don’t know if it was worth it.

Except that animal babies come out and both the mother and baby generally know how to feed. Yet humans don’t. Mother and baby have to learn to do it, there can issues with latch etc…

Perhaps it is because we have evolved over the centuries - wet nurses, formula etc have enabled babies to survive and thrive without every being breastfed by their own mothers.

It isn't, or at least if it does we don't have sufficient evidence to be able to prove it. Because that would require us to be reliably identifying autism across the population, which we haven't got remotely close to doing. Reading down the article, they're citing studies as far back as the 80s and 90s, when the diagnostic landscape was so utterly different.

I don't get why some people are so attached to the dafter and more spurious claims about the benefits of breastfeeding, when there are some absolutely irrefutable pros they could focus on like fewer gastro problems.

That's terrible. Luckily hospital told us we could just top up DD's feed with formula until my milk came in. We did that, and continued giving her formula once every day or two when DP let me sleep, until she was 6 / 7 weeks. Breastfeeding is so handy if it works for you but getting there isn't easy, and we didn't have any underlying issues to contend with. We were just lucky!

If that was my post (this thread is fast moving), the issue was mainly not that there weren't substitutes but that they were often contaminated - so the same dirty water issue that the developing world suffers today, bacteria in feeding devices etc.

No , I don't want unfed babies. You want there to be no breastfed babies? Just mind your own business!

Honestly ,20+ years down the line I really am not sure it matters
I was very,very keen to Breastfeed
3 DC
First BF was a disaster
Second was okayish BF for 6 months
Third BF for 14 months
I can’t see any difference in their health or anything else

Anecdotally, a lot of children later identified as autistic were extremely unsettled as babies or have difficulty in breastfeeding, so the causation could also be the other way around - autistic children have more trouble breastfeeding perhaps due to gastric distress, muscle tone issues (esp if we are thinking it applies to the children more likely to have been identified as autistic in the 80s/90s) or connective tissue disorders e.g. EDS, all of which are highly correlated with autism. Or sensory issues/oversensitive nervous system, again correlated with autism, causing high amounts of crying/distress which is interpreted as difficulty feeding or could lead to difficulty feeding (baby in distress/survival mode is more likely to land on a shallow latch causing poor milk transfer) plus the huge one that premature babies are far more likely to (independently) be formula fed, and autistic - there are so many reasons that autism could be correlated with formula feeding which don't come down to "formula causes autism" or "breastfeeding prevents it".

Or perhaps they just prefer the bottle feeding routine (that one is a joke, don't come at me!)

In fact some of the longest term cases of breastfeeding I've heard of where DC are still feeding at 7, 8 years the children have been autistic. So it doesn't seem to have been especially preventative in those cases.

Thanks. Back then the advice was different and the thing he is highly allergic to I ate a huge amount of. Back then they thought early exposure could somehow trigger an allergic response in babies. I now understand there is a different view and early exposure is recommended.

Most allergies you are born with though. I don’t understand what you’re saying? People develop allergies because they’re exposed to foods from other cultures? Is there a source for this?

of course you can’t. You have 3 kids. Population level differences don’t tend to occur over such a tiny sample.

however, if there were 3000 kids, 1000 of which had been breastfed and the others not, you’d be able to see a statistically significant difference in the health of those who had been.

I couldn’t care less if people BF or FF but I can’t stand this disingenuous ‘it makes no difference’ stance. It makes a difference over a population cohort as a whole. BF gives a huge amount of benefits. From less occurrence of leukaemia to asthma to autism to allergies to maternal cancers. Anecdotal evidence doesn’t negate this

I was able to breastfeed. Baby fed well and thrived. Then I had to stop to go back to work. To pay taxes. Taxes which then push the “breast is best agenda”. Pissed me right off. Maybe give working mums an actual choice to breastfeed rather than spend taxes promoting something that I couldn’t actually afford to do 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬💰💰

As you say, it probably means the % who can produce milk.

I was one of them, but I also had bleeding nappies, thrush in my breast that required an unlicensed drug to resolve, and ds struggled to feed for the first week.

We got there eventually, but it was not easy. It was very painful. 🙁

My 3 DC all breastfed for long periods have - Autism, Asthma and Allergies. As I said earlier they have incredibly straight teeth but other than that I not sure they benefited hugely. There could be hidden positives I guess.

Anyway I still think BF is difficult and can be very painful (I found childbirth without pain relief easier in some ways) so I think it's understandable not everyone does it.

Excellent points.

I do have to wonder whether the people who believe the poorly evidenced claims about breastfeeding and autism would be quite so willing to overlook the obvious weaknesses if they said formula was protective.

Interesting to think about.

I wasn't able to fully breastfeed, and it absolutely broke my heart. I had a lot of help it just wasn't meant to. I'll always feel a great sadness about it.

No, you can "grow into" and "grow out of" allergies throughout life. You aren't born with allergies.

As a medicated mum it's doubly important for me to breastfeed. My girlie has been swimming in amniotic fluid peppered with anti-seizure medication. Breastfeeding is going to help wean her off that.

Honestly I don't know the stats on milk production but I can't understand why you wouldn't use it if you make it. That said I am unusually in love with every aspect of pregnancy and motherhood.

Only on a population level though.