Do that many women really not have enough milk????

[Jammers]

I heard another mother today say she stopped breastfeeding because she "didn't have enough milk" and found myself getting really annoyed (in my head - I think I managed to smile sympathetically to the woman).

As I see it, people stop bf for reasons which fall braodly into one of two camps: medical or personal. (And I am simplifying slightly to make the point)

The medical reasons might include: mastitis, absess, repeated thrush, lactose intolerance in baby, very sore nipples, gestational diabetes etc. (I know all of these are surmountable but can make it more difficult to carry on)

The personal reasons might include: not enjoying it, finding it too tying, thinking your breasts should remain sexual, not being able to cope with the night feeds etc. None of these reasons would ever have stopped me from bf, however, at least they are honest and in certain circles it is brave to admit to them.

I feel that "I ran out of milk" is probably a cover for one of the personal reasons but masquerading as a medical reason, therefore inviting sympathy. I just think that if you can't be arsed to spend the time required to bf in the early weeks you should be brave enough to say so.

Am I wrong? Are there really that many women who don't have enough milk? (I now know 5 people claiming this) I'd like to know that my sense of anger is justified or be convinced that these women really have run out of milk.

Dozza - I had a really easy time with breastfeeding compared to you and yet still felt it was incredibly hard at times. BF-ing has worked out well for me and DD eventually but the first 6-8 weeks were a real struggle.

The thing I took away from that was that I have no right to judge other people's situations when it comes to feeding their babies. Who knows what they may have gone through before making the switch. Talking to friends who have breastfed/mixed fed and bottle fed their babies I'd say that attitude is normal. I certainly haven't heard opinions like that in the OP expressed anywhere in real life.

So please don't feel afraid when you feed your baby in public. The vast majority of mothers, including those who have breastfed, will have the sense not to judge.

Since when do ff babies not have night feeds?!

What exactly has it got to do with you?? People are perfectly entitled to feed their baby however they like and do not have to justify themselves to you! If this is one of your friends should you not be supporting her instead of slagging her off?

It's often easy to see why women believe they have a supply problem though - you expect to get a baby that feeds for 30 minutes every 3-4 hours and sleeps nicely in their crib between feeds. Instead you get a baby that feeds for an hour every 2 all day and then spends all evening on and off the breast feeding for hours but seemingly never satisfied. The baby never sleeps in the crib and won't be put down at all, and when you try to express so your DP can help out, the pump yields next to nothing. Many women will look at that scenario and conclude they aren't producing enough milk.

I think the tone of your post explains why people might lie (or more likely make up a simple explanation) about it. I had real problems breastfeeding DD1, which I managed to overcome, but I felt terrible - guilty and not like a proper woman - because it didn't come easily. Feeling like this did not help me cope in the first frankly horrendous weeks of having a new baby. I wish now I had got into less of a state about it and formula fed.

People like you who moralise and use words that imply laziness about breastfeeding problems can, well, fuck off basically.

A friend of mine had a very very old book about child care and apparently it was normal then not to have enough milk too and mothers were encouraged to go up the street to ask for milk from other lactating mothers. It is also one of the many reasons why wet nurses exist. I have an elderly friend (in her late 80's) who had little or no milk when her girls were babies. Please consider how awful it is for many mothers who would love to feed their babies themselves but just can't. Please also consider that we don't live in a dictatorship and we do have a choice how we feed our babies.

OP has gorn

Come back so that we can ask you more about why it makes you angry

Thank you

Yes it is possible not to produce enough milk. If you baby has a high palate it is extremely difficult to get them to latch effectively and therefore stimulate milk supply. This can run in families

In the case of DD she was nearly hospitalised because I was not producing enough milk (lost half her body weight). I too suffered huge guilt at giving up and get furious by campaigns telling you Breastfeeding is the ONLY way to feed your baby. It's not if it was my daughter would have been very ill indeed.

DS was big, hungry and threw up constantly, If they have plotted the growth charts right (they mis plotted) he would have shown a failiure to thrive. I may eventully have been able to produse enough milk but I was breastfeeding almost round the clock still at day 14. in the end I could either bottle feed and enjoy my baby or breastfeed, not a choice I believe wOmen shoud feel guilty about.

There are some women who genuinely don't have enough milk -- probably less than 2%, based on the breastfeeding statistics from countries where breastfeeding is properly supported.

Far more women than this say they stopped breastfeeding because they "didn't have enough milk" but I think that that is very very very rarely a cover for one of the "personal" reasons you describe. Women are told by family or friends or (shockingly but not at all unusually) by HCPs that normal feeding patterns on the part of a newborn (seeming unsettled, cluster feeding, huge feedathons, lots of snacky feeds) are signs that the baby is not getting enough milk because the mother "doesn't have enough". Or they fear or are told that normal patterns in their own body (not getting engorged, not being able to express anything significant) are signs that they are not making enough milk. Or they are told that their baby is not gaining weight "quickly enough" and so they can't be producing enough milk. Or they are encouraged to do something that will adversely affect their milk supply, without knowing about the likely effect, and so they end up genuinely having "not enough milk" even though there was no initial problem. Most breastfeeding women in the UK don't get proper advice and knowledge and support and help.

Or there may be a problem with the baby (tongue tie or something else) that affects how effectively he or she can latch on and extract milk, and that means the baby isn't getting enough and causes the mother's supply to drop off even though her supply wasn't the original issue.

If you're going to get angry with someone or something, get angry about the shocking state of support for breastfeeding in this country. Most women who want to exclusively breastfeed don't for more than a couple of weeks tops, because they don't get the support they need and deserve. Getting angry at individual women who have been let down by the system is not at all constructive or charitable or even nice.

Agree about the advice thing and lack of preparedness (ie telling future mums the truth about BFing - there is better advice now, but not honest information IMO)

plus all the 'helpful' advice

My Dad insisted on going to the supermarket to buy a bottle when dc2 was born, even tho I successfully fed dc1 for over 18 months - and only gave up then under peer/family pressure 'it's not good for you to BF for this long....it will damage your health' 15 years ago there was no advice to the contrary. Dad got the bottle so dc2 (11 years later) could 'have a drink of water as he'll get thirsty...' Completely ignorant and misplaced advice as as soon as Dad gave him some fecking water he got all collicky... Anyway, axe ground.

But I was fortunate with BFing to...

1. have a v. good supply (went from AA cup to a D cup overnight - ouch)
2. Co-operative baby
3. No pressure to return to work with either child for 1 year +
4. No personal expectation that I would ever sleep again or have any 'me time'
5. Living far enough from female relatives NOT to get poor/outdated and well intentioned advice RE 'stretching' the time between feeds, or using water etc.
6. Being so poor with dc1 that bottle feeding was completely out of the question
7. Realising early on that BFing was, bar poor sleep, actually the lazy option as I never had to prepare/shop/sort anything out like bottles etc.
8. being a LP with dc1, so no inteferring bloke nagging me and bossing me about with poor advice...

There is a LOT of poor advice out there RE feeding and a LOT of old wives tales.

I think it would be great if women DID feel more justified if they didn't want to BF in being entitled to just say it. One of my friends didn't even try to BF her second as she HATED BFing and was a much happier mum for not doing the whole 'I must do what is BEST for the baby' Also another friend tried everything - including maternal advice from a woman who had fed 4 of her own children, to get BFing working and just couldn't, but was left feeling AWFUL about it (even the MW was nasty when she got the FF in) Surely her decision was justifiable too?

Maybe the guilt is what causes women to want a reason for not continuing to BF, or possibly they have just not got the confidence in their abilities that they need to BF. Motherhood can be a very lonely, undermining and guilt ridden place...

Personally think the breast is best message is really stupid too - puts a lot of pressure on women to become superhuman in order to BF, instead of just doing it as it is 'average' for their bodies to be able to do it - generally - and being allowed to be confident in their own bodies and choices.

SIL worked through cracked nipples, poor latch, lots of cluster feeds, an infection and then stopped at 4 months with dc1 as her HV advised her that her supply could do with topping up...I did feel sceptical that this was the true reason as bubs was thriving, but felt terrible for her - she cried all over me ffs - and thought she'd been given really poor advice.

Don't know why you'd feel angry though - we need to get BFing back into the realms of womankind and support each other in understanding it, so people can make better informed choices about their bodies and feeding their babies and be allowed their choices.

I don't think you have any excuse to be "angry" with people to can't or don't want to breastfeed because you CHOSE to.

Early breastfeeding intervention may have helped dd., but by the time anyone realised it was too late. I had super lactation support with ds, still didn't solve the matter.

I'd rather women enjoyed their babies than gave how they feed them a second thought

'you expect to get a baby that feeds for 30 minutes every 3-4 hours and sleeps nicely in their crib between feeds'

'not enjoying it, finding it too tying, thinking your breasts should remain sexual, not being able to cope with the night feeds'

I am probably one of the women you are talking about. I don't fit into any of those categories. Why do you assume you know what is happening in other people's heads? I'd assume that I'd read many Lots of things happened that with hindsight, I would do differently; I had a PPH and although did have some initial time with ds, was very quickly separated from him and into theatre. I had no support at all from anybody knowledgeable for early feeds - the mw was completely silent on the subject and I had assumed she would help me, all other mws that I encountered for the first 24 hours were also not helpful (one was actively unpleasant, another was a classic 'boob/hand/head and shove' merchant.) I only got useful advice after that and it was all so different I couldn't sort it out. I have a mother and a MIL who didn't manage to breastfeed at all, who both thought 'helping me' would equal 'supporting me to drop bf'. I have a DH who had never held a baby before ds was born. Logically, some babies are better at getting the hang of latching on than others. DS had jaundice - which IMO needs a bit of extra advice and support, rather than a one-liner from one midwife which I didn't really understand. I did all the night feeds, just like you (in fact ds fed 45 mins on, 5 mins off, all night long - did I suffer enough for you?) At 4 weeks old he was losing weight, not dropping centiles but actually losing significant amounts of weight, and we were admitted to hospital. Maybe I was producing enough milk but however that might be, I couldn't get enough of it effectively into ds to produce a baby who was healthy and happy. And it was a horrible experience of utter helplessness and knowing - knowing - that women like you were judging me.

Incidentally I also think there are issues with cross country studies.It reminds me of a while back when some hospitals were pilloried for having high caesarian rates, until further studies suggested that many had physical causes and these seem to reoccur accross generations. the genetic effects on these things on populations are interesting.

BTW my mum BF my 2 siblings, had a bugger of a job feeding me (youngest), reason high palate.

Not sure why you're quoting me hideyhidey, I'm not judging anyone. My point was just that there is often a big gap between how babies are supposed to behave (as suggested by childcare books or bottle feeding relatives or even health visitors) and how breastfed babies do behave, and these things can make us worry unnecessarily about milk supply. Better information and support would allow many women to breastfeed for longer.

OP - you know 5 people making such outrageous claims? Who are these lying women? I demand you name names!

Mind your own bloody business.

the OP is quite insensitively phrased but as somebody who has not given birth yet i too am puzzled - by asking around i would assume that maybe 1 in 5 women cannot breastfeed or don't have enought (or good enough) milk

but i know from reading here that i've hopefully got more than a 1 in 5 chance if i ask for help in the right places...

it's hard when you haven't tried it to hear about how it's practically impossible from so many women who have tried it.

Ok apologies MoonUnitAlpha - no, you weren't judging by using that quote. It's just that your quote did suggest that women who believe they are not producing enough milk do so because they compare their real baby to an ideal one they have read or heard about and decide that their supply is the reason why the two don't match. That was so far from my experience that I felt as belittled by your quote as by the OP's list of possible 'personal' reasons for stopping bf.

Agree mousema and moonunitalpha.

I have quite a few friends who say they didn't have enough milk. But when I ask them how they knew, or what was happening to make them think that, they describe what I now know to be pretty much the normal behaviour of the breastfeeding baby.

There was no unusual weightloss, or failure to thrive - they were just 1st time mums who didn't understand that their baby could feed frequently, or constantly! and have growth spurts, and wake so often in the night for feeding...They were expecting (as was I, ha ha ha) a baby who fed once every couple of hours, had in a nice solid feed, was full and went to sleep quietly between feeds.

So in the 1st few days, they found BF-ing hard, totally time consuming, and they worried their babies' behaviour meant they were too hungry. So they fed formula, their babies seemed contented, went to sleep for ages, and so they concluded that their own breastmilk wasn't enough. It may well be that after that, their supply was affected - all of them stopped BF-ing totally quite quickly, none of them carried on mix feeding.

However, I don't think all of them wanted to carry on BF-ing, as well, where is where it gets complicated and very sensitive. Why do I think that? Because they've said more privately how relieved they were to stop, and they say they find FF-ing easier (greater freedom, shared night feeds etc). I don't think that they are lying about lack of milk - I just think that they found BF-ing very hard, and a shock, and the anxiety about 'how much milk are they getting??' (which I had!) made formula seem not just attractive but necessary.

I find it really hard to listen to. It seems crushingly insensitive to say 'sounds like you may have had enough milk, but that you got anxious because you were overwhelmed and didn't have enough support.' Because it's done, now, isn't it? And sometimes I've thought - 'you really didn't want to BF, you've just told me how you know someone whose sister is a consultant in Harley Street, who says there's no benefit to BF-ing after 1 week, how you hated being the only one able to feed your DC....' I don't know, but it's not as straightforward then as 'I really wanted to BF but couldn't.'

Obviously, they may have not had enough milk, but it was never a professional diagnosis for the mums I'm talking about, it was their own judgement. Which is where another sensitive problem comes in. 'You know when your own baby's hungry, don't you?'

Well, not necessarily. Why on earth should a 1st time mum with no practical experience of BF-ing know the difference between a frantically cluster feeding 10 day old, and one who is genuinely being underfed? I wouldn't know, and I'm an intelligent parent who tries to do my best. Parenting is about a learned craft as much as instinct, and there was so much I didn't know about normal BF-ing until I found MN and Kellymom.

Anyway. The problem arises I think when you get a lot of women citing not enough milk as a reason for stopping - so it seems like it's actually a very widespread and common problem. Which then sows seeds of doubt in other new mums minds. As a 1st time mum, I was SO worried in the early days about whether DS was getting enough milk or not. I had him weighed whenever I could, I forensically studied his nappies, even used a torch to try and see his fontanelle through all his hair....! I still think all babies should come with a 'tank gauge' attached.

So - I don't share the OP's anger or attitude, but I do think it's unhelpful for the idea that a LOT of women suffer from dangerously low milk supply to become widespread.

Maybe I should have begun my post with a disclaimer stating that it didn't apply to every woman in every scenario then

However, it does apply to a lot of women - having a fussy, cluster feeding baby makes many mothers worry about supply, as does not being able to express. Take a look at threads on this forum!

I had never even heard the term cluster feeding before finding mumsnet.

"It's hard when you haven't tried it to hear about how it's practically impossible from so many women who have tried it"

I think the odds are really stacked against some women in terms of successful BFing. Technically it isn't impossible but their prior knowledge and support network (or lack of these) makes BFing extremely hard.

My mum BFd her 4 children. I grew up watching this, being told how easy it was and assuming it was the normal thing to do. My pregnancy and birth with DD were very straightforward. I hired a v. pro-breastfeeding independent MW when I had DD and gave birth at home so we had plenty of quiet time and support in the first few days. I had a good prior knowledge of variation in baby feeding and weight gain patterns. The odds were very much stacked in favour of my being able to breastfeed.

Now imagine an opposite scenario, perhaps someone from the third generation of FF babies in their family who has never seen a baby breastfed. They give birth in a large CLU because they feel safer there but there are complications and they end up having interventions which extend their recovery time. They're unable to get up and look after their baby as easily as they'd like. The MWs and nurses are too busy to check how BFing is going. Everyone in the family assumes that the new mum will FF. This woman is very likely to experience problems. The odds are just stacked against her if she wants to BF.

If FF mums are telling you that they can't BF when they can but simply don't want to, perhaps its worth considering whether your own judgements on the subject are affecting whether your "friends" are comfortable being honest with you about it.

Being a mostly bottle feeding mum I haven't heard many people say they milk hasn't come in. But I have heard a lot saying it was too difficult for them to want to continue, but then I would have sympathised with them.

TO be fair

I wouldn't be the one you'd want to talk to if you had dreadful mastitus were up all night breastfeeding had super cracked nipples and still wanted to carry on breastfeeding