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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Is breastfeeding seen as a middle class thing?

380 replies

Thandeka · 12/07/2010 15:07

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?

OP posts:
MoonFaceMama · 12/07/2010 18:06

No one i know would ever even consider asking gp's to watch dcs full time. Ime gp's have other gc's who they also help with, and / or work themselves, Esp within my wc friends and family who are generally younger (ie not retired when they become gp's) as my mc mates tend to put off kids till after uni, fancy wedding etc.

I have heard in the press that you are right about childcare stats ryoko, but it's another thing i hear that doesn't reflect my experience.

(I am not ff because i simply do not want to btw)

foreverastudent · 12/07/2010 18:07

this study found a link between class and breastfeeding rates.

IME most of the working class women I have known have breastfed for a shorter time than the more middle class ones.

Some very low income women are malnourished, making breastfeeding physically more difficult.

Some of the reasons I have heard people give for formula-feeding may be linked to class

eg

  • reading tabloids and seeing breasts as sexual objects
  • having a partner who is out of work/works short hours so is available to share bottle-feeding
  • wanting to go out and get drunk/take drugs
  • wanting to get back on the pill quickly (DPs dont like condoms)
  • wanting to get pregnant again quickly
  • having family/friends who are not comfortable with breastfeeding in front of them
  • not being able to afford nursing bras
  • having babies who were premature/low birthweight so had trouble sucking or needed more frequent feeds
gloomybear · 12/07/2010 18:08

i can't bf due to having a communicable diesease, i am so sick of judgemental coments,and people thinking they they have a right to question me about why i use formula. BTW I have 3 happy, healthy, and shock horror, intelligent children.

Bobbalina · 12/07/2010 18:14

I think if your mum/sister was a breast feeder then this makes you more likely to be a successful breast feeder yourself.

In my area (midwife led smallish local hospital) it wasn't really an option for anybody not to try to breast feed as the midwives were incredibly pressurizing and floods of tears from any woman (like me) who had to resort to a cup of formula due to dehydration.

pommedeterre · 12/07/2010 18:36

Isn't that wrong though? To add extra pressure to an already difficult time by making you feel guilty for stopping your baby being ill? It's all a bit weird the pressure to bf in current climes.

Ryoko · 12/07/2010 18:47

eg

  • reading tabloids and seeing breasts as sexual objects.

So is the hole babies come out of.

  • having a partner who is out of work/works short hours so is available to share bottle-feeding.
  • wanting to go out and get drunk/take drugs

Thats more likely with the upper classes and students they have more money to burn.

  • wanting to get back on the pill quickly (DPs dont like condoms)

I'm working class and I don't know anyone on the pill because people are concerned about the side effects far more then getting up the duff (after all you get benefits to pay for the kid).

  • wanting to get pregnant again quickly

?????

  • having family/friends who are not comfortable with breastfeeding in front of them

TBH I don't think it should be done in public and why the hell would you want to anyway?.

  • not being able to afford nursing bras

£10 for a pack of 2.

  • having babies who were premature/low birthweight so had trouble sucking or needed more frequent feeds.

Seriously where did you hear all that from?

ArseHolio · 12/07/2010 18:48

Foreverastudent can I ask how having a a premature or low birthweight baby can be atributed to being working class ?

I hate this class thing, is is ridiculous.

The lower 'working' classes (ie the ones that don't/won't work) are written of so badly by society that they don't get the breastfeeding (or other parenting) support that others might.

It's much easier to breastfeed with support and it is much easier to access the suport if you are educated or wealthy.

Rhian82 · 12/07/2010 18:56

I've found it interesting that most of my friends/colleagues with children where I live (which is very middle class) have breastfed, whereas almost none of my friends back in my home town (which is very working class) do.

And despite what people have said about work and maternity leave, it's my friends from my home town who have tended to take longer maternity leave. They also all seemed to bond with their babies much faster than breast-feeding me!

TakeLovingChances · 12/07/2010 18:56

A friend once said to me she thought it was only people who couldn't afford formula who bf

BrittanyBeers · 12/07/2010 18:58

Please don't flame me, but when a labouring woman walks onto the ward, it's often quite easy to tell who will AF.

That being said, I was a young WC mother in a caaaansil haaaaas, and I bf'd for blimmin years.
(Doing it right now)

foreverastudent · 12/07/2010 19:01

Arse- here

"Researchers revealed social class differences were a factor, with the most low-weight babies born to single mothers and manual worker families"

I agree with what you say, breastfeeding support is vital.

Ryoko- as I said in my post these are reasons working class women have given me for not breastfeeding.

£10 for a pack of 2! More like £35 each.

Ryoko · 12/07/2010 19:01

Yes it is all stupid really and some of the comments you hear are just plain insulting it's like some snobbish people think the lower classes don't have access to a computer and would never be on internet.

Replace the word working class with black and it all sounds so bloody insulting and just plan wrong to attribute such things to class, it just goes to show we are no different to the caste system.

Plus it's all crap anyway, one persons definition of working class is another persons definition of middle class.

I'd vote to have the whole thing changed upper class becomes the 80ks, middle class the 40ks, working class the 20ks, truly poor become the 2ks.

Ryoko · 12/07/2010 19:03

£35 each you are going to the wrong shops.

mattahatta · 12/07/2010 19:20

Sorry to go against the norm, but in my experiece (WC-educated- MC and WC friends) It is the working class mums that BF more, and they also seem to care more about the benefits to children. forever I think the whole drug taking thing is actually more associated to middle classes now, the nu,ber of professional females in finance or sales, for example, who regularly snort coke is constantly on the rise
As for Breast issues, I've found MC women are more concerned about the fact they wont have gorgeous boobs after breast feeding, or that breasts are sexual objects....

Also a Middle Class man can often work from home a lot easier than say a WC man, due to nature of job.... so the argument about sharing FF goes against what you said....

I really dont think it can be put down to class, more what your mamma did.

matumble · 12/07/2010 19:22

larger sized bras can be that expensive (as a 38k when tandem feeding) but for normal sizes there is no reason to pay anything like that.

have only skim read but i am definitely working class and began breastfeeding and tandem feeding for that matter whilst living in one of the worst areas of Newcastle. I think the reasons women choose to breastfeed are far more complex than economic class.

As for not having a breastfeeding group due to class, please name and shame, i was trained as a peer supporter in Newcastle and all sorts of mums came to our group, i'm pretty disgusted that they wont offer support, its far more useful than bullying midwives in my experience.

ArseHolio · 12/07/2010 19:22

"I really dont think it can be put down to class, more what your mamma did"

T recon there is a lot of truth in that.

Ineedsomesleep · 12/07/2010 19:22

I'm pretty far from being Middle Class and I bf both of mine.

gingercat12 · 12/07/2010 19:35

I think it is to do with having to go back to work as well. If you are middle class, you can probably afford to stay at home and spend your time at breastfeeding classes. If you are not quite middle class, you probably have to look for a job / find a job / clean the house, etc.

In some other countries formula feed is available only in pharmacies and is quite expensive. In Hungary e.g. your GP can prescribe it for you (and then it is half price), but it is frowned upon.

Also somehow the quality, packaging and selection seem an awful lot worse there. Everybody was shocked when I took a bottle of (by then cooled) water and some prepackaged formula feed out for DS at my former workplace. They said formula feed in Hungary would never dissolve properly in cold water, and they also liked the handy little powder pot.

MoonFaceMama · 12/07/2010 19:38

Ryoko, why would i want to bf in public? Because my baby is hungry. .
that you don't think it should be done in public. Sorry, know it's off topic but couldn't let it go.

You are right that we all use different definitions of class. Mine would be very different from the one you describe. Not really even based on income i think...still mulling it over tho.

AppleAndBlackberry · 12/07/2010 19:46

I'm not really sure how to tell the difference, but I think everyone I know wanted to breastfeed though some had problems. Probably most middle class and a few working class.

Morloth · 12/07/2010 20:33

Ryoko "TBH I don't think it should be done in public and why the hell would you want to anyway?."

Your baby only eats when you are at home alone?

katkouta · 12/07/2010 20:45

Ryoko "Yes it is all stupid really and some of the comments you hear are just plain insulting" well I found your comments insulting, especially
"being sucked on at home all day" You obviously
have a rather large fried potato sitting just to the right of your neck.

SirBoobAlot · 12/07/2010 20:45

Ryoko, why the hell not? Does your baby not get hungry when you're out an about, then?

I think breastfeeding is perceived as a middle class thing, but as already has been said, that is quite possibly because of the lack of support people on the lower end of the financial scale are.

At my teen postnatal group, there are currently five of us breastfeeding out of ten, and all but one of the antenatal girls are planning on breastfeeding (though the other was swaying between it, she wanted to but has to return to school a few weeks after the birth).

Ryoko · 12/07/2010 20:50

It's private thing isn't it?, I wouldn't get my boobs out in public, find a changing room or something, some people might like to watch others will feel very uncomfortable about it being done around them.

and Morloth yes actually, soon as he's in the pushchair he is asleep, wakes up a bit screams for his dummy if it's fallen out, goes back to sleep.

soon as he gets in the door he wakes up and starts screaming his head off cos his nappy is full to busting and he is hungry.

SoupDragon · 12/07/2010 20:54

Ryoko, "TBH I don't think it should be done in public and why the hell would you want to anyway?" Probably because their baby is hungry. What do you think they should do, let it starve? What an extraordinarily dumb thing to say. Imagine suggesting that a baby shouldn't be FF in public.

Class didn't come into it when I made my decision to breastfeed. I don't know what class I would be considered to be and I don't care.