The attitudes expressed on this thread are examples of the unpleasant judgmentalism that pits mother against mother in a battle where defensive postures and name-calling really don't help anyone. and which risks undermining mothers in their ability to make a decision they feel comfortable with.
Even the phrase 'formula is not poison' is a ridiculous one...no one said it was, and if someone expresses an idea vaguely equivalent to this (ie that women giving formula are poisoning their children), then they are clearly deluded, and/or not very pleasant, and we should probably feel sorry for them.
I live in the real world, as do all of us.
People say the wrong things sometimes, or say things that are ambiguous and come out 'wrong'. NickyEds, your friend who talked about
"I had you down as one of those ever-loving supermums for whom only breast was good enough" didn't imply you were not loving, FGS. Instead, she was having a little dig at some imaginary mothers who think they are supermum for not using bottles.
Mothers who are comfortable with using breast and bottle for convenience reasons are not really making a comment about women who do breast only martyring themselves, are they? Really? If they say 'I couldn't do breast only, and don't want to sacrifice my time/body/freedom for it' how about cutting them a bit of slack, leedy and not assuming they are calling you 'pig headed' for doing something different?
It's mad to equate any feeding experience with a 'gold standard', it's mad to have a 'gold standard', and it's particularly mad to equate this with a 'gold standard of motherhood'. Who does this? For real? If they do, they are not reflecting a widespread attitude because most people couldn't care less what individual mother B and individual baby B do - as long as Baby B is loved and cared for.
The facts are pretty clear. The best health outcomes are seen in babies who are exclusively or predominantly breastfed for six months. In a first world country like the UK, the impact on an individual baby of non-exclusive breastfeeding is likely to be very small.....but guess what, the health reasons are not why women want to exclusively breastfeed. Mostly, women want to breastfeed without anything else because that's how they feel they want
to nourish their babies....by themselves with no manufacturered/commercial product. They love the idea that their bodies can do this terrific thing, and they want to experience that physical and emotional connection with their babies.
Unless they have very strange views, they don't think that everybody ought to feel the same way.
I don't think statements such as 'babies do best on what suits the mother best' are helpful, either, unless we are talking about the emotional well-being of mothers, which may plummet if she is breastfeeding and hating every minute and her baby...in which case a switch to formula may actually serve them both better. A mother with (for example) very damaged nipples may 'suit' formula feeding better, but she persists with breastfeeding, and gets treatment/help to fix the nipples. Her choice. Also her choice to switch.
Whatever - keeping attitudes 'moderate' and not exagerrating imagined or even real attitudes encountered here on in real life helps the whole thing much more than over-blown reactions to (imagined?) slights and comments from others.
Phew :)