Hi all, just saw this thread but wish I'd seen it seven months ago when I was drowning in guilt and shame. When I wasn't feeling guilty that I'd "failed" my dd at my first task as a mother by not being able to breastfeed her, I was feeling deeply ashamed that I'd allowed her to spend her first six days on earth sucking frantically at my empty breasts before ending up in neonatal on a drip :( It was an awful time and like someone else said, I still cry when I think about it.
I will never forget the first time I gave her a bottle of formula, in the neonatal unit. She gulped it down so hungrily I burst into tears with relief, and with regret that I hadn't given it to her three days prior.
Like many others here, I am very pro-bf, and to my shame I nearly starved dd to prove it :( . I live in Ireland which has the lowest bf rate in Europe so I do understand why there's a need to promote it and why pro-bf'ers here feel that moms and babies have been let down so badly in the past by formula being considered the norm.
But I find it very hurtful the way ff is treated as not just second-best food, but a sign of a second-best mom. Like others I hate bottlefeeding in public and find myself trying to justify it to people all the time.
It also drives me batty when I see people talking on other threads about someone else's reason for ff as "not having enough milk", put in quotes implying it can't be true. I know that many moms who worry they don't have milk, actually do, or will soon, and unfortunately it does happen that formula given at that stage can further reduce supply etc. So I know it's important that women know that it's relatively rare to actually not produce milk. But I hate constantly hearing that it's " extremely rare" or seeing people assume that a woman who says she doesn't have enough milk is either lying or misinformed
Like at least three others I counted on this thread, I had zero breast changes during pregnancy, and no change in size/tenderness/engorgement after giving birth. Not after three days, and not after six months. If I squeezed I did get tiny drops but my dd couldn't seem to get anything much from me and even after pumping for an hour with a hospital pump I produced less than half an ounce. Breastfeeding was important to me, and when my breasts almost completely failed to register that I had had a baby, I did all kinds of research, figured out that I probably had hypoplasia (where milk ducts don't mature) and presented my consultant with my hypothesis. He examined me and agreed that this was the issue (this was the point where I finally felt he believed me when I said I had no milk) but said I couldn't be officially diagnosed unless he referred me to a breast specialist. I had a 3 week old baby, a post-natal uterine infection, and the ebf ship had already sailed, so I told him I couldn't face going to see the specialist any time soon. As a result, I'm not going to be counted in any "1%" stats of women who physically can't breastfeed.
I'm sure many moms who don't have milk move onto formula without necessarily seeking an explanation for their inability to bf (because they just want to move on from the failure, or because they're embarrassed, or because it wasn't such a huge deal for them). Add to that the fact that many doctors/midwives/lactation consultants are dismissive of women's knowledge of their own bodies and default to the reassurance record ("oh don't you worry, it will come in, just don't give up") when they should be listening (to the fact that there have been no breast changes, there is no leakage, there are not enough wet nappies), and it's not surprising at all that cases of physical inability to breastfeed go undetected. Then, when the milk still doesn't come and the mother finally listens to her instincts, by the next visit the baby is taking formula, and the health pros can just assume that the mom didn't try hard enough / didn't give it enough time. No diagnosis.
I think it's the diagnosis that's extremely rare, not the condition. And while, again, I know it's important to keep new moms from panicking about supply and remind them that it takes time to establish, all the talk about how very very rare real supply problems can add insult to injury for those of us who experience them. Reading that over and over makes me feel like a bit of a freak, as well as a failure.
Anyway didn't mean to write a book but just wanted to share my experience. I'm really glad this thread is here and will be back, but will try to be more concise!