Manchester Maternity Unit to no longer supply free formula

[BoastingByStealth]

menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1459696_st-marys-hospital-bans-free-formula-milk-to-make-mums-breastfeed-instead

Does anybody disagree with this new policy?

Apologies if this has been done before, I'm just in the middle of a debate about it, and wanted to canvas opinion.

I don't know, lovingthecoast. I am sure you are right that some people are generally unpreprepared for everything to do with birth and what follows. However, I must say that wasn't my experience or that of most people I know. We all went to classes and learnt about avoiding intervention, staying upright during birth if you can and generally what to expect. The classes I went to gave a follow up on the first few weeks afterwards and how to look after the baby and, again, what to expect.

For some reason, however, the possibility of feeding going wrong was just not discussed. I don;t mean the fact that there might be problems - mastitis, pain with latching - all that was covered. But in a "problems to be got over" type way. Nothing I heard or read covered the possibility that the baby might just end up dehydrated and desperate for food a few days after birth and that sometimes, to deal with that, you just have to give formula. I had no idea and didn't even recognise the signs when they happened. I thought DD was just tired from the birth and that is why she slept so much. It never occurred to me she was starving - she seemed to be latching on well, and I was checked by a number of HCPs. We were about to be discharged when a nurse or midwife (I forget which) noticed she had a temperature and a blood test showed she had massively high urea. It all went pear-shaped from there.

We were lucky it was caught in hospital or she could have been in real trouble. Maybe classes should cover this sort of thing.

Oranges, it sounds as though you had a fairly thorough experience with regards your childbirth classes. Though it also sounds as though you had a rotton but unusual experience with the feeding. I'm glad it was spotted and I agree that every eventuality should be covered such as BF simply not working and what then. Also warning signs of what to look out for in terms of dehydration would help new mums. I think there is definitely a big issue with lack of BF support but I don't think this policy affects that.

You are right lovethecoast. This policy does not affect it and I agree that hospitals should not supply formula, other than for emergency situations.

I think generally, the main problem is that the post-birth support and care in this country is just very stretched, with regard to BF support and everything else. Looking back and with the benefit of a bit of hindsight and reading, a lot of what went wrong with early BF for me and DD was probably to a great extent a result of a traumatic birth. If the staff had had more time, they would probably have kept an eye on us or at least told me what I should be aware of in terms of the possibility of my milk not coming in etc. But they were massively busy the whole 10 days I was in and pulled in all directions. They absolutely did their best but until we have more resources directed to post-natal care, problems with BF-ing and otherwise are going to arise, probably regardless of how well-prepared mothers try to be and think they are.

But the money just isn't there and, in relation to BF-ing at least, we don't all have inter-generational wisdom to help. My mother was dissuaded from BFing my brother or me so was completely unable to help me. That is a legacy of policies from the 60s and 70s pushing formula and we are all still losing from it. Fingers crossed things improve so more of us will be able to help our daughters.

Devils advocate here but never assume all Mothers have the option of "free breastmilk"
My baby had a cleft palate so couldnt breastfeed-not uncommon.

I have had a mastectomy so cant produce milk-again sadly not uncommon.

Some Mothers are extremely ill after child birth-strokes,brain heammorages,heart problems,all uncommon but do happen.

Im more interested to see how they manage the logisitics of the bottles.
I had to use my own special bottles in the hospital due to the cleft and it was really hard to manage especially after a section.

If some people on this thread don't like hospitals providing formula for newborns who are not breastfeeding, how do you feel about the government providing free formula to children in nurseries or other childcare?

The nursery milk scheme

Even Ministers recognise that the scheme is costly and has no recognised health benefits. However, it appears Cameron sees it differently and over-ruled plans to withdraw it.

This Freedom of Information request rvealed that for the financial year 2010/11 the Department of Helath paid out approximately £260k for infant formula. This represents approximately 0.5% of the cost to the Department of funding the Nursery Milk scheme

entropygirl
"Maybe this is like C-sections. It is assumed you will attempt a vaginal birth as there are higher risks for mother and baby for C-sections. Elective C-sections should therefore be minimised and should not be provided by the NHS unless there is a medical reason (at which point they arent elective). If things go badly during labour you have to have the C-section. You accept the risks as they are less than that of continuing to attempt vaginal birth. You then (hopefully) do not continue to feel guilty after the fact or become upset when people point out that elective C-sections are not a good idea and risk harming babies and should not be provided on the NHS."

How spectacularly ignorant and ill informed. Perhaps a good start point might be this current thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1331591-NICE-recommend-all-women-should-be-able-to-have-a-cs

entropygirl
"I'll probably get toasted for saying this but: replacing breast milk with formula increases babies risks of all sort of health issues from stomach upsets to SIDS Why would the nhs pay money to harm health?

It's NOT like providing free cigarettes to smokers but it isnt a million miles off - maybe more like providing free cake to the obese?"

Seriously? Seriously? FF doesn't "harm health." There are undisputed benefits to BF but it doesn't correlate that an alternative is harmful. How stupid to assert that it does. How utterly stupid and judgemental. And "Cake to the obese"? How ignorant and offensive.

What I really don't get is why the same bottles of milk can't simply be provided from a vending machine or paid for in the hospital shop/canteen/trolley on the ward.
I think people should pay for their own but surely this would be a more efficient system than everyone bringing in a mixture of bottles, powders and cartons which might never be used?
I certainly wouldn't have bought any formula in advance but would have had cash if an emergency had arisen.

bagofholly - we've been over this, formula does harm health.

There are no 'advantages of breastfeeding'. It's the normal standard way to feed. The so called improved health of bf babies is just to be expected - nothing special or protective. It's how things should be

Health differences are because formula is inferior

Oh and we got to this mixed up state of affairs because during the 70's & 80's women were told that a commercially produced powdered milk from a whole other species was actually better than mothers' milk

[hsad] [hangry]

to be fair bag the change to the nice guidelines happened two weeks after I posted.

Am peeved as I will have to come up with a different analogy. I'm amazed but very pleased that C-sections are now a genuine equally safe option to natural childbirth and I look forward to the day when formula milk is a genuine equally safe option to breast milk....

How does formula "harm health"?

Breast is best when all else is equal but using formula doesn't "harm". A child doesn't get sicker on formula, it MAY simply lack some of the benefits of a BF child.

My dc's aged 10 and 12 don't appear to have had their health harmed by ff

The base line is health when breastfed. Formula increases ill health. Lots and lots of statistics to prove it.

The mistake is to take formula as the base line - it isn't.

Health when formula fed is 'artificial' because having milk from another species (from birth sometimes) is a relatively new phenomenon.

If all the newborn primates in captivity were fed giraffe milk and were more often sick than those fed by their mothers, would we say they were normal and the breastfed ones were just at an advantage?

Breast is normal and natural. That's all there is to it. Formular feeding is not natural.

I don't know how great the health impact is but I am glad I could do the most natural thing and breastfeed my son.

I think the ever-present difficulty here is that understandably, when people see 'formula feeding has negative health effects/formula feeding harms health' they equate it to 'you have damaged your children by formula feeding'.

The two things are not the same.

It is often impossible to see or assess the health impact of something in individual people, anyway. The fact that child A was formula fed and is healthy at X years of age means zero. It neither 'proves' nor 'disproves' anything at all.

I have given up with this argument! It's crystal clear to me that breastfeeding, as the physiological norm, does not have 'benefits' any more than breathing has 'benefits' over being hooked up to an oxygen tank - one is what our bodies 'expect' to happen, and the other is what is used when that expectation does not materialise.

But someone will now say 'tiktok said formula feeding is the same as being hooked up to an oxygen tank - how disgraceful and how terrible...'

:(

I blame our education system in some ways. We are rarely told how research works, how to interpret it, and much about statistics.

Tik Tok you get what I'm saying.

To actively "harm" is NOT the same as "not as good as."

FWIW I BF DS1 for 13 months and only stopped as we had more IVF and the raised prolactin needed to BF affects how the drugs work. I'm v pro BF but I get a bit stabby when words like "harm" are thrown about ill advisedly.

Should mums bring in a packed lunch as well? Not talking snacks, but main meals. What about those who are kept in over the expected time from whatever complications - should they organise take out?

What if the medications given to mum in the aftermath (talking proper worst-case scenarios here) precude BF even though that was their master plan.

Of course there will be FF available for emergencies. It wasn't powder when I did my O&G job years ago, but premixed bottles.

And no hot water??? FFS, the NHS only functions these days on caffeine and quality street! Hot water will be found if needed.

Whoa wormshuffler! The NHS have collated evidence from literally hundreds of trials with data from millions of children but I guess we should throw that all our the window because your TWO children were completely fine! You should write to them and tell them they got it all wrong!

Its funny, isnt it, how you dont tend to hear from people who FFed and whos children have asthma, allergies, constant stomach upsets etc.

The data the NHS have collected prove that these people exist but you dont hear them jumping up and down on fora letting everyone know their story. And that is what is known as a selection bias and the main reason I posted a thread saying I wished people wouldnt try to skew the data with their personal anecdotes.

"Whoa wormshuffler! The NHS have collated evidence from literally hundreds of trials with data from millions of children but I guess we should throw that all our the window because your TWO children were completely fine! You should write to them and tell them they got it all wrong!"

I was responding to the comment earlier which said FF harms health, this is a sweeping generalisation. I am currently PG with number 3 and aim to BF as I now see it as the more natural choice being older and wiser, not because I think FF is dangerous.

I have had to FF feed my DD. Having read this, I feel like I have sat her down and forced 40 fags a day down her throat.

:(

But why would you feel that, Lexie?

You know you did nothing of the sort, and you must realise that anyone who is daft enough to think that it's the same (even allowing for your dramatic licence!) is not worth taking any notice of.

Dramatics aside tiktok (and I always feel less dramatic in the morning), it is all this talk of harm, detrimental and failing.

If I didn't believe BF was best, I wouldn't have tried so hard. As it turned out, FF was best for my DD.

You haven't answered my question, Lexie - you don't think you have done any harm, and in fact your decision to ff was based on your assessment of what was best for you dd, after your individual experience turned out to be disappointing...that happens, and individual circumstances can change the general 'rule'.

Why, then, do you feel that people you don't know are making general comments are personally criticising you?

The thing is when you take the best is breast slogan, which imo came about cos women really were told formula was best - formula is taken to be standard and breast as an "added bonus".

We don't expect bonuses every day. They are 'special'. It bf is seen as best or 'special' there are only half hearted attempts to support it because Formula becomes standard. And harmless. But actually it's breast milk which is harmless and formula carries the risk to health.

This is not the same as saying that every mother who bf will have healthy kids and everyone who formula feeds won't.

If the breast is recognised as standard and formula is sub standard then everything would start to change. There would be proper support for bf.
There would be an end to formula advertising, proper education of HCPs, change in society and employment rights. It wouldn't translate as pressure on individuals - which doesn't work and makes mothers feel bad.

In countries where full term bf is usual and rates are very high, women who formula feed aren't hounded - it is generally assumed they are doing the best for their baby. Why would anyone think differently?