'For what it's worth, I've never met a single woman who refused to BF due to a lack of awareness, but I have spoken to plenty who found BF painful and distressing; who had babies literally screaming with hunger for days, and who then felt like they'd failed at the first hurdle and will always feel guilty about it, me included.'
And you shouldn't feel guilty - you should feel angry because you have been let down!
As a peer supporter I want to see much more time and resource in assisting mums who are trying to breastfeed, then try to convince the ones who don't want to.
Virtually all women have the ability to breastfeed (otherwise the human race would have died out thousands of years ago, or evolved a different way to feed our babies). But it is a skill both you and baby have to learn, and you do this by being supported and by observing other mothers around you breastfeeding. These things have been lost over the past few decades. And some women will find it more difficult than others (particularly if the baby itself has a problem with effective latch, e.g. tongue tie, DS, prematurity etc.).
If we can help mums who want to breastfeed to do so and for longer, we will see more and more mums bfing. And perhaps the ones who don't simply because it has never occurred to them to do so (mainly because they are accustomed to seeing bottle feeding around them) may think "hey I might give that a go, HV is always banging on that it is better to bfed and if all those women I have seen can do it, maybe I can?" This is the point that RJandA were trying to make.
BTW Neez - good luck with the nurse-in!!