Is breastfeeding seen as a middle class thing?

[Thandeka]

Am genuinely curious. Just heard a local children's centre in a deprived area refused to have a breastfeeding support group in it because only the middle class mums would go.

eh?
And I have heard elsewhere that breastfeeding levels are much higher in the middle classes,
Could it linked with education levels?

I have a feeling in other countries people of all classes breastfeed so why not in this country?

Am not posting this to be controversial or anything and apologies if it has been done to death already- I couldn't find anything before but I just wondered if mumsnetters thought it was a middle class thing? and know any reasons why this is?

twats

?

I breast feed and i'm a scabby single mum but i didn't enjoy it at all for ages. def a guilt thing,

I think that not going back to work quickly is better for babies than bf Shanster...
Also, today in chavvy tesco cafe where it was obvious that I was only buying a drink because baby was hungry cashier asked if they could warm something up for me. Although I ff I wanted to point out that might have been bf and they can't warm up your boob for you!

chavvy tesco cafe ? aaaarrrrggghhh !!!!!

5more!

Mindtheagegap that's the point i tried to make earlier in the thread when someone tried to make out bf was a luxury only mc sahm's could afford.

Pomm, I actually think thats really kind. Especially as smaller cafes are not allowed to heat baby milk / food now. I've had someone cut my cake into bite size pieces before because I was feeding. Its a delicate balance between having breastfeeding as the norm, and making life easier for all mothers.

I am @
"I think that not going back to work quickly is better for babies than bf"

Yes, but the next sentence involved the words "Chavvy Tesco Cafe" so I think you can probably discount the rest of the post as well ClimberChick.

Good god pommedeterre or should I call you "tattie" have you actually got a problem with someone in a cafe offering to help you. Maybe they meant they could heat up some baby food for your baby.

Does it cross your mind that if you were in "chavvy tesco cafe" maybe that makes you "chavvy" yourself. God I hate that word it's really derogatory.

Incidentally, I could warm your boob up for you...if you like?

I bf dd1 despite returning to work early, couldn't afford to take extended ML. I would say def a MC thing in UK though. Now live in another country with DD2 and almost everyone bfs. Noone here seems to worry about bringing out boobs in public, not men, women, old, young, rich, poor or the bf women themselves.

There are no support groups or bf counsellors here, but it is very liberating to be able to bf wherever and whenever I like with noone batting an eyelid! In the UK I was always trying to be discreet, here I just don't bother!

I'd love to see it THIS normal in the UK!

I live in a very working class area of East London (ie a very unfashionable part).

BF rates are incredibly low and have been for many years. The age women have their first baby is also pretty low, most of my mates had their children in their teens.

I am working class. I look it and I sound it.

Every MW and HV I have dealt with has assumed I FF. I have even been asked on more than one occassion if 'I am sure' that I bf.

At the booking in visit with DCs 4 & 5 I was not asked if I ff or bf, I was asked 'what brand are you feeding?'

Two of my friends in this area BF (out of all the mums I know).

But when I go to the middle class enclave in another part of the borough everyone in the yoga/massage classes bfs. They are all middle class as far as I can tell (making assumptions based on the usual things)

Its bizarre that this is now the case. Bf is cheap, working class people have historically been poor or at least less affluent than the middle classes.

How have we go to this point?

My close friend grew up in a working class community and knows no one who has or was BF'd. Her mother supposed that her choice to BF her own child was because she had been influenced by the "posh" people in London where she now lives! She was genuinely baffled by her choice... she said that when she was feeding her children it was only the travellers (they are from Ireland) and the extremely poor that would BF. To do so was admitting that you couldn't afford to feed your own children and was seen as a shameful thing.

Just another way in which w/c women are disempowered, thefirstmrsdevere

Divorce, non-resident fathers and family breakdown are more common in working class communities and I often wonder if a proportion of w/c women ff because they are insecure about the possible impact of breastfeeding on a relationship which may already be not very secure and settled. I think there is also this idea that men who bottle feed their babies are more likely to bond with them, and I reckon this may come into some women's decision to ff - they want their d/p to be as involved as possible.

I agree with Mrs de Vere. I am a single mother, had to work part-time from early on with my DS, but continued to breastfeed until he was 2.6 years old. At every appointment with professionals, from when he was about 4 months old, the professionals expressed great surprise that I was breastfeeding. The only one who actually encouraged me was a male GP who I saw when DS was about 8 months. Otherwise I was continually told, subtly, that my life would be a lot easier if I switched to formula. Actually, I carried on breastfeeding because it made life SO much easier and was a perfect solution to so many of my toddler's problems, but when I expressed this I was made to feel that I was doing it all for myself. I think there is a lot of institutional opposition to breastfeeding, even if in theory they are in favour of it. For instance, I have come across an employee of a major child support charity who has told me that if a woman is still breastfeeding her baby at over a year old it is a possible sign of emotional abuse.

I'm working class and i ff. This is because the maternity ward I had my DS in was over filled and under staffed and they did not have the time to support me in those important first hours and ff was something I could work out for myself.

I suppose this is more common in wc areas, however it does not make me as worse mother, in fact ti makes me a better one because I was willing to sacrifice my ideals in order to cope and keep my baby healthy.

So not only are we uneducated ..we can't keep our husbands

My friends are also suprised that I bf. As I dont look 'the type'. The type is dumpy, with bad hair and no makeup who get their tits out all the time (please dont think those are my thoughts on bfers )

I have had some really good conversations with my ffing chums. Lots of them have expressed regret at not bfing. Most of them have had crap advice. I know a lovely woman who has just had her 5th. She has just turned 30. Her kids are nice,well behaved. Her OH is a nice bloke who works hard. She is a loving caring mum. She told me she wanted to bf this one. She had ff all the others. She was tired after the birth (but not abnormally so). MW told her to give a bottle to the baby as she could always bf 'later'. Suprise - it didnt happen. She was pretty upset but how the hell was she supposed to know different?

For all the their lariness and gobbiness the women round here are not very confident dealing with HCPs. They will rant and rave afterwards and threaten all sorts but when it comes down to it, they are imtimidated and tend to deal with it by just not going near HVs and MWs.

flower emotional abuse FFS!

usualsuspect
Dont for get jobless scroungers!

God it's hard work being common

Shouldn't the question be why MC mums are more likely to start bf'ing if that is what the research suggests? I don't know the source of the OP's comments

Or indeed, why don't some mums bf? No need for there to be a class issue at all

The reasons for stopping bf'ing surely have nothing to do with class - pain, latching problems, milk supply issues, even for ease etc are classless.

I would think the issues for not starting bf'ing, or not considering it in anyway, would be far more informative than guess work why people no longer bf - did they ever start?

It is pointless and ridiculous to suggest wc mums have to give their breasts back to their dp's, or mc mums are desperate to get back on the coke at dinner parties - neither or which i believe to be true but have read in this topic.

Definitely a class issue without a shadow of a doubt and there are parallels with the old "white bread" story we were taught about in sociology class.

There is a distinct old-fashioned working class prudishness issue here that you shouldn't get your baps out to feed a baby, how disgusting - when any right thinking person knows boobs are "fun bags" for gawking at on page 3 of the Sun, not for feeding a child with.

You should have seen the looks I got BFing DS in Burger King compared with in the John Lewis cafe where no-one turned a hair.

I got very annoyed at the editor of M&B about her comments on BF.

I thought, what if you were a woman (lets say wc for the sake of argument) whose friends and family didnt bf. You were thinking that you might want to try but were unsure for lots of reasons. You were mainly worried about what your friends and family would think.

So you buy a baby magazine and what do you find? All your worst fears confirmed by someone who writes, actually writes, for a parenting mag.

So there goes that idea out the window.

mindy
are you comparing the benefits of using a bugaboo and shopping at boden with the very un flimsy benefits of breastfeeding?
If so you must be drowning in irish mist and you sound so bitter.....why?

hmmm. well i am probably classed as MC. Good education, degree, professional parents, good income. I breastfed mine for 6 weeks and then went on to formula. I hated breast feeding. In fact, it was my middle class dr who told me to switch to formula if BF was preventing me from bonding with my baby. She only breastfed for 6 weeks herself and she said it made her cross how we were being guilt tripped into decisions about feeding that were interfering with bonding.

Is it a class thing really? Maybe it's true about the guilt. But ultimately, isn't it just about personal circumstance and family choices. For all the stats, the forumla fed children are just as well as those that are breastfed.

I do feel guilty for not BFing for longer. Yes, I admire those mothers who have BF for months, years even. I even envy them a little. But that's parenting. There will always be the ideal mother that we strive to be.