Breastfeeding - a contentious rant!

[jenbird]

I may get flamed for this post but here goes:

I am very pro choice when it comes to breastfeeding. I have breastfed all 3 of my babies and I plan on doing the same with this one. However I would never say just because that is my choice it is right for everyone. I understand that different people have different needs and that actually although nutritionally BF may be best if it is making the mother incredibly anxious or miserable then I believe it is not necessarily the best thing for that mother or baby.
What I do hate though is people who say "I just didn't have enough milk" when actually what they mean is "I tried breastfeeding for 2 days, I didn't like it, it didn't work for me and I have decided to bottle feed".
This has happened very recently in my life. A very good friend said she couldn't feed her baby as she didn't have any milk. The reality was that the baby was unsettled a lot and she wasn't sure what to do. Her mother said she "needed" a bottle so she went with that. Her baby is sleeping pretty well at night now and all is fine.
Breastfeeding your first can be really hard work. It hurts, it comes with a huge uncertainty and you seem to spend an inordinate amount of your time feeding but it does have it's rewards too and once you get going it is far easier.
I just hate those flippant comments about not having any milk when actually it is just about choice. Don't devalue the effort I put in just because you didn't want to go down that path.

I obviously can't say this to my friend in RL so I bite my tongue.

Rant over. Hope I don't offend anyone. If I do blame it on crazy lady hormones!

"Even breastfeeders" - by which I mean it's not just cut and dry bf or ff, not trying to demean breastfeeders. Very badly put. Sorry.

Those people who feel you shouldn't have the odd glass of wine because it is detrimental to the baby are wrong though.

Far more likely there is something physical in the mouth than not enough milk.

I'll defend anyone's right to choose how to feed their children. So if you want to ff fine, if you want to bf fine, if you want to bf and cut out booze fine, if you want to bf and give it up after 4 weeks fine. Mums need to work with what's best for them and their children and they're all entitled to make choices that other people don't agree with or make other people unhappy. None of it makes them wrong.

I will agree that poor advice doesn't help anyone. It surprises me to hear so many stories of midwives/health visitors/etc giving people advice to ff. The midwives and health visitors round my way wont deal with anyone not bfing, and have been known to push people to continue bfing when it's possibly time to consider FFing (like a post re very sick baby here or in a different thread). The different levels of care people get astounds me.

Breasts may not give any/sufficient output of milk when the attachment of the baby to the breast is such that it does not enable the breast to release the milk - so as well as the nipples becoming damaged, the milk production line does not get underway.

And of course mothers have the right to avoid any drinking at all when bf - but it is not necessary to do so, and it is not a 'reason' not to bf.

Heidi- me too. With two children. And no amount of skin to skin, expressing, rechecking latch, snipping Tongue ties, domperidone, fenugreek, feeding every time the baby moved, more fenugreek, lactation cookies, using a supplementary nursing system etc could produce enough milk to make my babies grow. First time I put I'd down to poor support. Second time I armed myself with all the information and support I could find (including seeing a lactation consultant before the birth because I wanted her support afterwards- and she gave it liberally). Same thing happened.

Judgey women make it so hard. they don't know what I/we went through. I'm trying to move on but it is hard.

Fwiw i am an HCP and actually found it very valuable experience. Made me rethink things from others' perspectives. It doesn't do any harm to 'fail' once in a while. It's just a shame it was at something i valued so highly.

I haven't read the whole thread because I couldn't bear it but Heidi I hear you and have been through it too.

Tiktok - more than possible in a lot of cases, but with my mother and aunt that wasn't the case. They weren't physically able, nothing to do with latch. They also had terrible problems as their milk came in, just no way of releasing it. Happened to a lady who gave birth around the same time as me too. Consultant diagnosed it pretty quickly, and kept coming up to have a go at the midwives for trying to get her to bf despite what her notes said (as this is what the care in my area is like). Was quite funny looking back.

No-one has said not drinking is a reason not to bf. I said my mate is reluctant to have a second as she doesn't feel ready to go through it being hard again or give up alcohol for that time, which is her choice. Theres no way that lady won't bf.

What is pissing me off massively on this thread is all the talk of lying and lies and myths.

Why do you feel entitled to know why someone doesn't breastfeed? What concern is it of yours?

Are you like this in other aspects of life? Do you quiz other people on their ailments in the waiting room at the GP? Do you approach other tables in a restaurant asking why they aren't having the fish?

I tried and failed to breastfeed. Lack of milk due to a medical condition that was diagnosed at the same time as my breastfeeding problems. I wasn't prepared to put my daughter back into hospital so I gave her a bottle. But this is absolutely no business of yours or of the snooty cow who told me that everyone could breastfeed and that I wasn't trying hard enough. Do I need to show you a medical note?

Seriously, if you need to know the reason why someone is FF then you really need to look at your own motivations.

I agree, Biscuit, reasons not to BF might be very personal.

I think that by trying to find reasons why some women don't BF or don't continue is that they want to remove obstacles. There's a difference between a woman saying she couldn't BF for XYZ reason and that's OK with her, she's fine with FF and a woman saying she couldn't BF for the same reason and she's heartbroken. I think that's why some people are asking about reasons not to BF.

But it's not on to grill women about it and ask why they didn't try harder, because there could be any number of reasons why they didn't. If they are OK with it then we should be OK with it. If they are not OK with it then we should all club together and figure out a way to stop it happening again.

it's a very rare thing though, not being able to produce enough milk to feed a child. I honestly think that in most cases the lack of milk is due to lack of information/help with getting breastfeeding started.

It's completely right for people to want to campaign for better information and support so that those mothers who really do want to breastfeed, can.

The tiny minority who have genuine reasons for not being able to shouldn't feel put out by those who want to promote this.

Saying everyone can bf is a bit like saying there is enough food in the world for no-one to starve and that those hungry simply didn't try hard enough to access means of production!

"The tiny minority who have genuine reasons for not being able to shouldn't feel put out by those who want to promote this."

But any reason is a 'genuine' reason.

Biscuit has it spot on- wanting to increase the number of babies being BF does not mean you have the right to know why individual women FF.

"But any reason is a 'genuine' reason."

yes, of course. I know people who had no mik and I know the reason they had no milk was because their breastfeeding was booby-trapped by people pushing formula and in other cases by not getting the right advice.

It is wrong for health professionals to tell women that they have no milk after giving them shit advice/help. I also believe that many women are told they don't have any or enough milk when actually they do.

I was told I didn't have enough milk coz ds1 was feeding ALL the time at a week old.

He was a) doing what most babies do at that age and b) had tongue tie.

I topped up.

His mouth got bigger and his latch improved. Thanks to the 24h feeds at the start my milk supply wasn't damaged and at 6 weeks he was ebf again.

That story could have been very different if I hadn't been so lazy about making bottles up and giving him 'top ups' of BM to keep him quiet whilst making formula or buying myself some time coz all the bottles were dirty.

But the problem isn't with people wanting to promote bf-ing, it is bf-ing mothers assuming ff mothers are lazy/havent tried hard enough/are using lack of milk as an excuse. Mothers should not have to give any reason for ff-ing, genuine or otherwise. Bf-ing mothers aren't constantly hounded to give their reasons for choosing to bf, so why are ff mothers?

zzzzz - I didn't know that PCOS could affect milk supply - and it is very interesting, as my doctor believes I have PCOS, so maybe that is part of the reason why I didn't manage to breastfeed.

In my case, it wasn't a HCP who told me I didn't have enough milk/good enough milk - it was a conclusion I came to myself. With ds1 and ds2, I can look back and see reasons why I might have struggled to establish breastfeeding - with ds1, the fact that I was advised to top him up with formula in hospital because he needed more fluid and calories whilst having the phototherapy; and with ds2, a rather weak suck - he fed all the time, but never gained weight, leading me to assume that he wasn't getting the hind milk.

As I said earlier, I did try to reestablish breastfeeding with ds1, when we got home from hospital, but 10 days of regular expressing, with one of the NCT's big breastpumps, didn't make my supply increase at all - so with him, I concluded I didn't have enough milk.

But with ds3, looking back, he fed well, for what I thought were normal lengths of feed, slept well between feeds, and did plenty of wet nappies, leading me to conclude that he was getting a sufficient quantity of milk - but he didn't put on weight unless he had one or two bottles of formula each day. So I concluded that I make skim, whereas other mothers make Gold Top.

Unfortunately, I had PND after each of my sons was born, which probably left me less able to proactively seek the help that might have turned things around for me - especially as I now know that I was already depressed, and got PND on top of my existing depression - having been depressed since I was 14, how I felt was my 'normal' so I never thought it was not normal, until my psychotherapist told me that most 14-year-olds aren't contemplating suicide, and wondering how many paracetamol they'd need.

I would just like people to consider what an emotive subject this can be for someone like me who genuinely believes she couldn't breastfeed. I struggled with feelings of inadequacy and failure for years - not able to overcome the thought that I had failed at something that other women found so easy and simple, and particularly the fact that I couldn't provide the most basic of things to my own child - nourishment. And if someone implies that I could have made it work if I had just tried harder, or for longer; or if I had just gone and found the right support, then those feelings of failure still try to rear their ugly heads again, even though the dses are 15, 17 and 19, and all fine, healthy, well nourished, intelligent and strapping lads.

I have an argument kind of the opposite way. A friend I know was pregnant at the same time as me, our DS' were born a week apart.

She was determined to breast feed, even though her HV was worried as her DS was continuously losing weight, she would feed constantly but she really didn't have enough milk, she was basically begged by the HV to at least give some formula to top up but she flat out refused.

She eventually gave in when her DS was about to be admitted back into hospital because of weight loss and social workers were getting involved.

I think that is utterly selfish and she just kept repeating herself that is was best for her DS, how in hell was that best for him? He was literally being starved and she wouldn't give him formula because she wanted to bf but at the same time boasting that he slept 12 hours a night .

Thinking back at that always makes me really .

" it is bf-ing mothers assuming ff mothers are lazy/havent tried hard enough/are using lack of milk as an excuse"

When you look at the stats and see how few women do actually breastfeed for longer than a few weeks then I think it's fair to say that most of the mothers who have chosen to bottlefeed are not doing so because they can't, they are doing so because they chose not to or because they were given bad advice/advice to stop. It's not, in most cases, because they have a medical problem. Most of them ARE making excuses and most of them have chosen not to breastfeed or have been told untruths by the people who should have been supporting them to breastfeed.

"She was determined to breast feed, even though her HV was worried as her DS was continuously losing weight, she would feed constantly but she really didn't have enough milk, she was basically begged by the HV to at least give some formula to top up but she flat out refused.

She eventually gave in when her DS was about to be admitted back into hospital because of weight loss and social workers were getting involved.

I think that is utterly selfish and she just kept repeating herself that is was best for her DS, how in hell was that best for him? He was literally being starved and she wouldn't give him formula because she wanted to bf but at the same time boasting that he slept 12 hours a night "

she was getting bad advice then. A health visitor should have spotted that the baby was sleeping far too long between feeds. Clearly, from what you have posted, she was not feeding her baby frequently enough to sustain her supply. What appears to have gone wrong is a lack of information and guidence about how often ababy needs to be fed. If social workers were involved then something must have seriously gone wrong.

If you've fed your baby and you want to stop you've tried and should have to give an excuse. If people do it, they are nervous of being judged which in my eyes is pretty bloody sad.

She knew she had to feed him through the night though, that's the point. She just enjoyed the fact that "he sleeps right through at a week old" .

She got good advice, I was bfing at the time too and tried to help her and give her advice, she wouldn't have it.

"She knew she had to feed him through the night though, that's the point. She just enjoyed the fact that "he sleeps right through at a week old"

well in that case this has noting to do with her determination to breastfeed but more to do with her not being able to parent.