to wish that one day, being prejudice against a breastfeeding mum will be the same as being prejudice against race, religion, sexuality, disability etc.?

[eggontoast]

Luckily, we have adopted laws in this country to prevent many kinds of discrimination. Unfortunately, it does not always work, but it does offer some degree of protection for those concerned. (OK, it may not stop people feeling racist for example, but they will put on a front, better than nothing I suppose. And, it does not stop everyone, I know, but at least they are taken to account for their actions (when caught).

I just feel that I, and others like me, are completely fair game to those who oppose bf so strongly that they will kick you out of their cafe, or off the bus they are driving.

To me, it is similar, not the same of course, as being able to ask someone to leave their bus or cafe because they are black or a lesbian.

I think there maybe something in the pipeline, but it just seems so far away.

leaves the simpleton to it!

babaieseverywhere, my child is lactose intolerance, cows milk protein allergy and citrus allergy, which is the sever one. his hypersensitivity to citrus fruits is extreme. (lime touch I was talking about)

Not much is know about this allergy as it is every rare, ATM we think ds is the only child in the UK to have allergy, (told about 2 weeks ago)

He cannot process the specific substances (limonene) and specific proteins in citrus fruits.

unfortunately also citrus fruits is a common food additive, so added in foods you would not think of

List of foods to be avoided like the plague for ds Look atwww.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~vclarke/citric_foods.html#resto as well as his CMP allergy foods to be avoided and the lactose foods to be avoided.

His severity of these foods is hideous tbh, when I was BF him, he was admitted to hospital with respiratory difficulties and intestine bleeding, which has done irreparable damage to his gut, and that was only the little amount that he digested through my BM.

In order to make him better, I had no choice to give up BF, in order to save him from pain and serious ill health long term.

Added to ds allergies, my dh is a peanut allergy suffer so any food in the household contain any peanuts mt be avoided also.

Citrus Allergy is unknown tbh, and their is not much information known about it

My diet would be veg and veg only, if I had to continued to breastfeed, my own health would have went downhill, as I would have been malnutritioned on a diet of veg.

Thanks again Wormwood for the compliment that I have been playing a nice and reasonable card, that is exactly the attitude I am working to achieve.

I'm not sure the comments against wormwood are fair, not that she/he? needs me to fight her/his? corner at all, but seeing as the debate has descended into what could be seen as unreasonable personal attacks, I may as well get involved.

I have reread bits of this thread in an effort to see where this started and there were inflammatory, emotive personal anecdotes and comments made pretty early on.

Things like:

restaurants should be allowed to ban BFing.

lol ffs shall we ban formula feeding? now if that was suggested it would get a total, vitriolic, unabashed, no holds barred flaming from various ff militants haha did you see what i did there?

the term bf nazi has been used somewhere and bf fanatic, but that's ok is it?

and actually wormwood started talking about france and that many women give up all too easily, which they do!

references to own disability / disabled children and then spitting chips over why the discrimination against bfing mums is nowhere near as bad/doesn't exist.

wormwood also mentioned the fact that ff is linked to obesity and diabetes, which it is, and this was also shot down.

My point is that in order to have a reasoned debate, we SO need to get away this taking it personally habit people have. I had a caesarean but recently read a book about how the safe caesarean might have massive implications for the future of humanity, and not necessarily in a good way. I didn't start bleating about how the caesarean saved mine/my son's life, because it is not relevant and does nothing to further the debate. I can also step away from my experience enough to think about whether caesareans are ethical, or whether they shouldn't happen.

People on here who get shirty about responses such as wormwood's should try and think about the issues objectively.

LittleMrsHappy,

From the little I know, if he is Lactose intolerant he would have reacted to your breastmilk whatever you ate or didn't eat, as lactose is the natural sugar that breastmilk is partly made up of. No change to your diet would of made a difference.

If your child had only been cow milk protein intolerant, then you might have had the option of cutting out all dairy products out of your diet. This of course does not take into account, the citrus allergy which would of restricted you to veg only, not do able

MLittleMrs I agree with babies

My first baby was casein intol, but nobody relaised and he lost weight until he hit about 4lbs- sadly at the millenium and with little or nobody around to ask.

nobody told me then so I was entirely right toi give up BF.

Now, with ds4 someone (tiktok) helped me sort it and he is still bf at 23 months, but that has been bloody ahrd 9and expensive- df foods can be) even without life threatening rre allergies to boo.

You are doing your best, be proud of that

RubyBuckleberry, I agree with nearly everything you say. However if someone entwines personal insults and ranting, it is difficult to see the points being made. Therefore I am not surprised that many posters are throwing personal insulting and ranting back...it hardly advances a debate on either side does it ?

You are pleasant to debate with, you are well informed and post your thoughtful posts with no negativity and wouldn't it be nice if everyone posted in that way

"fucking hell wormwood,i've not read the entire thread but have seen enough of your bile to feel that you might just be a really smug,really unpleasant cunt-regardless of how academic you think you are.
Shame your 'intelligence'hasn't translated into any degree of emotional intelligence or politeness.
Would you rather babies starved to death than ate powdered shite?
I imagine you have no friends in real life and your family bitch behind your back..."

omg thesecondcoming that is a HIDEOUS post!

it IS difficult, I agree, and the powdered shit comment probably didn't help, but people are SO quick to say ooohhh BF nazi?!

As an aside, I am so so surprised at the amount of people who say that bfing nazis put them off bfing.

there is NOTHING in this world, particularly not the opinions of other people, real or online, that would put me off doing somthing SO vital.

RubyBuckleberry,

Just a personal and non backed up opinion.

Very few mums formula feed from the get go but those who chose to do so and happy with their choice. I doubt the BF Nazi comments come from these women happy with their feeding path.

I think that as the majority of mothers want to breastfeed initially and many mother do put the baby to the breast in the first few days. Then many of these women find they have to move to formula for reasons beyond their control.

Just because they are now formula feeding it does not follow they are necessarily happy with their situation and I am guessing that many of the Nazi comments come from some of these women.

So when I hear a Nazi comment, my first thought us, is this woman a pro breastfeeder who was let down by our bottle feeding culture ? Someone who did not have enough support and understanding about her situation, so that her choice to breastfeed could of become reality ? So that the sight of a breastfeeding poster or a nursing baby is enough to hurt her and her lost dream.

Just a theory, could be completely wrong mind

i know a polish woman whose son was - at least i think he was - lactose intolerant. aparently it is really really common. he had raging exzema (sp?) etc. she wanted to carry on bfing so for just over a year she ate nothing but rice and corn . she desperately wanted to bf her son and she would have done anything.

i feel like i'm talking to myself now

That is interesting RubyBuckleberry

No, you are not talking to your self.

i agree babieseverywhere, and it is sad if said women have truly been betrayed and let down by the society into which they were born.

FWIW i had a dream of a natural birth. totally maximised my chances by doing all sorts of things during my pregnancy. i had a caesarean. TOTAL slap in the face. i still would not react to people saying that caesareans should not happen with the bitterness that many posters here react to a similar bfing argument. it wouldn't help the debate along, it wouldn't help anyone open their minds, and it would only serve to further separate me from any chance of seeing the bigger picture.

Lactose is really common, one of the most common in the world, I think the woman you mentioned above is rather silly tbh BBB, simply she has opened herself up to lots of future health problems, and surely her own body reserves would have dwindled after 6 months if only eating a diet of corn and rice? so hence her child being malnutritioned?

I Would be interesting to read the article?

'I think the woman you mentioned above is rather silly.'

is that so? and ffing your baby doesn't open you AND your baby up to future health problems.

The mother in question would have to weigh up the relative risks of formula and her having a very restrictive diet for x months.

Not a choice I would of liked to make. I could understand doing it for 6 months but not long term.

The quality and amount of food consumed by the mother does not affect the milk quality or quantity.

Sadly we know babies living in concentration camps and in famine region stay chubby and healthy until weaned.

It is solely a benefit for the mother to have a well balanced diet.

exactly babieseverywhere - she said her baby was fine - massive actually, she had to feed him every couple of hours (sounds like my ds ). but she was in a bit of a state - fine now incidentally. like i said, v. common in poland apparently.

LittleMrsHappy, Good grief I have been looking at your link. I would never of guessed that citric was naturally in cheese due to the manufacturing process.

Is your DS's allergy and intolerance likely to lessen/outgrown overtime or is this something you have to watch in his diet indefinitely ?

It is hard enough trying to ensure children have a balanced diet without the restrictions you have.

RubyBuckleberry, Going back a bit to one of your earlier posts, when you said..

"i still would not react to people saying that caesareans should not happen with the bitterness that many posters here react to a similar bfing argument. it wouldn't help the debate along, it wouldn't help anyone open their minds, and it would only serve to further separate me from any chance of seeing the bigger picture."

Your post shows that you have a strong empathy for other people and the ability to be able to separate a disappointing personal experience from other peoples comments. This is something that many people including me, really struggle to do. Your desire to be open minded and see the whole debate is admirable

LittleMrs if you gets tuck wrt to specialist foods, we've had gluten, dairy, salylylcate (sp) free in this house over the years so I know lots of little suppliers etc- feel free to holler.

LittleMrs it is not an article, it is a woman i know.

Ruby sorry but What exactly has c/s got to do with things?

I couldn't give a monkeys what your dodgy book says about c/s being the scourge of humanity. I really couldn't. Without said c/s all 3 of my dc would be dead,but then 2 are IVF babies so I'm guessing they've got no right to be here anyhow in your book as they weren't exactly conceived the natural way.

And what has your Polish woman got to do with things? I WAS totally committed to bf. I AM NO WIMP!!!!!! I a needle phobic endured years of giant needles to get my dc, I nearly died due to one particular gruelling cycle of IVF but battled on. I then got pg with twins and got severe hyper gremis sp? for 3 months and was bedridden vomitting blood day in and out. My dp begged me to go into hospital to get anti sickness drugs, I refused incase they'd hurt the babies. I then carried 2 huge twins nearly full term (no picnic). I am no stranger to trying my best to do the right thing and coping with discomfort

I tried my damndest to bf and it defeated me-the misery and the pain so I really don't need your little anecdotes. All women are different, I am me and it did not work for me through no fault of my own.

Just for the record I have 3 slim,bright uber healthy dc 6,6 and 5 with no allergies. This is partly due to luck,genetics and the healthy lifestyle I give them. They eat very little shite(as I do have the luxury of choice) mostly organic food, they eat the right portions, they get masses of exercise,live in the country and I hear them read daily.Screen time is monitored. I've been their sole carer from day 1 until school.

Now I could get very judgemental about mothers whose kids don't eat as healthy diet as mine do,whose kids don't read nightly,go to nursery,don't get exercise etc but I don't. The simple reason being we're all different with different personalities and what works for 1 mother/is possible doesn't/isn't for another.

Unless you are boringly perfect no mother is going to tick all the perfect mother boxes and why should she. You do your best, some you win some you loose,some may not even be the best thing for your child.1 size does not fit all.

And sorry the formula hysteria is sooo tedious. The vast maj of mums sadly end up ffing at some point so the maj of the population has formula at some point,the maj of adults are perfectly healthy years down the line if they live a healthy lifestyle. 6 months of a baby's life on powdered milk is what it is. Bmilk is far preferable but so is healthy food later and a lot of other things when raising a child.

Instead of trying to terrify mums time is far better spent on supporting the vast majority of mums who start off bfeeding and want to be successful at it. The attempts at persuading by fear get us all absolutely nowhere and are pointless-we all have well and truly got the message-BREAST FEEDING IS BEST!!!! Most of us want to do it the support just isn't there.

um ok milamae. i was posting an arguably useless personal anecdote about the need to be objective for the sake of the debate. you have proceeded to rant at full speed about your situation, berating me for posting my opinion.

and just because the vast majority of women ff there babies doesn't mean they are perfectly healthy years down the line.

according to another 'dodgy' book of mine women who were fed formula as infants had a 33% increase in breast cancer rates. doesn't sound that innocuous to me .