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!

I wanted to brett but when I started doing it I found that I actually didn't.

That ok?

I think you need to put the statistics into perspective. If 2% of women genuinely don't produce enough milk, then out of every 100 women you come across who've had children, at least 2 of those won't have produced enough. Considering how many women have children every day, I'd say that's actually not as few as you think.

I do agree that the information isn't there for all women and some healthcare practitioners do perhaps give women advice that's far from desirable, you have a valid point. You then went on to completely devalue everything you'd said previously by saying '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.' It's not always a choice for everyone. You're vulnerable when you've just had a child and when you're struggling, if someone mentions in passing that it might be that you've not got enough milk and a bottle may help, you'll cling to anything that'll make things easier.

If someone else's choices and decisions make your effort feel devalued, then I'm afraid the issue is with you, not anyone else.

"Your overly touchy because you had issues over feeding and your guilt."

This isn't the only reason to disagree with the assertion that FF is an easy way out, even for women struggling with BF. I feel no guilt at all.

I agree that nobody should feel guilt on switching to FF, but many women do; it is for this reason that FF is not the easy way out, as physical problems can be replaced with psychological ones.

Pickles, you should go speak to the bfeeding support in your area. Prevention is better than cure. Good luck.

When i was in hospital with no 2 the poor girl in the bed next to me got the most horrendous support. The midwives were appalingly bad. they gave her a bottle, when she wanted to bf. they didn't have the time to help her :-0

I got them to come and check my latch everytime i fed. They were huffing and puffing at how "demanding" i was. I didn't have any pain feeding that time.

Baby one of best friends now trained bf peer worker, which is a bit of a result!

Jollhockeystick I dont want sympathy just recognition of the fact that some women do genuinely have low supply. That is what got my goat about this thread.

Captainhetty 1 in 50 is quite a lot of women isnt it?

Brettgirl2 - me too.

That's fine, Brett and crafty, you are therefore NOT in the group of people who wind me up :)

I dont think anyone is on here looking for sympathy to be honest jolly

You may have come across this in rl.

If I want sympathy anyway I'd tap up my DP for a bit, not a person who had overcome a lot of odds to BF.

As it goes, I didnt even have a choice in the end anyway. So it was out of my hands a bit.

I don't know, Jolly, that seems kind of harsh to me.

Why are people so sparing with sympathy? It doesn't cost anything to sympathise with someone. It doesn't make anything in your life worth less. It doesn't mean they went through the same thing as you.

I tried and failed to breast feed all three of mine, and I found the opinions expressed by the OP, and in the early part of the thread, to be very painful and hurtful.

I tried everything I could think of with ds1. He had neonatal jaundice, and I was told I had to supplement him with formula, because of this (I know now that this might well have been the wrong advice, but then, as a very new mum, with my baby in an incubator, having phototherapy, I wasn't going to argue). I tried to reestablish breast feeding when we got home, and even expressed after every feed, as that was suggested as something that might boost my supply. I did this for 10 days - on day 1 I expressed 4.5mls, and by day 10 this had increased dramatically to .... 4.5mls. Ds1 wasn't gaining weight, and I reluctantly switched to formula. I suspect this played a part in me getting PND.

With ds2, I was even more determined to bf. I had him at home, no jaundice, and he was ebf - he fed loads - sometimes it felt like he was always feeding - and yet he did not regain the 10oz he'd lost from his birthweight. I had the HV coming round daily or every other day, wanting to see weight gain, and seeing none - and telling me she recommended me to formula feed. When I said I was really committed tobf, she said that she had to think of the best interest of the child! . I threw her out of the house and persevered with the bf, but at 6 weeks old he still hadn't regained the weight, and when he was admitted to hospital with a chest infection, they diagnosed him as Failure To Thrive, and kept us in until I started to ff, and he started to gain some weight.

With ds3, I mixed fed from the word go - bf all day, a bottle late at night and one in the night - and he gained weight. When I dropped to one bottle a day, he stopped gaining weight. But I did manage to carry on with some bf for 12 weeks.

Maybe I had bad advice, I don't know, and maybe I am wrong, but my gut reaction was that I was not making enough milk or good enough milk - and it tore me apart. OP - maybe your friend is feeling as bad as I did about not breast feeding - I can tell you for sure that, if I had had a friend who judged me as you are judging your friend, it would have devastated me, at a point in my life when I was at rock bottom, and contemplating suicide.

How sad wolef its stories like yours that make me feel a bit compelled to come onto threads like this and say things.

OP, did you actually offer your friend any advice about BF, either before her baby was born or when she was having problems?
What really gets on my nerves are people who give the impression that because they BF, those of us who found it too difficult just weren't trying hard enough. I don't want sympathy, but a bit of empathy wouldn't go amiss.

I struggled to bf my 2 dc both delivered by c section.

Looking back on it I just wish someone had told me what to try to make it work, instead they just told me I couldn't leave hospital until I was feeding baby 'one way or another' hmm.
say that to a mother who want's to go home to her toddler 3 days pp and just see how soon she reaches for a bottle!

Poor op I do feel for you, motherhood is tough and thankless and sometimes people's comments can upset for reasons we can't explain; especially when we're tired and pregnant.

just told me I couldn't leave hospital until I was feeding baby 'one way or another'

YES!

This is what happened to me. I was in initially for four days, then in again a week later but initially they wouldnt let me out, but didnt have the time to help me bf either.

TBH Im tempted to say Im FF next time as it was such a shambles and I think it will be a lot better to try at home.

For those that have asked. The conversation with my friend (in very simplistic form) was as follows:

"Her baby was unsettled during the night. She was unhappy despite being fed. She asked her mother what to do in the morning. Her mother said the baby needed a bottle. She gave the baby a bottle. The baby slept better and was happy."

It made my efforts feel devalued because my baby was not settled (ds1). It took a long time for him to be settled at night (didn't sleep through until 18 months). I felt she was somehow saying unsettled=unhappy and therefore what I did with my son was wrong

I know there was no intention to make me feel bad and actually she probably does not think this at all. But I did.

Apologies for not reading all 9 pages.

OP, I can understand where you are coming from.

However, there are so many reasons why a woman might choose to stop breastfeeding, or choose not to try it, and some of the reasons might be personal and private.

If you don't want to say that you're sorry she 'couldn't' breastfeed then maybe you could be sorry that things didn't work out the way she expected or wanted? Not everyone finds it easy to ask for help, not all the HCPs available are knowledgeable and yes, some people don't have BF that high up on their list of priorities.

I do hate the way these threads always turn out, it's upsetting for everyone. If there were more support and acceptance and if we were not bombarded by people telling us what we ought to be doing (and that includes formula advertising) but instead offering us accurate information and a non-judgemental ear then maybe there wouldn't be so much of an 'us and them' mentality between FF and BF mothers.

We are all trying our hardest and we deserve better.

Jen no not at all, your doing your best as is she.

Crystal -yes I did but I did feel she didn't really want to BF anyway even before the baby was born. Her mothers advice also trumps mine and once she had taken that decision I didn't feel it was my place to say anything.

You didn't need to read the thread then Eau as that sums it up pretty bloody nicely.

I'm not entirely sure what your point is then jenbird? You feel devalued because you both had similar experiences but chose different options. She then had a happy baby who slept and you didn't... I take unsettled to mean unhappy as well but that doesn't mean that because your baby is/was more unsettled that you've done something wrong. Maybe your 'rant' is about that guilt that your baby continued to be unsettled?

Deep down we all want a pat on the back for doing out best, trying our hardest for our baby and doing the 'right' thing. We all have different views on what is the right thing and it's not always easy to see that what's 'wrong' for you is 'right' for someone else's family.

It is a shame as always that it's so hard to have a bf discussion/debate without flame throwing, but having seen a vitamin D thread get very heated a few days ago I'm always amazed at what mothers can take offence at.

What happened on the vitamin D thread?

Jen, have you considered the possibility that your friend 'made an excuse' to you for not BFing as she knows you feel strongly about it?

Perhaps she is telling other people that she stopped because she didn't like it?

A vitamin D heated debate!! Tell us more.

I'm another of the 1% or 2% or whatever it is and yes, I feel undermined and devalued to hear people say on here 'you gave up trying'.

When I say my milk didn't come in in hospital, I mean my colostrum. When the hospital BF support staff became concerned about DD's feeding, they gave me a pump to see how much I could produce. They said 30 mins pumping should produce 5ml colostrum...I got 0.5ml, and my nipple was cracked & bleeding after that.

I was lucky enough to have donor milk in hospital and the day after we came home my real milk came in. However my DD would scream after hours of feeding and a week later she was losing weight so I reluctantly agreed to introduce formula.

But I didn't give up BFing - went on Domperidone to increase my supply - (and currently attached to breast pump as I type) and at 4 months old DD is still mix fed.

It may not work for everyone, but I wanted to post my story to show that mixed feeding can work, it doesn't make your supply dry up as I was warned.

Yes, if I'd gradually cut down the ff perhaps I could have phased them out altogether, and perhaps I was too scared to do that, but I could see I had a happy thriving baby who was gaining weight and was still getting breast milk every day - why would I jeopardise that?

I was also very, very lucky to have great post-natal BF support. The midwife who runs my BF support group knows I am mixed feeding and doesn't judge me for it, and I know I wouldn't be BFing now without that help. I only hope others in my situation can get the support I got....reading about some of the aggressive and bossy HCPs some of you have met makes me so sad!