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Infant feeding

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

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Original poster

Can I ask, if you didn't breast feed at all, not even once, why not?

65 replies

Kendodd · 17/02/2011 14:40

Please girls don't fight

I have a friend (two actually) who didn't BF at all because they didn't want to, one of them didn't because it just turned her stomach. Although I BF mine I can definitely she were she is coming from with that. I never enjoyed Bfeeding myself and would have preferred to be giving them a bottle.

Why did others chose FF and could anything have persuaded you to BF?

OP posts:

ShowOfHands · 19/02/2011 10:40

Oh gosh no ledkr, you didn't piss me off at all. It was a general point, not directed at you. And I utterly agree with you. I too yawn at the 'why didn't you bf, you should have, it's the best thing for a baby, how could you you harridan, I'm considerably better than you' crap. Honestly, you can't have these threads without it seemingly and it's rude and extremely yawnsome. Sadly, it also overshadows the point of this kind of discussion.

You have a 3wk old? Congratulations. Enjoy every second of it.

ShowOfHands · 19/02/2011 10:43

I'm a nosy cah, just had a look at your profile in the hope of seeing tiny baby pictures. I was NOT disappointed. But...

Your bump! It was fabulous.

gabity · 19/02/2011 10:48

I tried but didn't succeed. Expressed exclusively for 6 months instead, not sure why more people don't express if they don't want to breast feed?

RumourOfAHurricane · 19/02/2011 10:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

ledkr · 19/02/2011 10:51

soh,impressive huh? The baby was only 7lb13oz too haha.

lackaDaisy · 19/02/2011 10:53

I breastfed both my daughters for 3.5 months, but only because both my mum and MIL insisted. They weren't militant about it or anything, just encouraging me constantly.

I hated every minute of it. I was depressed and had very very dark thoughts that I couldn't possibly voice to anyone (even now). As soon as I stopped bf, the dark feeling lifted and I could bond with my dds.

Actually once dds were 13 weeks old, mum and mil were fine with me stopping as "the baby has got the best you have to offer". If it was not for their pushing, I would have stopped much earlier with dd1 and not tried at all with dd2

wannaBe · 19/02/2011 10:58

the thing is though SOH people do judge. The people who say they are :sad: when women don't try - why? It's not them and it's not their baby so I really don't get that.

Equally the people that dismiss peoples' reasons for not being able to bf. I couldn't bf. I didn't produce milk - none. When my collostrum went no milk came in to replace it. Yet I have been told (on here) that I must be mistaken as it's so incredibly rare to not be able to bf. But actually there is very little evidence to back that up because realistically, most women who cannot bf due to lack of milk don't put themselves forward for medical testing to establish why or whether that is actually the case, so I genuinely believe that aledged statistic of 1 in 100 women is massively flawed and that there are more women that are unable to bf for various reasons but are being made to feel guilty about it for not having tried hard enough/got the right support etc. Of course there are women who don't get the right support. But equally there are women that try everything and just do not succeed.

But thing is, nobody should even be debating this stuff. If a woman doesn't get enough support then of course she should fight for it. And more support should be available to women who are struggling but who would be able to bf in the right circs. But equally there should be more understanding for women who genuinely cannot bf. They shouldn't be told "oh it's so rare, are you sure? you must be mistaken," people should take other people at their word - it's not for anyone else to question or cast doubt.

When I gave up trying to bf I gave ds formula and never looked back. It never even occurred to me that I should be feeling guilty. It wasn't until I came on mn that I encountered this attitude towards women that don't/can't bf.

jezebelle · 19/02/2011 11:02

I didn't for my ds and dd, and won't for this one. It grosses me out, yeah lovely if you wanna etc etc but personally i don't want no baby on my nipple :o

tiktok · 19/02/2011 11:04

wannabe - it is rare for women not to produce any milk. I have mentioned to you a number of times that while it is rare it does happen - I also asked you if you were tested for Sheehans syndrome, which produces the effect you note ie no milk/little milk after colostrum.

Sheehans syndrome does account for a number of women who don't produce (much) milk. It is a syndrome that occurs postnatally, often (though not always) after a large bleed (not necessarily a full postpartum haemmorhage ) because of the effect this bleed has on the pituitary.

It is possible to have Sheehans with no other symptoms than the lack of breastmilk.

ShowOfHands · 19/02/2011 11:09

wannabe me ol' mucker, I think we are agreeing with each other. I know people judge. They're nobbers. What I was saying that there's nothing wrong with trying to understand how people make the decisions they do as it enables people to better support those decisions. Nobody should make you feel guilty, you're right and no I don't want to debate whether a woman should bf, just think acknowledging what happens when a woman chooses how to feed her child can only lead to better support. The judging and the generalisations I am wholly with you on despising.

ledkr, my dd was 7lbs 12oz and I was roughly the size of a 3 bed semi. There wasn't a room in our house that was long enough to fit me in on a wide angle lens. Greenpeace actually tried to roll me back out to sea.

wannaBe · 19/02/2011 11:35

tiktok no I was never tested, why on earth would I be. And that is precisely my point - most women who cannot bf for whatever reason don't go down the route of medical testing - they have enough on their plate as it is with just having given birth to be bothered with wanting to have medical tests as well, and afaik testing isn't something that is routinely offered.

It is quite possibly rare for women to not produce any milk, perhaps less so for them to not produce enough milk. The reality is that we cannot possibly know, because the numbers of women that put themselves forward for medical testing are tiny so cannot possibly give an accurate result.

I know plenty of women who could not bf for various reasons, not enough milk/inverted nipples/baby unable to latch due to conditions such as tongue tie (which is not routinely dealt with on the nhs in many areas), I don't know a single one that has gone for medical tests, nor have I ever read anyone on here putting themselves forward for medical tests to establish the cause of their not being able to bf.

tiktok · 19/02/2011 11:48

Why would you be tested, you ask, wannabe? Sorry - why on earth would you be tested? Because not to produce any milk after colostrum is physiologically unexpected. And if someone wants to produce milk, and is unable to do so, they might want to know why so it can be treated.

Why be so outraged at the suggestion?

Sheesh.

I agree that the precise no. of women not producing milk is an estimate, but it's not so impossible to make a sensible estimate.

MoonUnitAlpha · 19/02/2011 12:04

Isn't that quite shocking though? That the NHS don't routinely find the cause of women not producing milk?

I think that's quite indicative of the NHS's poor support of breastfeeding in general - if someone presented with some other unusual condition surely your GP would send you for tests.

aob1013 · 19/02/2011 12:43

Not judging at all. I bear no judgement on Mums who formula feed as my son was premature and needed formula to survive. I'm just stating facts.

teenyanne · 19/02/2011 12:52

I never breastfed. Firstly, I'm on medication, which lots of people said was ok to breast feed on, but there was no research to back it up and I didn't want to risk it.

And when I was in hospital post c-section, I was so glad that I made that choice. The hospital I was definitely tried to push breast feeding, but if I called them to help me even lift my dd out of her crib so that I could hold her, the staff made me feel like I was a nuisance. Maybe it was because I wasn't breastfeeding that they treated me like that (they've recently gone formula free, so if you want to ff, you have to take it with you). Either way, their attitude made me relieved that I had decided in advance to ff, if I had started bf and had as little help as they offered to me, there is no way I would have continued and probably had all the emotion that that led to to contend with too.

Also, I was really traumatised from the induction and her birth (still am really), and I had trouble holding her. It was one thing less for me to stress about, that if I felt unable, dh or grandparents could feed her.

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