I know i shouldnt but...

[hercules]

A friend of mine has recently had a baby who lost a pound in weight. She was bf but baby wasnt latching on well . Their midwive told them to give formula and expressat the same time as well as giving tablets to increase her milk supply. They are now only giving formula and the midwive has cobgratulated them on having a happy baby. The baby is a week old and there are loads of allergies, excema, asthma etc in the family.
Now everyone thinks i am mad because I said they needed to speak to a bf counsellor and that breast was best etc. There were also told that the baby needs to get used to a bottle anyway as all babies need water!!!
I feel frustrated not cos they made a decision to bottle feed but because they made it with the wrong information. I cant understand why anyone would not explore all the options available and then make a decision whether it be to bottlefeed or breastfeed.
Rant over.

The most angry sounding posts here - accusing people of talking crap, being smug and saying blah blah - and elsewhere on the boards are from people who feel angry when others talk about the benefits of bf. The people who talk about the benefits of bf never sound anything like as cross or rude!

It can, neverthless, sound provocative to say 'breast is best' in a society where the infrastructure to support bf just doesn't exist.

But that doesn't mean we should deny the great amount of knowledge that not breastfeeding babies has health risks...why would we want to pretend otherwise?

cant you just give them phennigan and start them on solids at 6 months?

everyones a better parent these days its hard enough without critisism and damnation.

"if you bottle feed your children they wont be as healthy as mine they will contract cancer and herpes and nappy rash and attract bee stings and then go straight to hell when they die"

but bbbut but bbbbbut..
" i breast feed my quins ( mumsnet handle st. mary martyr) and they are all going to grow up healthier than any one elses children they have better sex lives as adults and bigger bits too. it will help them to keep slim and get better jobs and shop at laura ashley and avoid macdonalds on some principle or other they wont be able to remember"

please tell me where your quotes are from.
Who actually said anything like this?

Defensive or wot?

yes hercules my quotes are exact taken from the best book on babies in the world ever - didnt the bee stings give it away?

im not defensive - i dont give a rats arse either way tbh, its just ded shitty for mnetters to be havin' a go at each other over this subject when being a parent is hard enough

It's never bottle-feeders making snide, thoughtless comments about how breast feeding does this that or the other, it's ALWAYS the smug breast-feeders with all their quotes from this organisation or the other. I'm not saying everyone who breast feeds their child is smug, just the ones who shove all the wonderful benefits in everyone's face. No matter how good formula milk becomes, and how many babies thrive on it, they've always got this to quote and they love it.

Bottle feeding mums have made their choice for their own reasons, sometimes didn't have a choice.

Just because they've got all this waffle that they can do links to or quote from, I don't really give a toss.
In real life, not on paper, if gastroenteritis or something is going round, most babies will get it. In real life, the generation of bottle fed babies (like myself) are going to University, becoming Doctors, Scientists, etc. Yeah, not being BF made a HUGE difference to their intelligence didn't it.

I know I've said it before but the benefits are HUGELY over-exaggerated.

Now I know where the phrase 'Breast feeding Mafia' came from. I thought it was a bit strong before, but I can totally see what it means.

So if midwives are going round giving incorrect information to mothers who want to breastfeed then instead of giving them the correct information we should hide the benefits and keep it like a secret?
I cant find any insults here from breastfeeders but plenty of remarks from others.

I can certainly see some bottlefeeding mafia...

I thought this thread was about parents being apparently given the wrong information. It certainly wasn't the so called "BF mafia" who turned it into a debate about breast v bottle.

Yes it was Soupdragon.
my friend wanted correct information and I think there is nothing wrong with this coming from researched information.
As it happens a health professional seems to have given them incorrect information.
i cant see how this is an attack on people who bottlefeed nor why anyone should be critised for wanting to give correct information. It's hardly a case of being smug or critising their decision.

I am puzzled. Someone gives a link to a website with good information, usually (if not always) in response to a request from a mumsnetter for information - and this is denigrated as being smug and shoving benefits in someone else's face?

Here, here tiktok/hercules

Twinkie's comments were in response to Trifle's nasty dig about all breastfed babies being 'sickly' - which I notice nobody has condemned. I do notice that there are people who hate anyone telling the truth about breastfeeding and are particularly nasty and abusive when doing so - IceCreamQueen is just another one.
What do you think real life is if it's not related to the real risk of allergies, depression, obesity - the lot. Nobody ever says that every breastfed child will be healthy or that every formula fed child will be unhealthy. But then there are plenty of healthy smokers and unhealthy non-smokers, but it doesn't change the facts. I gave my son formula from a few days old, alongside breastfeeding, for heaven's sake. But I do recognise good research when I see it, and "I don't give a toss' is hardly reasoned argument. If you don't want to breastfeed then that's up to you. Nobody can make you. If you can't breastfeed, then that's another issue again. Of course there are many aspects to parenting a child, but breastfeeding is better than formula except in certain circumstances - it's just a fact. Exclusive breastfeeding is better than mixing with formula, like I did. I can live with that.

Yes, I have a sickly baby - which is precisely why I breastfeed him.

Aloha, brilliant as usual.
And Tiktok, I think you hit the nail on the head. Shoving benefits in people's faces. Benefits. Benefits. That's what seems so hard to get through. It.Is.Better. It's sad if you can't (I could only mix-feed with ds1) but no amount of regret will change the hard, permanent, scientific fact that breast feeding is much, much better than bottle. End of.

The trouble is quoting and requoting the benefits of breastfeeding is absolutely pointless when there is absolutely no infrastructure to support the breastfeeding mother. Indeed the society in which we live seeks to undermine her at every turn.

If we stick up for breastfeeding, it's because someone has to.

Khara, I agree that quoting the benefits means nothing if the support and info is not there for people when they need it....that's the gap that can be, at least in part, filled by mothers being in touch with other mothers.

Shame bitterness gets in the way

I think you should leave it, ms hercules poirot. Just smile and tell her she's a great mum with a beautiful baby- whatever she decides. She doesn't need to hear another word on feeding until she asks advice about the next one, if next one there be, I wouldn't have thought.

Thanks for all your responses. It is awful that the infrastructure is not in plce where mums want to bfeed.
As for my friend, of course i wont discuss with her about bfeeding as i would never want to make her feel bad which is why my rant about her midwve was placed here on mumsnet rather than to my friend.
Thanks again to all who posted here

It is an incredible difficult situation that your friend was in and one that I am in myself at the moment. My new baby born 11th Feb lost 1lb 4oz in weight in the first week as he was refusing the breast.

However I have an incredibly supportive midwife, breastfeeding counsellor and hospital feeding co-ordinator who have given great advice and I am at the moment cup feeding until he learns to suck.

BUT

It is very very tiring, hard work, there have been tears, doubts that I am doing the wrong thing so I can fully understand your friend if she does not want to go down this route. How I am still going I don't know.

If however she really does want to breastfeed it is sad if she has been given such bad advice and it isn't too late, she could contact someone and meanwhile express to keep her supply up. I can't understand the tablets if the problem is not one of supply but latching on.

Incindentally I didn't even try to breastfeed my first child and I suffer from asthma, hayfever and have had skin problems in the past.

Julie - I wish you all the best. It's great you have support to keep going.

Thanks Aloha - just read this and feel pretty cross that as a pro-breastfeeder (and I don't make my own yoghurt , knit or even buy much organic stuff other than Green & Blacks Chocolate so don't think I am like that at all ha ha!!) I am not allowed to put across my point of view or experience (the children I know being my experience of breastfed and bottlefed children not some statistic) without being called smug.

I'm smug about it. Don't believe in running folk down who differ in their view of how to feed their babies. But me personally with my choices
Smug