Influences on breastfeeding experiences

[rhubarbcustard]

I'm a trainee Breastfeeding Counsellor and I'm working on two assignments about the services and range of people that influence mothers' experiences of breastfeeding. I'd be really interested to hear from Mumsnet Mums about the the influences on their decisions about baby feeding.

Any thoughts on this would be very gratefully received. If you'd be happy to be quoted in an essay (anonymously, of course) then please indicate this. Many thanks!

I've also put a post on the Enfield section of Mumsnet Local so if you happen to live in Enfield and would be willing to comment on your experiences in the borough, please post there instead.

Many thanks for your help with this.

I wasn't particularly influenced into breastfeeding, it was just something I really wanted to do as I felt it was the best thing for my DD. My DH suffered from severe asthma as a child, as did my father, and I had read that bf might lead to less chance of such illnesses, so I was keen to do it to try and reduce the chances of asthma and allergies for my DD. I was very open-minded though, and took the view that if I was able to bf then that would be great, but that I wouldn't beat myself up about it if I couldn't. I bf for six months, but also mixed it up a bit (formula one feed, bf the next) from around 10 weeks. I found it incredibly frustrating that no health visitor would give me straight advice as to whether mixing the two was a good thing or not. In the end the decision was made for me, I became ill around 10 weeks after my daughter was born and started to give her formula simply so that I could get some rest. She continued to thrive, and I got better. I remain convinced that had I not mixed the two methods I would not have bf my DD as long as I did and met another mum at a baby group who was of the same mind as me - more new mums should be advised about this!

Few of my friends bf for more than a few days, but this didn't influence me. I was bf for about six weeks (early 70s - my younger sister was bf for about three weeks) and my mum says this wasn't unusual for the time - she was surprised that I wanted to continue a long as I did. One friend felt very guilty about having been unable to bf her son despite trying so hard. My sister had problems feeding her second child and two different nurses took her to one side to recommend she formula fed instead. Both asked her not to tell anybody that they had said this as they would otherwise get into trouble for not promoting the "breast is best" message.

I never felt comfortable about bf in public, I'm reasonably large-chested and never got the hang of latching my DD on discreetly, so preferred to express milk and take it out with me, or take formula. The only place I ever bf in public was at my local Surestart centre, where nursing chairs were provided and nobody batted an eyelid if you abandoned an activity to get your baps out! In my very early days I remember being delighted when one of the advisors complimented me on my latching on technique, as during the first 48 hours at the hospital I recall that I thought I would never get the hang of it and felt I was constantly having to call for assistance (the support staff were incredibly patient and showed me a number of techniques until I found one that worked).

Incidentally, my DD suffers from eczema and mild asthma. I guess I'll never know whether she'd have had it worse had I not bf her, or whether it actually made no difference. If I have another child, I would make the same decisions and try to bf for as long as I could. Otherwise, she is now a very healthy, sturdy toddler, but put her next to her friends at nursery and you'd never be able to tell which ones had been bf and which had been fed solely on formula.

I think I'd only ever seen one person breastfeeding (a friend of my mum's, once) before I was pregnant. I'd never intended to have children myself, so the conception of my daughter was accidental, and I'd never been interested in being around babies. My sisters and I were breastfed, although I didn't know until recently that my mum also gave me (but not them) some formula - I'm the youngest, born in the early 80s.

I never considered any other way of feeding my daughter. I'm vegan, so the idea that cows' milk is for calves and human milk is for human babies is already firmly fixed in my mind. As are the health disadvantages of consuming non-human milks (having worked for a vegan health charity) at any age.

So although my daughter was born at 37 weeks, without her final sucking reflex, and she was tongue-tied for the first 10 weeks (meaning extremely long, painful feeds), I breastfed her. Because it's the right thing for her, me, the cows, and the environment.

She's now 3.5 months and I intend to continue nursing her as long as possible, knowing the health and emotional development advantages this brings.

If I really hadn't been able to feed her myself (even by expressing), which is incredibly rare, I would have hired a wet nurse rather than given her formula.

You can quote me.

also happy to be quoted

my mother breastfed me and is very vocal about bf in general. my grandmother breastfed her because there was no other option but by the time my uncle and aunty came a long you could get free formula from health clinics and my uncle was ff. out of the three he is the only one to have had any health issues in childhood though i appreciate that is anecdotal evidence.

when i was pregnant with dd (i only have one dc) tbh i was unsure about the whole thing because i was slightly freaked out about the physical aspect but as time went on i thought about all the faff of ff (plus my dm would have hit the roof!). my dh is extremely hands on but not the speediest and my worst fear was waiting for dh to make up bottles in the night whilst dd was screaming her head off. this sealed the deal and gave me an aspect of control i'd be very reluctant to give up with dc2 if i am lucky enough to have one.

i didnt really have any problems with bf (i fed dd until she was 12 months - she self weaned then quire happily) but successfully bf made me feel very strong as a parent ( and i needed that strength) and confident in my abilities.

i turned inot a bit of a bf geek, read politics of breastfeeding (highly recommended if you are studying), trained as a peer supporter and volunteer at latch on groups every week. the more i learn about the crock of shit ff industry and rubbish spouted by media and hcps the more resolute i feel in my feeding choices. choices - what a bollocks word for this debate - the more i learn the more i realise how important my commitment to bf was for me, my dd and to wider public health issues.

fwiw though, my immediate peer group are not lactivists like me and either only bf for a short time or didnt bother at all. i have only met mums hwo take bf seriously since having dd. there are 5 of us, 2 still feeding at 20 months. we have commented in the past that though it didnt infulence our intitial feeding, having social support was important in the long run, especially around feeding in public - we've all seen eachother's boobs! its no big deal :)

Thank you so much to all of you who have contributed so far. I have never posted on Mumsnet before and am overwhelmed by the number of really helpful responses and the variety of experiences you have shared. There are some definite themes emerging about influences. It's very interesting to read all the comments about observing people breastfeeding at a young age and therefore assuming that was natural as I don't remember seeing anyone breastfeed until I was about 25!

One thing I am wondering about is whether anyone has anything to say/add about the influence their partner had on breastfeeding/not breastfeeding? And also whether you have had any particularly positive or negative experiences in shops/cafes etc.

hey rhubard -

my dh was super supportive about me bf dd. i cannot, cannot fault him and he waited on me hand and foot when dd was teeny and fed all the time. dh is very health/nutrition concious and paranoid aobut obesity plus he watched his 2 sisters bf their 7 (between them) kids with no problems at all to about 12 months each i think. dh has shared my learning journey too and would have done the peer supporter training if he was allowed! i know he felt a bit left out initially but its only for 6 months (ebf, i mean they can go much longer between feeds post weaning) and he can do everything i can do with dd now which more than made up for it.

i only have my mum to support me on my side but having the support of dh's family made a big difference for me and i appreciate that i was lucky to have that

i have never had a negative experience bf in a shop/cafe - in fact of the probably hundreds of time i have fed in public i would gues that 80% of the time no one has noticed. i have had much much more attnetion feeding in mothercare facilites - both good and bad. i have had good chats with other bf mums, some quite militant lactivists but have been stared at and made to feel a bit uncomfortable by ff mums AND dads but actually i wonder if that is more to do with us all feedling self concious as new mums anyway and as i got more confident i used to make and effort to ice break a bit whilst feeding as admire/ask about the other babies which always did the trick :)

Not sure if you only want to hear from people who EBF- in which case pls ignore this as I mixed fed. However, hopefully this explains the reasons why I did what I did.

I always assumed I would bf to some degree as I was aware of the health benefits and also thought night feeds would be less of a faff, but at the same time I have to admit that it wasn't a big issue for me, and my family and friends (who mainly bf) didn't really influence me. I was breast fed as a baby but only asked my mum that 2 months ago, so that wasn't an influence.

I mainly bf DS to 6 months (he had one FF a day and a top up) and then switched to formula. I didn't really have any problems with latch- he just went straight on- and I never got mastitis or anything. The reason I mixed fed was that I was never able to express effectively, even after I hired a Medela hospital pump. I never got more than 50 mls. I'm very lucky in that I had a lot of support - someone to look after the baby for a few hrs a day and in the evenings if I wanted to go out but they had to be able to feed him (obviously ) so I used formula to top up the expressed feed, and then I also found that he slept better if he had a bottle for the 10pm feed, so I used formula for that.

I stopped bf at 6 mo as I wanted to TTC again. I cut down to 2 feeds a day but then he just lost interest.

DH was very supportive, but in a "do what you want" way rather than a supporting bf way IYSWIM.

When I was pregnant I just assumed I would breastfeed. Not sure why, a mixture of naivety and arrogance I think. The more I found out about the benefits, the more determined I was. I went to two NHS sessions and it was also covered on my NCT course. I read Ina Mae's guide, and it seemed to tie in with ideas I had about a natural birth (I was hoping to go to a MLU). I was determined not to have any formula in the house.

A couple of weeks before ds was born a new mum friend said that the hardest thing she found was establishing bf'ing. I was bemused. As soon as ds was born though, I understood . I was exhausted, he was jaundiced and very sleepy, I got crap help at hospital, he did 7 hour overnight cluster feeds, he screamed every time I put him down etc, it was just horrible.

Being a contrary bastard though, it just made me dig my heels in. Mumsnet and Breastfeeding groups are great! Still bf'ing now at 7.5 months and I fully intend to continue till he self weans. Reading The Politics of Breastfeeding really helped fuel the righteous rage that got me through the early weeks.

My biggest influence? My son. He loves bf'ing :)

This is amazing - I know I'm going to struggle to do justice to all your influences and experiences in 2500 words! Thank you all so much again for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Happy to be quoted.
Neither I nor my two sibs were bf. I was 4lbs when born and spent 2 weeks in NICU. I think my mum tried but I was just too little, it was the 70's and my dad is a GP so probably thought formula was best (!). I think my mum regrets not bfing us.
DS1 was born by EMCS and I bf for 6 weeks. He just wasn't interested, it was a 3 person job to get him to latch on. He had reflux and was very colicky. We moved to formula when he began losing weight and tbh, he wasn't keen on that either.
DS2 was also born by EMCS, but I was much more clued up about bfing after his birth and knew that it wouldn't necessarily be easy, to expect him to want to feed hourly and to just persevere.
Things were going well, however, he was admitted to hospital at 10 days for emergency cardiac surgery, he had a coarctation of the aorta. I managed to keep expressing with the support of the nursing and auxiliary staff at Yorkhill (Glasgow). As soon as DS2 came out of ICU, his consultant gave me a private room and told me to "get that boy on the boob". He's now ten months, thriving, and I'm so very glad that I had the support that I did.
Sorry, that was very long!!

Happy to be quoted.

I BF DS until he was 16 months old. He never had a bottle, but he did start having cow's milk in a cup aged 1 when I went back to work. He wasn't interested in BF during the day from about 10 months though.

My mum BF me until 15 months (older brother also BF). She was also very active in the NCT and actually did a BF counsellor course, although I didn't find this last bit out until DS was a few weeks old and I commented on how supportive she was being! My MIL also BF DH until he was about 15 months old (and BF his siblings). I just didn't consider any other way of feeding DS, its just the norm to BF in my family (members of both mine & DH's extended family also BF as well).

Whilst pregnant I read up on BF and watched a BF DVD given to me at antenatal class, and this helped me understand the importance of getting latch & positioning right. I was in hospital for one night after giving birth and I made sure I buzzed the midwives when I fed so they could check latch and help me with positioning. They were brilliant. My community midwife was also great once I was home.

Both my mum and MIL fed on demand, didn't schedule etc. so once feeding was established there was no pressure to do things differently, and night feeding was considered normal. All my close friends who have had babies recently also fed on demand.

I would say I was also influenced by research on the benefits of BF, but that just reinforced what I was already wanting to do. I also couldn't see the point of faffing with equipment and buying more stuff when everything was perfectly on tap. Mostly though I really really enjoyed it, and loved snuggling down with DS to BF.

Where I found it more difficult was where people in some of the mother & baby groups I went to all seemed to move off BF between 3-6 months. I never considered stopping, but a few people questioned why I was carrying on and this made me feel uncomfortable. There were some other things going on at the time though as we had moved to a new area so I was probably more vulnerable to feeling uncomfortable. I started going to some La Leche League meetings, which really helped.

That was longer than I intended!

Good luck with your assignments.