Bottle Feeding Guilt - Why Breast is not Best for Everyone

[motherblogginguilt]

Hi fellow mummies,

I had a traumatic time trying to breastfeed my first baby. I was so convinced that 'breast is best' that I did everything in my power to breastfeed my son, unaware that he was getting very little milk. The midwives failed to recognise that my son was starving and that I was beyond exhausted and pushed me to continue trying to breastfeed. I finally stopped when a sensible midwife weighed my son and gave me an ultimatum - formula milk or hospitalise my baby.

I've written my story on my blog: www.motherblogginguilt.com

If you've been through a similar experience, I would love to hear from you. I feel very strongly that the 'breast is best' message can have a damaging effect on new mums and it's time that midwives were trained to put the health of mothers and babies above the need to raise the breastfeeding quotas.

Looking forward to some feedback xx

Alpine, I agree with you. Unfortunately we (who bottlefed for whatever reason) have been beat down so badly that we do not even want to enter into a debate any more. Debate - Ha! There is no talking sense to the bottle bashers.

My 6 year old is the healthiest kid in his class. He never gets the tummy bug going round. When he gets a cold it's a bit of a sniffle and nothing more. And it's not that he has a high pain threshold - he's the first one to cry when he so much as bumps his toe! But he does seem to have a good immune systems. Wonder why that is as he was bottlefed from birth?

According to the breastfeed brigade it's just luck. Bullsh*t!

I really don't understand why it is such a huge issue how other people feed their children? Why? What on earth does it have to do with you? Why do I owe you an explanation?

If I ask for support on... say potty training, the advice would be diverse. And there would be a general consensus that each child is different and requires a different approach and you should do what is natural for you and the child. Avoid stress. Avoid pressure.

Why then should we ignore the stress and pressure it might put on someone when they are sobbing at 3 am, with cracked nipples, a screaming baby and 1 hour's sleep in the last 24 hours? Why is okay to let that baby scream? Let that mother cry?

Pah!

alpinepony if you feel that strongly why not offer that support yourself instead of having a go at others?

Sorry for you OP, I hope you find some closure, you must still be pretty cut up about it if you've written a blog on it.

For what it's worth, I had a similar experience to you with my firstborn. She lost 20% of her birthweight in the first week and was readmitted to hospital where they formula fed her. I remember being really upset at them giving her formula, but you know, it did stop her crying and meant she slept for more than 45 mins for the first time since she'd been born.

I mixed fed her for 6 months then chose to stop b/feeding altogether.

With my second, when we started to go down that road again I introduced a bottle on about day 5 - no guilt there.

If I have a third, and it starts losing weight at a rapid rate on breastfeeding again I will introduce formula, no questions. There is nothing more heartrending than trying to breastfeed a baby who is starving.

Ditto Vagina, my DS also got to the stage of 'formula or NICU' at three days old, when he hadn't been able to feed since birth. I was utterly devastated to have had to give formula so early on, when I'd been convinced that I'd breastfeed for a year or more. However, in my case, the formula milk allowed DS to sleep properly for the first time since he'd been born, then wake up re-hydrated and able to latch on to the breast. I'm now exclusively breastfeeding again at three months. In our case, a little bit of formula saved us, and allowed me to continue with the breastfeeding that I'd been so desperate to do. If I have another baby, I'll have no qualms about introducing formula milk if necessary, rather than persevere with trying to feed a starving baby.

I mixed fed my first to 6 months quite happily. I agonised over it for his first 2 weeks and then got over it. My second, well we went through pretty much what the OP did with the exception of well trained support, we did end up in hospital, in SCBU for that matter and she was formula fed. The whole team went far above and beyond the call of duty for me. Now I have a 5.5month old EBF baby. There is nothing for you personally to feel guilty about but thanks to the support worker who realised I had a supply problem. The health service needs to plough money into training and not propaganda.

I honestly don?t think anyone is judging the individual mothers or labelling them as failures. They may be judging the system for letting down those mothers who do want to continue bf, but that is a very different think from judging the mothers themselves - it?s blatantly obvious that every mum does the best they can in their own situation, surely? Every woman has their own limit they reach, it doesn?t make you a better or worse mum it just makes you different ? who are we who try to offer support to criticise that?

The system is fatally flawed, ploughing money into stupid ?breast is best? posters etc which serve no good at all, rather than into actual support for people who need it. The midwives round here don?t even tell new or prospective mums about the many bf cafes and support groups there are in the city. And people who volunteer at groups, on phonelines or post on here can?t do right because then they just get accused of making women feel guilty for stopping bf.

I don?t know anyone who wants to provide support for bfing who is a ?bottle basher? I really don?t. Can people not see that there is a difference?

Hear hear Cosmosis absolutely.

What Cosmosis said.

OP, you said: "It seems that despite the differing opinions, there is an overwhelming cry for a change in the way midwives are trained, rather than a change to the 'breast is best' slogan. I take that on board."

Actually, the NHS is/has ditched the "breast is best" actual phrase as being patronising and unhelpful, amongst other reasons. It's an awful phrase, in many, many ways, and I totally agree with you that it needs to be taken out of use. It isn't supposed to be used anymore, and anywhere it's seen is material that's out of date and should be removed.

Wobbly halo:

"I really don't understand why it is such a huge issue how other people feed their children? Why? What on earth does it have to do with you? Why do I owe you an explanation?"

Er - you don't? You are absolutely right - it's absolutely your choice and yours only. However, given that there is so little help with BFing, and so many women want to BF, what's wrong with those who want to get help, getting help?

"Why then should we ignore the stress and pressure it might put on someone when they are sobbing at 3 am, with cracked nipples, a screaming baby and 1 hour's sleep in the last 24 hours? Why is okay to let that baby scream? Let that mother cry?"

Again, I don't understand this. Who is advocating this? Sure, there may be a few die-hard weirdos out there who think it's breast or bust (I know Alpine came across one who appeared to be proud of the fact that she'd half-starved her baby - which is just disgusting) but honestly, that's not what BFCs or PSers are about! We volunteer - for free - to try to help women who want our help, and also the help women for whom it didn't work out for whatever reason to work through her feelings about that if she wants to do so (that's a BFC's role, not a PS's). Isn't that a good thing? Of course, when you're dealing with new mums who are going through an awful time we can't always pitch it right. For one person they need to be told that it's ok to go to a bottle. For the next, that's the worst thing to say. We'll always be criticised for getting that wrong and that hurts, but we understand it. But we always do try to do what's best for the individual mum and baby - and that doesn't mean a blanket "thou must breastfeed".

Now, the OP's experience of people criticising her for formula feeding - well - that's just disgusting and cruel. That's people behaving in a disgusting and cruel way. Not BFing promoters doing what they're "supposed" to do. That's not BFing promotion. That's not the work of a peer supporter or BFC. That's just cruel, ignorant and horrible. Please don't tar us all with the same brush. :(

I gave up breastfeeding after 6 days of everything people who have been through it describe. The guilt etc.. that followed was horrendous.

9 months on and my mind is a bit clearer and I genuinely believe I could've succeeded if I'd had more support from my HCP's and my DH.
My DH is a seperate issue but the lack of support in hospital, followed by shoddy aftercare at home by the community midwives meant that when I gave up that was the end of the road for me.

I agree with and would join the call for better training for the people that look after new mums in those early days when breastfeeding is being established. It's a critical window and there should be more support for those that need it but can't ask for or seek it out themselves.

pink that's a brilliant outcome! I'm so chuffed for you
i can really relate to feeling horrible about not being able to breastfeed, and I think it's important to recognise that feeding experiences between babies from the same family can be so different. So I mean - just because you couldn't breastfeed one baby doesn't mean anything about whether you'll be able to breastfeed the next. I breastfed my daughter for 2 and a half years with no problems, so I expected the same with my son. Couldn't have been more wrong. My milk simply didn't seem to come in. There was a bit, no Dolly Parton day on day 3,4 or any day, and just a miserable starving baby. Time and again I was told that he was feeding brilliantly, perfect latch etc, but his weight was plummeting way beyond what was a normal loss. Eventually at 3 weeks, he just screamed everytime I put him to the breast. I was advised by my HV to starve him until he started feeding again! I tried a bottle of formula and he drained it and looked satisfied for the first time ever. I've still no idea what happened. For something so natural I just can't believe how difficult and unsuccessful it was 2nd time round. Makes me very sad & concerned about the same thing happening with my next baby. Someone on here mentioned a posterior tongue tie, but if no one checks for it or recognises it then where does that leave us?

Cosmosis & organiccarrotcake, I totally get what you are saying. And it's really nice to hear your views, because by and large mine are the same.

Unfortunately there are quite a lot of people out there that demand to know why I didn't bf. I've learned to say that it is personal and not to get into a debate with anyone. That is why I immediately go on the offensive. Which is not right, and no help to the Op. Sorry Op!

I suppose I was trying to just be supportive no matter what is decided. I wish there was a way of getting rid of all that guilt because it's only a lot later that you realised how much time and energy you wasted on it. But that's life.

Good luck Op, and everyone going through this. Be kind to yourself.

wobbly "Unfortunately there are quite a lot of people out there that demand to know why I didn't bf" :(

I suppose it's ok to "ask" why you didn't - in the right context (meaning, someone you're comfortable with, that you know is trying to come to a decision or learn themselves) but to demand/imply something/make judgements, that's not cool.

madmomma "I was advised by my HV to starve him until he started feeding again!" FFS Outrageous.

I've read the blog post written by the OP - and passionate and desperate reading it is too :( :(

This is why breastfeeding 'support' is so crap in the UK - mothers are 'supported' by people who are undertrained and unaware. For a baby to reach the age of 2 weeks still 10 per cent under birthweight is a massive indictment, not of breastfeeding but of midwifery care.

The whole pattern you describe, OP, of the constant painful feeding and the feeling of being trapped, should have alerted midwives to the fact your breastfeeding was far from going well.....hugely far from going well. It is their job to spot this, early, in fact, very early, and to help you fix it. Your experience shows that things went badly from the very start.

This does not mean that breastfeeding campaigners are peddling lies, or that people who support breastfeeding are horrible and deluded, or that the health differentials between breastfeeding and formula feeding are a load of rubbish. It does mean that 'promotion' is only a tiny part of any support, and that practical, trained, help is essential, in addition to hospital care that gets people off to a good start so hopefully many problems don't arise.

Not sure if you have complained to your healthcare providers, OP - hospital and community. If not, please do so, with as much detail as you can provide, so they can investigate gaps in care.

Mothers' voices should be heard in this, with all the gory detail of how poorly they are helped. And they should be heard in the right places, by the right people, as well as on talkboards and blogs.

For certain breast milk is best (from a health perspective). Human milk for human babies. I agree that breast feeding is not always best (from a psychological perspective).

What I find stunning is that still despite a fair amount of information around that many women are still fairly unknowledgeable about the science of breastfeeding. We have now become a country where for decades formula feeding has become the norm and I think we have lost the knowledge that comes down in families (from grandmothers, aunties and mums to daughters) of how to breastfeed. This coupled with the fact that we are often living away from our extended families does not help. Society has changed and this is a huge factor in the lack of support for breastfeeding. I think it might also be a factor in the reason so many births go 'wrong' as well, where we had support from women in the past we now have support from our male partners (as much as they love us, they've never given birth themselves). I digress.

I'm not an expert but I cringe when I hear a 2 or 3 day old baby is 'starving'. If we produce only colostrum (tiny amounts) for the first few days (until our milk comes in) then that must be, physiologically, all a baby needs - a few drops, lots of times a day.

In my experience (of my friends and family) a lot of women say they want to breastfeed. They like the idea in theory, they know breast milk is better for their baby. They start for a few days or weeks. However, when it comes down to it they feel that bottle feeding is easier. Other people can help, they don't have total responsibility for their baby, they don't have to overcome problems. Because babies grow healthily on formula milk they think if they give up breastfeeding their baby will be fine, they will be happier, they've given it a try.

This is fine for the women that don't mind giving up but not for the women that don't want to give up but feel they have no choice. Women need more practical support without a doubt. But they also need to be educated and utterly determined. It may be natural, but it's not easy - a bit like labour really.

A bit long sorry. Oh and I breast fed my DS for 9 months after 6 weeks of agony and problems. Total stubborness on my part to make it work. I am severely asthmatic and I wanted to do anything to help my child avoid it.

OP I usually steer clear of these threads and I have not read the replies but I think you are very brave posting it and I completely agree with you. Well posted!

I find it really interesting that it was the male midwife that seems to have been the first one with an ounce of sense !
If men had babies they would all be born by c-sect and if breastfeeding wasnt going to plan by about day 2 or any pain involved whatsoever they would be straight onto the formula, with no worries and no guilt !!!

DP just read that and said true, true!

And Islandgirl, my milk had come in by day 3 and DS wasn't taking any of it, but he'd also struggled to take my colostrum, so I'd had to try and hand express it, which I found very difficult, to give him that. He'd had less than 3mls of fluid in the first three days of his life, and the midwife examining him told me he was becoming severely dehydrated. That's what I mean when I talk about a three day old baby being 'starving,' can't speak for anyone else though, obviously.

Hi,

I'm finding your responses very insightful. Thank you for all the comments. I agree that i was let down by the system and I haven't actually complained to my health authority, so that will be my next step.

I guess at the time, I didn't want to blame others for what I'd done to my child. Then as time passed, I thought it was too late to complain! My son is now three and I now have a one year old daughter. I did start off breastfeeding her, but after 36 hours I could tell she was starving and I couldn't go through the whole process again, so I put her straight on the bottle.

It's only when I started to write down my experience on my blog, that I realised how much guilt I'd been harbouring all this time. Firstly about not breastfeeding and secondly and much worse, because I deprived my son of any kind of milk for two long weeks. Even now, sometimes when my son acts up or whines a bit too much, or even refuses to eat his dinner, I think, 'is this because I starved him for the first two weeks? did i damage him somehow?' It sounds crazy but that's what goes through my mind! It's only now that I feel able to talk about it. As lots of my friends have had babies this year and I've watched some of them struggle with breastfeeding, it's revived all the anger about my own experience.

I know this pales into insignificance compared to your first two weeks, but I didn't know about cluster feeding until DS was about 4 weeks old. He would cry in the evenings and I would think, you can't be hungry yet, you fed an hour ago, and I would change him, try and wind him, until eventually I would put him back on the breast as a last resort. I feel guilty that my baby cried with hunger and I didn't feed him, because I didn't realise he was hungry. He's 18 months now, and a rational part of my brain can see that he isn't damaged by it, but I still feel terrible for what I did - or rather didn't do.

I think that for a mother who loves and cares for her baby, there's always going to be something that we will feel guilty about if we didn't get it quite right. And I wonder how much more we're going to get wrong? :(

Not sure this is entirely relevant, but -

My 14 month old DS was/is exclusively BF (as in he's never had formula. but obvs now he's this old, he's not still just BF-ing) -

I'm pro BF. I see and understand the benefits of BF, and they are considerable.

I think BF promotional pamplets and literature from the NHS were more damaging than there were helpful. They promote such a wafty, bondy, bloody marvellous picture of the experience of BF, they are unrealistic and misleading.

Because so many women think 'my baby isn't happy! or full! or feeding too often! or waking up too much at night!' etc etc. They think something is going wrong, when it isn't. They try feeding a bottle of formula as an answer. 'Oh, and then he slept for 6 hours! He was so hungry and finally he was full, and stopped crying!' This from mothers of babies less than a week old. We are NOT PREPARED for the reality of BF-ing.

I've run into opposition here when I've said this before. But I'll say it again because it matters. Yes, of course support after birth is HUGELY important. But good preparation and info could make so much difference to how women feed their babies in the first few days, which of course is vital for how they feed thei babies afterwards. WE ARE NOT PREPARED FOR THE REALITY OF BREASTFEEDING.

So we can't tell when we are dealing with normal if difficult behaviour - or a genuine and urgent problem. My heart goes out to those women struggling through a fog of ignorance, whose babies needed help and who struggled on with BF-ing. And I feel for those women who maybe could have carried on BF-ing, if they hadn't panicked because they felt it was going wrong, when really they were doing fine.

It's a MESS. OP, I am truly sorry for your problems. It's ridiculous we aren't better informed about what BF-ing is, and what happens when it doesn't work.

PS Baroness - I'd never heard about cluster feeding til I came here either. My DS fed SO MUCH during the first few weeks, if I'd gone just on NHS advice and support, I'd've assumed something was going wrong ("he isn't getting enough milk! He's never happy! He feeds all the time!" etc)

As it was, I learned his behavour was normal. His weight gain was great, he was healthy - it was me that had the problem understanding that what I was doing was successful breastfeeding.

I also had a terrible time trying to breastfeed my son due having had a blood transfusion and him needing light therapy and formula for jaundice. When it all went wrong and I ended up bottle feeding I was on the verge of post natal depression due to the pressure to breastfeed. Once I reached breaking point and there was no going back from bottle feeding I found the support stopped. There are no support groups where you can go to talk about the emotions of it all going wrong and to ask for advice on how to prepare feeds, only support groups to try to help you to continue to breastfeed. I believe this is a really vulnerable time and more support is needed for those who pass the point of no return. If you would like to support me please join my facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/152821398183116/

hcs- sorry that you too had a traumatic time when you should have been enjoying your new baby :( It sounds like the 'support' you were given was incredibly clumsy and not helpful and that you were given inaccurate information too.

I don't know of any support groups that can teach you to make up a bottle (although a HV should be able to tell you) but it's not true that there's no support for talking over the emotional side of it; that is what breastfeeding counsellors are trained to do, and have done many, many times. They will not judge you for stopping, they will not persuade you to continue but they can listen and try to help you find peace. You can phone any of the national helplines or look up someone local.

I echo what EauRouge says - breastfeeding counsellors know the emotional impact and distress that can happen when someone formula feeds after a bad experience with breastfeeding. Please call - they don't judge, they don't try to persuade you to start again, they don't tell you you're making a fuss over nothing.

I agree that women in your position need support and understanding - but as for making up bottles, any midwife or health visitor should regard this as part of their job to give you personal help with this.

I don't think pressure to breastfeed causes postnatal depression - pnd is more complex than this - though heavy handed 'help' and stupid comments may add horribly to someone's distress....tactless people are everywhere :( :(

I think it's great you have a facebook group for mothers to offer each other support and information - there are some powerful stories there, too.
My issue would be that some of the information there is incorrect, and no one is challenging it or correcting it - would this not be part of your role?