Unhelpful things you have heard health professionals say...

[FeelLikeTweedleDee]

What unhelpful/misguided things have you heard so-called 'health professionals' say regarding breastfeeding/formula feeding?

Here's a few from my experience:

Midwife: "There's no nutritional benefit to BFing after 6 months. Mothers who chose to BF after that time are doing so just for bonding".

Breastfeeding counsellor: (after only getting 5mls out of my left breast with the pump) "Your left breast has completely dried up. You must pump at least every 3 hours. We'll try to bring the supply back".

Above breastfeeding counsellor: "Breastfeeding isn't the end of the world anyway".

A different breastfeeding counsellor: "I wouldn't bother using your hands to express after pumping. The pump should get all the milk out".

GP: "Formula is more nutritious." (don't get me started on this particular GP).

When i told my GP that i was struggling to bf ds1 (he was only a few days old) & he wasn't settling & I didn't know if I was doing it properly.
His reply... "well you've got an ample pair, just keep trying, my wife's a skinny thing & she bf all of our kids wiht no problems"
& out the door he walked!

Ooh Janek, that's a new one!

"Oh aren't you BRAVE!" when I was still breast feeding dd at 8 months . Umm I didn't realise that it was a courage issue.

And the absolutely f*cking idiot that totally ruined about 3 months of ds's babyhood with her mournful predictions of malnutrition and referral to the paediatrician at the hospital if ds didn't start gaining weight in line with the charts (another breastfed baby being measured against bottle fed baby charts). I cried every time I came back from seeing her, I didn't know anyone else who had a baby, hadn't yet discovered MN so had no-one to ask. Looking back at photos now I can see that ds was a really chubby, happy child. I remember saying to her desperately "but me and my H have both got small frames, maybe he is just not mean't to be really big?". Nothing to do with it apparently. I really think she thought I wasn't feeding him at all, a ss case or something. I literally used to cry if he didn't finish his feeds, every time, I was so scared he was starving.

One that sticks in my mind: I went to A&E at 14 weeks pregnant, a Minday lunchtime as I had started to bleed. The (female) doctor said that I needed to save any further bleeding that happened "for example in a cup" as then they could examine it the next day to see if it was "products of your conception". !! I found this difficult to swallow as we had just told all our families on the weekend that we were having a BABY, not that we have conceived a product!!

The product of the conception is now a DS, 4 weeks and 5 days old :-)

If this was a thread about ridiculous things MWs had said, I would be posting until midnight....

But I have to say on the BF front I was so lucky with HV - she was really supportive and encouraging, very calm and sensible advice I thought without feeling over-zealous.

DD took a while to get back to birth weight and was slow to put on weight for a while, but she never made me feel like FF was the only option, really reassured me that DD was happy and doing OK but just slow for weight gain.

Also v sensible and clued up on BLW (I did a sort of mix of BLW and some puree), none of the daft advice about needing to give vitamins if you BF past 6m etc etc...she was fantastic and very unlike all the HVs in this area who I think are completely alarmist and uninformed about lots of stuff.

Sadly she took early retirement but she really helped me so wanted to say not all advice is bad!

Breast clinic specialist HV "vomiting isn't a symptom of mastitis".

GP "you do look very unwell"

Me "yes, I've got mastitis" - described symptoms whilst shivering, sweating and vomiting into an ice-cream tub ? "please give me a prescription for antibiotics"

GP, looking perplexed and doubtful, "well, if you think it is mastitis, I suppose I could give you a prescription for antibiotics...."

Ds had tongue-tie (I had never heard about it until he was a couple of weeks old and I realised after reading the symptoms on here)

Anyhoo feeding him was incredibley painful, had vasospasm from his terrible latch.Awful.

I went to see the GP and told her about the pain and the tongue tie. She told me that tongues-tie would not affect bf-ing as babies do not lap the milk from the nipple like kittens.

No shit, Sherlock.

So several attempts at getting tongue-tie snipped and 3 cancelled (not by me)hospital apts later I gave up trying to get it sorted. Over time the tie has stretched and it's all good and am happily still feeding him at nearly 23mo

Comment from MW in hospital day after DS1 was born, I was trying to bf, finding it very difficult, DS1 crying quite a lot "oooh, he's starving..."

Comment from HV when she found out that DS2 (probably about a week old at that point) was bf on demand and that he took naps with me cuddling him: "he's got you under the thumb, hasn't he?"

I want to add that the MWs and HVs I have encountered this time round with DD have all been excellent, extremely clued up, couldn't praise them enought. Pity they weren't there when I really needed them when my first DC was born.