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.

I could breastfeed with all 3 of mine but chose not to.. It is exactly that, a choice!
Didn't stop the breast is best brigade getting on my case though. For some it's natural and comes easily and for others it's not so.. Always do what's right for you

It's probably true if baby's life depended on it. 97% of women could probably keep baby alive until 6 months, not necessarily thriving or gaining well, but alive long enough to start solids (which if not going well would have probably been introduced far earlier than ideal). Sore nipples, too many night feeds, struggling to meet the needs of other children while cluster feeding etc are perfectly valid reasons to choose formula these days - formula babies do great! But if it wasn't an option in times passed and the result of stopping literally meant a dead baby if you couldn't find another woman to feed them, then understandably mothers would show incredible grit even when circumstances were far from ideal and everyone was struggling. I say thank goodness for formula - and I ebf so never even used it!

Never had kids but seen loads of mums bullied by the breast feeding community they were trying to the point they were crying 😢

Of all the things that happened during my pregnancy and my child’s birth, the only one I really regret is trying to breastfeed. I went to the classes, I was encouraged by the midwife to the extent she told me not to buy any bottles or sterilising kit as everyone can breastfeed. I was totally bought in. 6 days later my baby was in the children’s ward,
dehydrated, significant loss of birth weight. Like the sleep deprived idiot I was I still persisted, eventually moving to mixed feeding as my baby was facing kidney damage. You see the thing is help is no good if the milk isn’t there. And I was advised to carry on feeding then give formula then express, particularly through the night, with a breast pump by which time it was time for the next feed. Exhausting. I was a shell. The hospital said that they had at least one admission a week of babies like mine who were dehydrated due to mum not having adequate
milk. People talk about getting help and support like you have all the time in the world
to do this and let milk supplies increase when the baby needs hydration and nutrients immediately. 10 years on I wish I’d just gone to exclusive formula from the first hint of trouble. I would have enjoyed the first 3-4 months so much more and
my child might not have been hospitalised.

I think the 97% is the amount of women who can produce sufficient milk for their baby. Throughout history women helped each other by feeding others babies if the mum wasn't able. Ofcourse wet nurses were also a thing when women chose not to. There will always be babies who aren't able to latch for anatomical reasons or prematurity etc, but that above percentage probably assumes that these babies can recieve expressed breast milk via an NG or special bottle.

My DD couldn't latch on despite much trying over several days. I was milked like a cow to give her the first colostrum. It was painful demoralising and woeful all round. I then changed to bottle feeding and never looked back.

I produced very little milk for both my dc, and second time round I was determined to exclusively breastfeed, unfortunately it just wasn’t possible. I was given domperidone to try and stimulate lactation, it did bugger all apart from give me the shits!
I’m not convinced about the 97% statistic. As in my NCT group it was definitely more than 3% who couldn’t produce enough milk. So whilst 100% of us could produce a tiny amount of milk, there were 4 (out of 15) of us who couldn’t produce enough and ended up with combined feeding.

historically babies would either have died from malnutrition or started on pulped up food (normally bread mixed with cows milk) very early on ie within 10days of being born, if there was no access to a wet nurse.

I couldn’t breastfeed and I really tried. I produced enough milk to keep my babies happy for the first few weeks but after that I just couldn’t produce enough to give them a proper feed. I could only get an ounce out of each boob. It made me feel so depressed when all you hear is breast is best. I felt like I was failing from the off. But now my eldest 2 are healthy adults I’ve realised, in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really matter.

When I had my son years ago, I bought maternity bras and nighties etc expecting to breastfeed but I had no milk whatsoever so had to bottle feed and return the clothes. I can’t be the only one with no milk?

What were the signs that you had no milk?

I assume it’s about the ability to produce enough milk to feed a baby. So many people give up and think they don’t have enough milk because there’s a lack of education / support around cluster feeding , colostrum etc when in reality it’s very rare.

It might be accurate if we are talking about physically producing milk but it doesn't account for other factors and is very black and white.

Do you mean no colostrum either? It’s obviously possible that you are part of the other 3%

False, those babies just died, or like was so common in the past, they had wet nurses.

I don't normally say this sort of thing, but something about this sounds off. Why would a paediatrician say something about you not breastfeeding when your child is 6? And you've also made another comment about your child having a cleft palate so they would know you couldn't anyway.

Regardless, you are misunderstanding. The 97% is about women who can produce milk, not that 97% actually can or will. I'm not trying to be critical, I tried and failed to breast feed. My boy just wasn't getting enough and he was distressed, so I'd never judge anyone on that. But I don't agree with your post.

I agree. My first child I was so scared of failing (and all the stories of pain and exhaustion) that I didn't even try to breastfeed.
My second child I tried, but didn't really put in the effort needed and I gave up.
My third child i was older, more sure of my meteor she had done a lot of reading. I fed her, but it was very very hard. She wouldn't latch for 6 weeks. We had a lactation consultant out, I pumped around the clock, feeding it back to her when I wasn't pumping. I offered the breast at every feed, I used shields to help her latch. At six weeks she latched, at 12 weeks we dropped the shields. She fed for nearly 4 years.

I wish I had breastfed my older children. But I didn't know better, I wasn't strong enough in myself as a woman to persevere together with my babies at that point. If I had had stopped at two children I would probably be I someone who said I "couldn't" breastfeed, since I tried with my second. But trying doesn't mean a few hours or a few days. Trying can mean weeks or months of perseverance.

Not to mention having to go back to work soo soon with a baby, I know you can express ect but its not natural

Well it makes sense. We are animals and that’s how mammals feed their babies. Before formula all babies had to breastfeed from someone, usually their mothers.

animals don’t have formula and those that can’t breastfeed the babies die. It is part of nature. We have a synthetic food we have invented as an alternative but the idea that most mothers have breasts that produce milk is logical

Not the same numbers that don't breastfeed though. Some babies would have died through lack of milk, but not the same numbers as formula feed now. There were also many other reasons in the past for infant mortality.

80% of UK mothers breastfeed at birth. This drops to 50% at 8 weeks, and 1% at 6 months. Not being able to feed clearly isn't an issue for most women. They could continue to feed past the first few weeks, they choose not to.

There seems to be very high rates of breastfeeding in some African Countries into 90%.. There seems to be a cultural normalization to formula feed cows milk in the UK rather than actually try to breastfeed. The 1st week of breastfeeding is painful and can be difficult but if the support was better more mums would breastfeed.

I think this has to be balanced by the significant health benefits to the mother of breast feeding. Lower rates of breast and endometrial cancer, lower chances of heart disease and post natal depression. Breast feeding is good for women. Well done for doing it for 3 years.

It’s obviously based on producing milk.

Yes there are other factors as to why a mother may not be able to breastfeed.

I think breastfeeding is advertised more, as when formula started being massed produced it was heavily pushed by doctors and hospitals. When my mum had me (in the 80s) she was pushed into formula feeding even though she said she really wanted to breastfeed me but felt that the doctors must be telling her to use formula for a reason.

It is great that we have formula as an option. I just think that professionals are trying to rectify a mistake in pushing formula and people seem to take that as a personal offence.

It's not false.

Nature is very clever. It wouldn't have developed a faulty system for something so fundamental as feeding our young.

No. That 1% statistics is misleading as it excludes the vast majority of breastfeeding mums. The real figure is about a third.

If it’s ‘can they produce milk?’, then I believe 97%. If it’s ‘can they produce enough milk to breastfeed?’, I call shenanigans.

I had all the support I could have hoped for and more than enough willpower…instead at nearly 8 months postpartum, I’m still pumping for half an hour out of every two hours from 3/4am until 11pm as I have every single day since it became clear I wasn’t producing enough for our little one at 2-3 months. I’m exhausted but just about manage to collect a total of 2 ounces a day to give her. Breastfeeding is massively painful because she gets frustrated with the low volume of milk, clamps down and whips her head around.

I also couldn’t produce any colostrum before birth even though I tried every night. And she didn’t want to come out of me at all, despite being induced six ways to Sunday, so I ended up with an emergency c-section because apparently my unstoppable force of contractions met an immovable object in her and it put us both in danger 😂.

All of these things are related to prolactin production, which is governed by dopamine (woot!). If you can guess, I have ADHD and it is likely my increased dopamine production actively inhibits prolactin.

Speaking to other women I know with the condition, they have confirmed having a similar experience with breastfeeding. Most ended up giving formula. If around 5% of the population has ADHD, this could have a massive impact on breastfeeding figures. There really does need to be more research into a potential link between the two.

TlDr; I think more women produce only a small amount of milk and give up than we currently assume is the case, and a narrative of ‘97% of woman can breastfeed with the right support’ might be a tad off base.