Tuesday 1 Aug, Radio 4, programme re breastfeeding and dehydration

[PrettyCandles]

Heard a trailer for this on Women's Hour today, but can't find the programme in the week's listings - perhaps it will be part of Women's Hour, so isn't listed separately. Hope I've got the right date and station!

Might be worth keeping an ear out for this.

Yes and doncha know she had a living to earn.

Because they didn't have maternity leave 11 years ago. Or if they did, only wimps took it, not busy and important sexy journalists.

Kathy - I think expressing is a great skill to learn. It can help make bf flexible and convenient. I am just not in favour of everyone thinking they have to do it in the first few weeks.

The writer of the Mail piece is eaten up with anger and she seems to have met the worst and most tactless specimens of healthcare professional in the world - so she was unlucky as well as unsupported.

Calig....you're not saying that she may be adorning the story for dramatic effect, are you?

Surely not.

And then readers comments form a nutrional therapist who says we don't really need breast milk when we have got antibiotcs

Agree totally that she's blaming the wrong culprit, Caligula - quote: 'And breastfeeding is not wonderful and fulfilling, but painful, difficult, boring and humiliating.'
That would be all bf, for everyone, then, presumably!

Out of the many things to blame the government for doing or not doing I don't think aiming to increase breastfeeding is in any way interfering with parental autonomy . I can't understand how anyone can see it as other than a wonderful aim..especially as breastfeeding has been shown to be the single most effective way of evening out socioeconomic inequalities for children.

It seems an irresposible and bitter piece of egotistical journalism to me.

I would have thought being unsupported herself (by her husband as much as anyone else) she would be arguing for more support not venting against breastfeeding.

I would love to know how bf rates differ between readers of different newspapers - is the Daily Mail particularly low I wonder? (Do you know of any stats, Tiktok? )

The government is encouraging bf to save NHS money you see.....DOH!

I thought that the woman's hour interview was really informative for mums.
I found the Daily Mail article sad, I thought she made the odd good point such as : "Surely the most important thing is for a mother to feel happy and comfortable with her child. A tense, unhappy mother will lead to a tense, unhappy baby." I agree with tiktok that some of it seems exaggerated for jounalistic effect (I can imagine the dm asking for a negative, controversial article on bf). I also wonder if she was somehow using breastfeeding as a scapegoat for all of the negative feelings that she had at the time but might not have expected and might have found difficult to express. I wondered if she had any more children.

Kathy, I don't think anyone has done a survey on that

Most women in every social group in the UK plan to breastfeed - the size of the majority differs, but it's still a majority.

Most women do not breastfeed as long as they wanted to

LaDi, your point about scapegoating breastfeeding is a good one. I hear from mothers every day who are overwhelmed, tired, bewildered and confused with all the conflicting advice that's aroun,, and they think these feelings and exhaustion will last forever. They want to discuss switching to formula, because they want to explore whether doing so will make them any less overwhelmed, tired and so on.

My response to the article in the daily mail (can't believe about to say this) is actually to feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for this lady. She had a really bad experience and has directed her anger in the direction of the people she perceives are to blame and focused her negative emotions surrounding having a newborn on BF. The fact she probably would have felt pretty down, isolated and unsexy anyway are by the by to her, people often misdirect their negative emotions, that's all she's guilty of.

What would be really constructive is some sort of strategy where women are well informed of the benefits of BF, but don't feel guilty if their situation doesn't allow it. It might also be helpful to tell women that BF is time consuming, you will get leaky breasts, you might get mastitis etc etc - certainly no-one told me all that. If women are informed and prepared to commit, rather than being told it's easier than FF then find out how hard it really can be, the drop out rate could be much lower.

I have masses of sympathy for women who are let down by the people whose job it is to support their feeding choices. The anger and sadness they feel can last for years.

The sympathy I feel for that writer is tempered, though, by the way I suspect she is deliberately embellishing her feelings 11 years on for dramatic effect, and the way that an intelligent, informed person is (I think) being deliberately perverse in accepting utterly extraordinary dietary choices (pasta at six weeks, weaning onto solids properly at 8 weeks, a boiled egg every morning at a month) on the grounds that 'who on earth knows what's right anyway?'

She's had time to get some perspective on the whole thing, and while she may well have felt distress at not looking sexy (and the distress was genuine, I do believe her) by now, she (surely) understands that bottle feeding would probably not have made her look any sexier.

She felt overwhelmed at the time, and helpless - I believe her.

It's part of her job, I would say, 11 years on, to be able to work out what really happened.

What a silly article. I hate the daily mail more and more each day

Absolutely Tiktok. At the risk of sounding terribly harsh, the phrase "FGS get over it" springs to mind.

What tempers my sympathy for her, is that she is using her awful experience to promote the idea that breastfeeding in itself is a crap, unnecessary thing to do and therefore if a new mum is having problems, she should go straight onto formula because somehow, struggling to bf is just self-righteous preciousness. Whereas a sensible woman (like her) would just accept that bf is only for silly hippy lentil-weavers (who are also bf fascists); normal women can live without it.

That's what I'm reading into the article anyway. And yes I know she's not saying that word for word, but this sort of article is part of the climate where this view is put forward and puts women off bf, to the detriment of themselves and their babies. And I'm just pissed off that someone with access to the media can use it to spread such pernicious ideas.

Exactly caligula. Why does the daily mail have to twist one of the most basic human things into a whinge about the so-called nanny state?

She's just insulting - calls the women in the breastfeeding leaflets she read 'slightly bovine'.

Not sure whether I prefer being a 'fascist' or 'bovine'....or just unsexy.

If she's really, really worried about how new mothers are 'made' to feel, maybe she can play her part and lay off the rude descriptions of something 77 per cent of mothers are now doing!

Moo to her

Er....I mean 77 per cent of new mothers, obviously

(England and wales Infant Feeding survey, prelim figures, bf initiation)

I think it's very sad this whole "breastfeeding mafia/nazi" thing. You cannot always blame others for your problems. I absoutely think women need more support, but I also think many women mistake support, help and information for pressure. I don't actually think the main problem is lack of support. I think the main problem is the odd attitudes to breast feeding and lack of role models close to you. You know, Scandinavian women don't have breast feeding cousillors sitting next to you on the bed 24/7 to help either, but bf is more of a natural part of society and everyone has friends and family who bf. You don't have all these people and Daily Mail articles constantly undermining bf and consequently Scandinavian women have more confidence in their own milk and don't throw in the towel with the first problem.

I don't usually post on these threads cos they nearly always turn ugly but realy have to take exception with Fairymum's implication that formula feeding mothers just 'throw in the towel at the first problem'. When the 'first problem' is that your child refuses to latch on at all, whatever you try, no matter how many breastfeeding counsellors you speak to, and hasn't actually eaten anything for the first 5 days of her life, and the midwives won't even take her for 10 minutes so you can try to express and cup-feed, how is it 'throwing in the towel' to decide that actually it might be better all round if maybe your baby eats something, anything, even if that is formula?

Piccalilli - you are right. A lot of mothers struggle like crazy to get bf to work and only turn to the bottle when it's a question of having to feed their baby to ensure the baby is fed, basically.

There are some mothers whose heart is not in breastfeeding from the start, for whatever reason, or who lack confidence , and they are more quickly discouraged - all the more reason to enable them to get off to a flying start with lots of support and information.

Scandinavian mothers actually do have breastfeeding counsellors There are volunteer bf support organisations in every Scandi country and professional lactation consultants, too.

The issues they face are different from ours in the UK, but it's wrong to imply everyone breastfeeds without a problem.

FairyMum, you are part of the problem - views like yours, confidently and scathingly expressed, are part of the reason why women have no confidence in their ability to breastfeed.

Thanks tiktok - it still makes me cry thinking about the first few days of dd's life. I desperately wanted to breastfeed but due to a combination of my flat nipples and, I think, the fact that dd had forceps and ventouse and found it painful to suck she just screamed hysterically every time we tried it. We did try again when we were out of hospital but by then she realised it was easier for her to get the milk from the bottle - all very sad. I do think the lack of support where you need it most, in the hospital, is shocking.

Yes I know there are a lot of support available in Scandinavia Tiktok, but my point is that the breast feeding counsellors don't come attached to your baby. You still have to seek the support out like you have to in the UK and possibly also prepare yourself reading about bf before you have a baby just like you probably do some reading about other aspects of having a baby.
MrsBadcrumble , I am not saying UK women throw in the towel because they just cannot be bothered, but I think its a confidence thing. I think many mums as well as people around them really lack confidence in their own milk supply. I agree more support is needed, but I don't think you can blame everything on lack of support and I think far too many women think they physically could not breast feed. Yes, some can't for various reason, but should be a tiny percentage only and not the large numbers of mothers who claim these problems.

I totally understand your point, Fairy....a 'small' problem can seem a massive one to a mother who just doesn't have confidence in breastfeeding, or in the fact that she herself can do it. I believe you were not implying a 'can't be bothered' attitude at all, but a 'can't do this' attitude.

Example: a mum I know stopped before her baby was a day old. She had bottle fed her first and knew she was perfectly capable of bottle feeding. She decided to have a try at breastfeeding with her second. But the baby was a bit sleepy (recovering from pethedine) and didn't feed well on that first day; the baby was kept in a crib (no skin to skin); her nipples were a bit tender; the midwives were busy and brusque, though encouraging (as far as I could tell); she was tired and her perineum hurt a lot. So she stopped.

She's a great mum, and works hard at everything she does. But breastfeeding was something she just couldn't see herself doing. So when it turned out to be not plain sailing, she gave up.

If she'd had less/no pethedine...if the baby had been tucked up skin to skin with her....if there were midwives whose job allowed them to be with her for as long as it took...if her positioning had been helped with some skilled guidance.....she might just have done it.

She doesn't feel guilty or even especially sad or sensitive about bottle feeding. But there's no reason why mothers should have to have bucket loads of confidence and massive motivation to breastfeed - even the least confident and least motivated should at least have a chance to it, and not be scuppered by poor beginnings.

Absolutely Tiktok - and if she was operating in a cultural and social context, where she expected to bf, and was expected by all around her to bf, because it is normal and that's what most mothers do, she probably would have done it too.