Feeling a bit sad about my Mum's experience of breastfeeding

[MediumOrchid]

I'm not really sure why I'm posting this, I just want to sort my thoughts out, I think.

I'm an only child and my Mum tried to breastfeed me (this was nearly 30 years ago). She stayed in hospital for about a week after I was born. She always told me that she had to switch to formula because 'she didn't produce any milk', and I had always accepted that this was the case. It's only now that I'm pregnant myself I've read a lot about breastfeeding and asked her more about her experience. She was advised to switch to formula by the midwives as I had lost weight - this was on the 3rd day after giving birth. She then had to stay in hospital for longer than usual until I had regained the weight.

Now, having read up on breastfeeding I understand it's not unusual for milk to take 5 days to come in. Also, babies often lose weight in the first few days, and will regain it later. They will be getting colostrum during this time (which my Mum didn't know about). Of course, I don't know how much weight I lost, and I was a small baby to start with (5lb something), so a formula top up might have been entirely appropriate. But it didn't need to mean the end of breastfeeding.

I absolutely don't blame my Mum for formula feeding, and it's not as if I have any health problems I could attribute to it - I'm very healthy. I think she was let down by the health professionals. She describes the midwives as being very supportive, but ultimately they don't seem to have had the correct knowledge to support her successfully. I'm also not saying that I'm sure my Mum could have breastfed, but having tried for only 3 days we'll never know.

Now I haven't had my baby yet so have no first hand experience, but I am determined to breastfeed and expect that there will be support available for me to do so. If I succeed I hope my Mum doesn't feel bad watching me feed my baby, knowing that it might well have been possible for her to as well if she'd had similar support. I just feel sad that she missed out on that experience.

As I said, no real reason for this post, but does anyone have any thoughts about the changing attitudes towards and knowledge about breastfeeding since they were babies, or had a mother in a similar position, or been in the same position themselves?

Milk supply from Kellymom

My mum gave up BF when I started solids at 12 weeks, it seemed to be the done thing, if you BF at all. Both grandmas have been a bit at times re me and BF, especially as DS2 got "older" but I have stuck to my guns and they have to admit that at 14 months he is a healthy and well adjusted little boy so I can't have been so wrong! (I BF DS1 too but was with ex and a whole different situation then).

My mum - in 1974 - was led to believe by doctors that her milk was the cause of my older sister needing to be hospitalised due to jaundice. She never even attempted to bf her next two babies.

Another poster here who's grandma was made to express for other babies on the ward. She describes being made to wear glass collecting shells in her bra for this very purpose.

She gave up because she had mastitis and was told she could poison the baby if she continued to feed her!

My mum did manage to BF for 6 months so is now putting pressure on me to stop as DD is 7mo and she thinks she is too old for milk.

I find this all really interesting, my mum bf me for 10mnths I believe and I grew up watching my aunt bf my cousins, so when I had ds I just went ahead with it, or planned too, I had an awful reaction to my spinal tap and pain killers after my section, ds was struggling and rushed to scbu and in my dazed state I agreed to a bottle somehow we managed atleast one feed a day sometimes more until 6mnths.

Dd born 16mnths after ds fed with minimal issues for a yearn, I had a wonderful mw in hospital who really made time for me and was lovely and I credit her and her gift to me of lansinoh for my sucess feeding dd.

Although in all my time bfing not one family member offered me any advice, despite me asking, even stranger when you consider my brother and dd were born a few months apart so me and my mum bf at the same time. I'm not complaining it was just never spoken about.

My sisters were born in 1975 and 1976 and were breastfed (not sure how long for but didn't have formula so presumably over a year). I was born in 1983 and was mix fed.

I do resent that in a way, as it's not as if she was a new mother who didn't have experience and would be fooled by bad advice from HCPs. But she supposedly had supply issues (unlikely after feeding the first two successfully).

My daughter is breastfed though.

I was born in 1969. Very medicalised birth (stirrups, shaving and so on) and babies taken away to the nursery. The midwife came round the ward and gave everyone an injection to dry up their milk. My Mother said one woman refused because she wanted to b/f and was treated like a wierdo. Result of all this was when my sister was born three years later, my Mother booked a home birth and fed little sister until she was weaned.

She was theoretically supportive of me feeding ds but I think a bit embarrassed about feeding in public. Didn't say anything though, and if she had I'd have bitten her head off.

Edam I feel a little sick at the thought of the midwife giving those injections. How could they have been so bloody ignorant?

Those injections are no longer given - because they can cause death in the mother.

Seriously NQC? Wow. Ginger, I think back in those days formula was considered 'scientific' and breastfeeding was out of fashion. It was terribly patriarchal - despite being the 60s, try reading one of the baby books of the time. Male experts talking down to fluffy ladies who really weren't clever enough... basically nothing women did had value so clearly 'milk' made by experts had to be better than anything women produced. Feckers.

My mother was a women's libber who marched for pretty much everything, being a 60s student - anti-Vietnam, pro-abortion rights. Yet she still fell for the male medical model of childbirth and baby feeding. I assume because it was all new to her, with me being the first baby, and probably because her Mother was dead, sadly, so she had no older woman to advise. But having been through that experience, she made sure it was all different with my sister. Home delivery with lovely local midwife who used to take expectant mothers out for a ride in her Morris Minor over bumpy roads if they were overdue.

My mum tried to BF me, but after a couple of months, I think I wasn't gaining weight (although I don't think I was losing weight?). I was a small sleepy bay who had to be woken up for feeds right from the beginning, and with my mum's supply never being that strong, and me being an inefficient feeder, the HV eventually said to her that she could continue battling on with BFing if she wanted, but as I just wasn't taking enough milk on, it might make life easier to switch to formula (the HV even resorted to weighing me before and after a feed to estimate how much I had taken on).

My mum has always been rather upset that she couldn't successfully breastfeed me, although this has only come to light since my friend had a baby in Dec, and now my baby has come along. I think she has learnt a lot of things about breastfeeding watching me get to grips with it, and maybe understands a bit more about why it didn't work out for her. She often wistfully comments that she just didn't have the strong supply that I seem to have.

I have no problem that she formula fed me, I'm super healthy . And the main reasons for me wanting to feed DS are that it made sense to me to at least try, as it is what mammals are supposed to do, and I couldn't be arsed with all the cleaning / sterilising crap (already annoyed by the little I have to do for DS's medicines!).

It seems like even now, with the greater promotion of breastfeeding, not everyone is getting enough good information / advice to support them in establishing breastfeeding! even though the information is out there...

And even my Women's Libber mother used to parrot 'the masculine embraces the feminine' as a rule of English grammar to excuse all those books that used to say 'he' all the way through. Including baby books. Women were fecking invisible! Even though she read Elaine Morgan who pointed out the understanding of anthropology was pretty shit because all the experts only thought about the evolution of men and didn't bother considering that women might have had a role to play.

My mum bf me for 22 months in the 1970s and my brother for 13 months in the 1980s. She found bf very hard but was determined to do it. My grandmother ff her and my mum says everyone kept telling her that:

"Ruby wouldn't get enough milk" (I was a right chubber.)
"Ruby would be spoilt forever" (Seem to be normal now.)
"Ruby would never cope without my mum." (I have always been v independent.)

...and so on. My mum says she is sad sometimes that she bf when it was not seen as normal by her parents or peers. And also everyone told her to let me cry/not to feed on demand, all of which upset her. She thinks I am lucky now that when I bf for 16 months, few people cared or commented.

I was always very proud that my mum bf her 3 children even back in the dark ages of the early 70s. It was only after had my DC that I found out it was only for about 6 weeks each! With my dsis she had mastitis and was given exactly the wrong advice ie to stop feeding immediately and so wound up with an abcess. With my Dbro he was weaned onto soilds very early. It was done on weight then and he was over 12lbs at birth! Not sure why she stopped bf me.
This had the result that she was really supportive of my feeding in the early days but got distinctly less so after 6 mo and frankly anti after a year. She doesn't know I still bf one yr old DS as I would never hear the end of it.

I am very lucky(?)
I was born in 81 and my mum was advised it was best not to breastfeed and if she was going to, to make sure she only fed every four hours.
My sweet Mum (who had to late go on public speaking and confidence gaing course) breastfed on demand and lied to the hvs.
It must have been even tougher then to go against all advice and go with your instincts and I have every sympathy with those Mothers who didn't

My mil, who had era appropriate terrible breastfeeding advice, has been nothing but supportive of my sil and my breastfeeding. It's just like her though, and she also understands that she was following advice just as we are. It's just that the current advice works better for breastfeeding.

Really interesting thread, I've learnt a lot! OP I could have written your post, almost the exact same story here except that my mum went on to breastfeed both my brother's until over 3 years old. Unfortunately we both feel that being told she 'couldn't' breastfeed me effected the bond, she's never felt about me the way she felt about my brothers (her words)

she seems to suffer terrible guilt from giving up with me - personally I think that's the thing that's damaging rather than formula/early weaning.

I have been breastfeeding DS for 16 months so far, apart from my mum that's the longest of anyone I know. 2 friends fed until 15 months but then stopped. I plan to continue as long as DS and I are both happy. It was a huge struggle in the beginning though with supply issues, mastitis (got it again at 12 months), latch problems, nipple confusion, DS fighting the breast etc. My mum was supportive without offering advice - the best thing possible for me, I'm the sort of person who only wants advice if I ask for it! Unfortunately I didn't get much support elsewhere and even now although I know I'm doing the right thing for my child I'm still embarrassed to feed in public as it's not the 'done' thing at this age. This makes me feel equally sad and a bit annoyed that attitudes are still so behind on the most natural thing in the world.

Really interesting to read others experiences and some insight into why previous generations might not have breastfed. I've always wondered how 'every 4 hours for 10 minutes' was supposed to work but it makes sense now that often it doesn't! Also the stuff about a woman's body being for her husband and formula being 'scientific' - fascinating stuff!

Thanks OP. Tell your mum you feel she did the right thing according to advice back then, she could still be hanging on to guilt over it when there's no need. I hope you get lots of support when having DC if choosing to breastfeed. It really can make all the difference

i'm a farmer and one thing that shocks me is that we seem to treat cows better than lactating human women! we know all about their lactation (presumably because it makes money, whereas successful human lactation loses formula makers money?) and the stuff that gets advised to women would never be done to a cow or it'd dry up/get mastitis!!

My MIL stopped BFing both her children because her milk supply dropped, the children got hungry and so she switched to formula.

The reality was that she was told to feed on a strict schedule, the children got hungry so instead of bumping up feeds she gave them formula and then more formula as the children needed more milk until her milk stopped completely.

Jeez, you really are setting yourself up for a fall here, Medium, being so judgmental about your poor mother! She took care of you your whole life long (I assume) and just because she 'failed' to bf you that 1 year or so is the only thing you're fixated on. Oh but you're not going on about it as you don't want to make her feel bad. For something that wasn't her fault. And that she had little control over. And that is really not immensely vital in the grand scheme of parenting. Very generous of you!

I hope bf-ing works out for you as you seem fixated on it but remember that there are plenty of mothers who are 'determined' to breastfeed and it doesn't work out for them for 100 different reasons. It's hard to explain until you've had a baby and tried to bf without it working out but it's not always just a matter of how 'determined' you are. Do you think that women who don't bf just aren't bothered or something?? You're naive if that's the case.

Be grateful you had a mother who took good care of you your whole life long (I assume) and forget about a minuscule part of your life that your mother had little control over.

Yep, I'm with napa on this one.

I tried my hardest to BF all my DCs, was determined to make it work, but it didn't. I didn't seem to have any milk and the DCs lost weight. I still remember walking around Boots in tears when DC1 was two weeks old, having to buy the FF stuff I didn't think I would need.

Yes, I had support. Was it enough? No idea. Did I really understand the mechanism of BF? Probably not. Could I have tried any harder? Yes, maybe, but not sure.

A wise midwife told me that BF was not the only good thing I could do for my children during their childhood. In other words, keep it in perspective.

I do believe breast is best but I don't beat myself up about it now.

medium this is such an interesting issue - you have hit on a bit of history that few people outside the breastfeeding world know about.

It's really sad but many women of your mum's generation had similar experiences with breastfeeding. Hospital staff knew next to nothing about breastfeeding back then, and most of the advice given was not just bad but actively damaging. For example, 4-hourly feeding, 10 minutes per side, long separations from baby etc. Hardly anyone can successfully breastfeed under these conditions.

The absolutely worst thing is mothers often felt it was their fault - e.g. staff would say "oh you're not producing enough milk" - when actually it was fault of the staff who'd given them such rotten advice. And this still happens today ...

If you want to know more, this book is brilliant and gives all the background.