Reasons why women don't breastfeed

[ohthegoats]

Today's breastfeeding 'news' from Brazil. I finally heard a sensible comment on the story at about lunchtime today - a woman saying that there shouldn't be surveys on whether or not it's a good thing to breastfeed, because everyone knows it is. The research should be into why so many women don't do it, or don't stick with it.

Here are my reasons why I don't like breastfeeding - has anyone got any to add? Or ideas to mitigate the issues?

After being so out of control of your body during pregnancy, being poked and prodded and 'nanny stated' out of your mind, you want control back.

Little help available when you have problems - I know this isn't true for all people.

Having to wear such unflattering underwear in order to be able to get your boobs out easily. Why hasn't this been sorted out? Why so few underwired options that actually work without causing duct blockages? Why so expensive to get even a crappy underwired one?

Having to wear clothes that are mostly unflattering too. I have one reasonable breastfeeding top out of the 10 I have bought - H&M for a tenner in the sale, not been able to find it again. They are all either too plain coloured, too low necked, horrible material, too tight in other places etc etc.

Getting stared at in public for doing it.

Being confined to the sofa for days on end.

Waking up covered in yoghurt for reasons you don't understand.

Boobs squirting milk during sex.

Think that's my starter list.

I'm 5 and a half months into ebf with my baby... plan to start moving away from it at 6 months. I've done it because it's the 'right' thing, but I've mostly hated it.

Goats, we were on the same antenatal thread - my LO is nearly 5 months. Also EBF as it's the 'right' thing, but struggled too. Reasons:

No health professional suggested it would be anything other than easy, leading me to feel like I was doing something wrong when it didn't just 'work'

My baby sucks. And sucks. And sucks. Waaaay after she's finished actively eating, she sucks, and then sicks all the milk back up that she didn't swallow. Dr told me to unlatch her when she stops actively sucking. Nct told me, sternly, that you should never unlatch a baby

She's grown long but v lean so has wobbled around her centile. I'm now in tears when I have to take her to be weighed which, at one point, was weekly. Despite the promotion of bf, HV after HV has asked if I can estimate how much she eats. Well, no, because I don't know how much is coming out of my breast? Can't work out why, if breast is best, she's not following her centile - then hate myself for thinking that way. She's healthy, happy and reaching her milestones - why do I feel so much pressure on us both for her to follow an arbitrary graph line?!

I had LOTS of milk, so that she will sometimes guzzle and sick it back up. One doctor said it was reflux and I had to try Gaviscon, but bf babies are hard to medicate. Traumatised her for 2 feeds trying to force syringe Gaviscon into her before I thought sod it. Another Dr said it couldn't be reflux as she doesn't have it overnight. HV said it must be reflux. Another HV said it wasn't as she's not unhappy whilst being sick...

And finally - the leaking. Oh God, the leaking if I forget breast pads!

Sorry to rant - feel like I bottle so much of these stresses up because i'm fortunate enough that I can bf and I know that's what's best for her. Just wish it didn't come with so much anxiety.

Also yes yes yes to bra thing!

and what if you have twins and one of them won't get off you and the other one has an infected mouth ulcer? YOu would get the formula out sharpish no?

Can't see how many of your issues around bf are generally applicable, though, goats, and I think some only ever apply when bf is not going well.

"After being so out of control of your body during pregnancy, being poked and prodded and 'nanny stated' out of your mind, you want control back." - breastfeeding (when it's going well) is actually an independent sorta thing - empowering, even.

"Little help available when you have problems" - as you say, not true for everyone.

"Having to wear such unflattering underwear in order to be able to get your boobs out easily. Why hasn't this been sorted out? Why so few underwired options that actually work without causing duct blockages? Why so expensive to get even a crappy underwired one?" I genuinely don't get this one. Nursing bras have really improved over the last 10 years or so - there are some fab designs, and not expensive. Many women just wear their usual bra after bf is established, anyway, doing the lift-the-cup-up-and-away thing (only really possible with small or medium breasts, though).

"Having to wear clothes that are mostly unflattering too. I have one reasonable breastfeeding top out of the 10 I have bought - H&M for a tenner in the sale, not been able to find it again. They are all either too plain coloured, too low necked, horrible material, too tight in other places etc etc." Ditto for not getting it! Just wear normal clothes - not with high neck fastenings down the back, for sure, but the idea you need a whole new wardrobe of breastfeeding clothes is mad!

"Getting stared at in public for doing it." Hardly ever happens - really

"Being confined to the sofa for days on end". Rare, after the first couple of weeks or so, and a rest on the sofa for a couple of weeks is a good thing :)

"Waking up covered in yoghurt for reasons you don't understand." Eh? Do you mean leaking at night? Wear extra absorbent breastpads inside your bra, then.

"Boobs squirting milk during sex". Matter of taste, some people don't mind, and it stops happening after two to three months for most people.

The fact is that most women want to breastfeed. There are downsides, but there are downsides to ff, too. None of your reasons seem to me to stand up as a common reason for stopping, though there's no doubt that many women stop before they want to, and not liking aspects of bf is part of it.

Unable to actually produce milk would be mine. Thankfully after the insane guilt put on me with my first and failing to feed her, with my second the bf counsellor at the hospital diagnosed me with a lack of glands, if only I'd had her with my DD the guilt would have gone straight away.

I did spend one lengthy evening trying to stop my stop my breasts squirting milk in the toilets at a formal ball. In the end I put my jacket on (despite having breast pads, spare pads etc my dress was drenched) and went home early. Dh didn't quite grasp what the issue was until I flashed my jacket open.

Other than that, it was all fine. No yoghurt (?!) no staring (or not that I cared anyway - I would also express in the car lol as otherwise I'd have a repeat of the 'bathing in own bm' incident. I actually needed more support to stop with dc2 - he was a bottle refuser due to RSV treatment. Dc1 self weaned.

I was unable to feed dc3 as she was born with no suck or gag reflex. I expressed for 6 weeks but then moved to ff as the expressing and then all the crappy tube and eventually bottle nonsense was just depressing.

I don't identify with any of the so called reasons in the first post.

Can't see how many of your issues around bf are generally applicable, though, goats, and I think some only ever apply when bf is not going well.

Did she say they were generally applicable? she said they bothered her.

To my listI was assured it was easy, natural, no trouble at all. But i didn't have a single leak of milk with my oldest. He just kept falling asleep during every feed and stoppped eating if it took longer than 30 seconds.

our 1 succesfull feed took 45 mins because i had to jiggle him every 30 seconds to wake him up and start him feeding again (is this normal I have no idea because it is easy and details weren't discussed).

I started bottle feeding as that took the 30 seconds attention span he had and he could sleep again.

Undiagnosed tongue tie leading to agonising pain when feeding, screaming hungry baby despite "feeding" for hours and actually not getting any milk leading to too much weight loss.

Refusal of hospital to sever tongue tie when eventually diagnosed- I was given an appointment at a hospital 2 hours drive away, 2 weeks later.

Formula fed my second baby because of all that.

(Ebf first child to 6 months)

Did she say they were generally applicable? she said they bothered her.

Which makes a list somewhat pointless.

There is a distinct lack of support to breastfeed from health professionals if it's thought your baby is not gaining weight or in my case had low blood sugar at birth and was premature.

My baby spent his first four days in special care where he was given formula, first in a bottle from an overzealous midwife telling me there was no other option and then through a tube.

It was only after I had a meltdown in front of the nurses and doctor on duty about not being given the help to breastfeed that it was suggested I come to the ward during the night to try to feed. I was then told that the only way I would be able to have my baby back on the ward with me was if I agreed to feed him formula with a bottle.

Luckily I sought help from a breastfeeding advisor and managed to get the baby latched on and have been breastfeeding ever since. This was in a large teaching hospital in London and I was shocked at how little support there was for someone who was determined to breastfeed because if they had had their way I would have been straight home with a bottle of formula.

never unlatch a baby
Yeah, I was told that too. Useless piece of advice, because sometimes you you need to, or - and here's some news - you actually want to because you've been stuck on the sofa all afternoon and will go mad if you can't put the baby down for ten minutes.

I enjoyed bf-ing my DC, but it did have its downsides. And Summer, if my last had been my first I would have been down at the cliic being lectured about underfeeding ever few weeks, because she was diddy: huge at birth, healthy, happy, perky, ate well, but grew really slowly. She was over a year old before she doubled her birthweight, but because she was my youngest no HV, nurse or doctor ever bothered me about her. Teenager now, healthy, happy, perky, eats well, on the short side. So, as long as your DD stays healthy and happy and meets her milestones, forget the bloody graph.

Ox, I did not accuse goats of stating they were generally applicable! Why so chippy?

I think if we are to discuss why women don't breastfeed, it helps to work out if some reasons are individual and some are generalisable....don't you agree?

cliic? Clinic.
Why does autocorrect never do its thing when you want it to?

I couldn't work out how to bf. ie I tried and tried and couldn't feed DS.

Later I found out my DS has dyspraxia. I'm now fairly sure not being able to bf was actually a symptom of his dyspraxia. (ie it requires far better fine motor skills to suck from a breast than from a bottle, which is why he couldn't do it.)

you are asking the completely wrong audience OP

MN has a disproportionately HIGH volume of BF

ask the Mums that are NOT on MN, look around any baby weighing clinic- ask the HV-

you go to an inner city baby weigh clinic and I can guarantee that BF will be like hens teeth

I didn't breastfeed largely because I didn't want to.

It didn't work for me when I tried it anyway. When my first baby was 4 days old I got severe gastro-enteritis and it completely dried up my supply as I got too dehydrated.

I hated the guilt trips I was given because of it.

Being confined to the sofa for days on end

One of the best reasons for doing it!

DD1 was in special care (still don't know why other than the midwives' "weren't happy with her") and every time I went to feed I was told they had given her bottle. Despite that , once home, I fed with no problem at all for her first year.

Had I not known how liberating (no bottles, sterilisers, no out of formula) BF actually is, I would have given up second time. The pains during feeding were worse than labour itself - I got through labour with no drugs and had to take pain killers to feed. No one warned me about that!

It's very difficult BF with a toddler around. Sitting with your feet up while feeding is lovely first time around, second time you're trying to time feeds outside of toddlers' groups, tumble tots etc etc (not so much the groups themselves more the journey to and from)

In the end, I got really ill and stopped producing milk so had to give up at 5 months.

Glad I tried, though.

I decided beforehand that I didn't think I would cope being the only person solely responsible for being able to feed our baby for months.

DP worked silly shifts, all over the place. I honestly think that if I knew he would be coming home M-F at 6, and being there at the weekends, to at least be able to cook dinner for me then I might have considered it. But I knew I would have days at a time where it would just be me and the baby from the moment we woke until the unknown moment I could put her to bed, and I didn't feel that I would cope, emotionally and physically, with that. Not with all the night feeds as well. I decided that what would be best for us all as a family if both parents, and my parents, were able to completely look after the baby for periods of time.

Also, as mariposa mentions, DD was in NICU and when I agreed she could have formula as soon as she was born no one actually talked to me about whether I wanted to bf. I suppose I would have pushed it if I wanted to, but it was dealt with somewhat as a 'complete decision made'.

I'm 8 months into feeding DS and have generally been lucky and not had many problems, however I will add feeding a nosy baby to the list. If we are in public, or even if DP is around, I can't get DS to stay on the boob long enough for a decent feed. He just wants to crane his neck to see what's going on.

Oh and I just remembered I do agree with the one about baby not unlatching. This is actually a bit of a nightmare at the moment trying to get DS off the boob after a night feed.

Never ever had a desire to so didn't.

I'd think someone who didn't feed due to unflattering clothes and underwear was very very shallow.

My cousin didn't like the thought of a baby sucking on her boob! (I kid you not, she thinks they are for pleasuring men maybe?)

tiktok sorry i read it as an accusation of not general why did you waste your effort typing something that can't neatly be applied to everyone, why list things that are only related to people who are having problems.

Madamecastafiore, so basically there are good reasons for not breastfeeding, and bad reasons?

It's very difficult BF with a toddler around. Sitting with your feet up while feeding is lovely first time around, second time you're trying to time feeds outside of toddlers' groups, tumble tots etc etc (not so much the groups themselves more the journey to and from)

is this new with how we are so child centered, you know in the bad old days once kids could walk they were chucked outside to play with the bigger kids, so not hanging round mum wanting attention?
This is not a critisism, just an observation that things are now different.

I don't personally like the thought of 'a baby sucking' on my boob either as you put it....

However, I don't believe they are 'for men'