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.

In my experience found Bf really easy and as I am quite lazy I would struggle to parent if I didn't do it! So much so that I've been continually bf for 3.5yrs back to back two children - although not a same time. Blimey seems mad thinking about. When dc1 finally slept - plus 1.5yrs I had the odd big night out, i.e full on jungle raving and plan to do so again with dc2. When they are toddlers its fine to have the odd nights break.

I have zero qualms about bf publicly - never had any comment on it and if I did, well lets say I wouldn't shirk the confrontation.

Plus in no way has it impacted on my wardrobe apart frm wearing dresses which granted can make things tricky.

All in all cant identify with anything op has said.

The pain, oh god the pain. I was on loads of painkillers (CS) but the agony from no. 2 was something else.

With no.1 the many hospital stays due to a gigantic breast abscess did it for me.

squizita your points on mental health are very well made.
I have anxiety, mild depression and agoraphobia. These are all under control thanks to medication and lifestyle factors. Two of the biggest lifestyle factors are sleep & exercise.

When I was exclusively breastfeeding, I had to do the night feeds and even though my wonderful DH got up to do nappies and make sure I stayed awake, the broken sleep tipped me quite quickly into an anxious state. I also couldn't do any exercise, even a walk, as I was too shy to feed in public and it took ages to get the baby latched. So that triggered my agoraphobia.
Added to that, the anti-depressant medication I normally take is the one Most recommended in breast-feeding mothers but the effects on babies are quite unknown (for obvious ethical reasons).

So I was getting sicker and sicker but I didn't want to stop breastfeeding because of the immense pressure and expectation to exclusively breastfeed until 6 months.

In the end I stopped breastfeeding at 4 months and have never looked back. I have medication, I do yoga, and am a much more energetic and happy mum.

I guess my point is that breastfeeding your child should be advised/promoted on the basis that there is no serious detrimental effect on the mother's wellbeing.

My main reason : the pain! Excucriating toe curling agony. Dd had tongue tie which was sorted very quickly but by then my nipples were shredded and she was getting more blood than milk. With ds he was both very hungry and sucky but also very sleepy. It was so painful again and I did not want to be stuck to the sofa in pain for hours on end while dd twiddled her thumbs waiting for me to finish.

""I want my body back" and "I don't like the thought of a baby sucking on my boob" are lame excuses."

"Why have a baby if such things are an inconvenience ?"

Because there is a whole lot more to bringing up a child than how you feed it in the first months/years of life, JackShit? It is perfectly possible to be a wonderful parent, raising healthy, happy children without having breastfed them - as my three dses prove. One about to graduate in law, the second in the middle of an applied maths degree, and a National level hockey umpire, and the third plays for a good Glasgowmhockey team, and has an unconditional offer to read Geography at Aberdeen.

I know someone who couldnt because of past MH issues. They didnt occur because she was supported in her statement that she needed her body to go back to being her own. She BF for a few weeks, with lots of support from dmum and dmil, who both had bf, but then moved on, for everyone's long term health.

I didnt ebf any of mine. All of them were FF once a day by someone else to allow me one long sleep and weaned to EFF at different points for different reasons. The least was 4 months, the longest about 8. For the last, we attempted to make that 1 bottle pumped breast milk, but after two weeks of mere dribbles being pumped, we bought more formula and carried on.

Why have a baby if such things are an inconvenience?

wow this thread is depressing

Oh, it was only a matter of time

It looks to me like there are three main reasons jumping out. But what can really be done about them?

1 - Breastfeeding not going well at all. I'm clearly no expert on this but I would have imagined this was the area that can really be focused on with more access to trained support.

And then the less easy to tackle problems

2 - Women who want their body back. As someone who had a rough pregnancy, I can understand this. 9 months seems a very long time when you're body is being slowly wrecked; the desire to no longer have your baby physically reliant on your body must be very strong for some women.

3 - Women worried about their emotional or mental well-being, either because they strongly dislike the idea of a baby feeding from them or being solely responsible for feeding their baby.

How do you tackle those two problems? They strike me as very strong, emotional responses that will be extremely hard to change. And should they be changed, when a perfectly acceptable (not arguing with breast milk being better) alternative is available?

I have to say, this debate to me often boils down to the simple idea of how much a mother should subordinate everything about their life and personality to being a new mother. And there are very, very strong opinions out there ("inconvenience").

"It's only for another 6/12 months", plenty of people say. But when you're in those 6-12 months, they can feel like an absolute lifetime.

I wanted my body back. 40 weeks of severe HG resulting in repeated hospital admissions, no respite from strong meds with grotty side effects, severe dehydration causing complications in labour. Baby wouldn't latch and attempts to express triggered yet more puking. For both my physical and mental health I went onto formula. Best decision I've ever made, if that makes me shallow then happy to be so.

In the middle of some thoughtful and articulate posts about mental health, physical pain and other physical issues, struggling babies and lack of support, you came out with:
Still, as long as the parents' lives are disrupted as minimally as possible (because this, essentially, is what seems to be of number one importance here)

Which is both misrepresenting what people have said to the point of caricature, and yes, horrible given some of the experiences people have shared.

But hey, if it helps you feel good about how noble you are, knock yourself out.

On an individual basis, the weighing up of the health impacts of BFing vs some of the negatives (including a miserable mother, if the mother is miserable breastfeeding) need to be weighed up to see what is most beneficial for that individual child's overall well-being. On a public health level, we need to look at the barriers - lack of good support is the number one problem for most women I know who wanted to breastfeed but gave up quickly. Too many NHS trusts tick the boxes but the BFing support is beyond woeful. We need much better trained HCPs, we need more social norming of BFing among all demographics and it wouldn't hurt to listen to women who are finding it tough, rather than stigmatising them.

I don't think I'm a particularly superior mother for having breastfed my son for much longer than the UK average. In some ways, I wish I could get the early months back and been a better all-around mother to my son then. I'm certainly not a better mother than my friends who moved to formula after 6 weeks.

JassyRadlett I have every sympathy with those who would like to bf, but are unable to or are finding things tough. You will notice that I haven't relayed any of my own experiences here. I do find it difficult to understand why anyone would make the conscious choice not to bf right from the outset.

It's not my choice, but I can appreciate that there are a very wide variety of factors that lead people to that point. Your posts don't take any of that into account - and people have shared a lot on this thread and elsewhere. If you want to understand why; the information is there.

Stigmatising mothers who don't breastfeed seems approximately as successful from a public health perspective as stigmatising pregnant women who smoke.

I thought I made it fairly clear in the op that these were reasons I didn't like breastfeeding, not overall reasons that affect every woman.

I've kept going because I've physically found it easy, and also I'm quite lazy, but I've found it tough mentally. Lots of people do things for shallow reasons, good luck to them. Sometimes those shallow reasons have links to other deeper ones that might not get discussed so much.

I know lots of people who haven't done it, or have given up early through choice, so clearly the shallow reasons affect a lot of people. Those are the women researchers should speak to.

I mix fed both my children.

I desperately wanted to ebf but it turns out I have Insufficent Glandular Tissue (IGT) and despite spending a small fortune on pump hire and hard to find herbal supplements, I just can't do it.

I felt, and still feel, intense grief that I couldn't just breast feed my babies, and that my body 'failed' at such a basic thing. Even though I breastfed both my children past the age of one. Even though I was lucky not to be one of the women with IGT who produce no milk at all or whose babies won't latch because they get so little that it frustrates them.

One thing that would have helped me, and I think would help thousands of women, is to follow the model they have in Norway, where breast feeding rates have rocketed. Real resources are put into supporting women ante and post natally. Like so many women I found the antenatal bfing classes to be, in retrospect, not massively helpful. Instead every pregnant women should be offered a non-judgemental appointment with a breastfeeding specialist who could discuss how she was feeling about it, her individual hopes and fears, do a physical exam to see if there are any obvious factors that might cause problems, and give advice on mixed or formula feeding if desired. Then another appointment for every woman after the baby is born. At least one. This will never happen because it would cost a fortune. I know there are people in the NHS trying to provide excellent support. Unfortunately they have many colleagues who undermine the work they do.

I live in an area with a relatively high level of support. I was still left floundering with my first, with HVs shouting about weight gain, weeks spent trying to get a tongue tie referral, despite my local hospital being a centre of excellence. I was lucky and informed enough to know of a private lactation consultant and to be able to pay to see her. If not for that, I would have quit breastfeeding at five weeks with my first.

Sorry for the rant, but bfing can be so hard and so complex and women are so often left to flounder and end up feeling shame and/or guilt when bfing doesn't work out for them. And others are put off by horror stories from even trying.

I am expecting number three next month and have already started on the supplements but am also determined that this time I will ENJOY my baby and not beat myself up about every top up they need to have.

I have hh cup boobs, 'popping' one out of a bra cup is an impossible thought!!

Signora, people on this thread have tried to explain but you don't seem to have been reading.

The simple fact will be that a majority of women who decide not to breast feed are probably doing it because something about it, physically or emotionally, concerns, worries or upsets them.

FF is hardly more convenient. As you said yourself, it costs, you have to faff sterilising and making bottle, night feeds can't be done half asleep in bed, and you have to remember to take enough milk with you on a day out, among other things. How is that "more convenient" than breastfeeding?

as long as the parents' lives are disrupted as minimally as possible (because this, essentially, is what seems to be of number one importance here) it's all good.

You don't actually mean that. You mean *as long as the mother's life is disrupted as minimally as possible." Because FF often involves the dad as much as the mum. Because night feeds are often shared. Because DP's life was more disrupted by using having a FF baby than it would have been if I had exclusively breast fed.

You basically seem to mean that any woman who decides its not in the best interests of her physical or mental health to be the only person doing all the feeds, day and night, having her sleep disrupted, is doing it for the simple and shallow reason that she doesn't want her life disrupted.

I mix fed for 8 weeks then moved to formula feeding.
Has supply issues tried so many things to up my supply but nothing seemed to work. Support wasn't great and the midwives told me to top up with formula.
Her latch seemed ok but I was feeding for an hour and then giving her a bottle. Couldn't express more than an oz.
Was making me miserable came hone from a breastfeeding group and cried as everyone one else was just doing it and even taking about all the milk they had in the freezer.
In the end had a stomach bug which completely killed my supply which was a relief as was so hard to go out.
Not sure if I will try again if I have another baby.

3 Tongue tied children one bf, the last one the other 2 I had to give up. when I finally found someone in the country who knew what a ptt was and more importantly someone who could divide it I was able to bf. I have life long scars on my nipples from the very serious damage my 3 did to my nipples, on number 3 the wounds took 4mths to close, but at least I finally got to bf.

Thurlow - spot on.

Essentially if you are willing to go to the "inconvenience" of Formula Feeding there really isn't any reason why you shouldn't. Formula is good quality in this country and it's easy to sterilise well.

If Breastfeeding was a perfect system no-one would chose not too

Why on earth should everyone go through crap to breastfeed? I thought the Cow and gate advert summed it up perfectly. And finally expressed what I thought about the whole breast is best being showed down your throat at every opportunity

If I'd had issues with supply, or my baby had had weight gain issues I know for sure that I'd have struggled with feeling as if I was the only one responsible for her health.

Ebf also has given my partner excuses to keep going with his life as normal at a time when I've been emotionally fragile. Obviously that's another personal reason, but I bet I'm not alone with that either. Every time she cries on him 'she's hungry' and hands her back. Not to mention not being able to leave her for enough time to get a decent break, or even a decent sleep due to exploding boobs.

I do find it difficult to understand why anyone would make the conscious choice not to bf right from the outset.

I wanted to make this choice. The only reason I even attempted to bf is because I felt so guilty about all the meds I'd taken and lack of nutrition beyond fat coke and salty crisps and was trying to make the 'healthy' choice to counter the damage I thought I'd caused. Had I made the decision to FF straight from the off I could have begun my recovery sooner. Anyway it doesn't matter if you find it difficult to understand, though with a bit of empathy and understanding that other people have different lives and experiences it needn't be all that hard to fathom.

My 'official answer' is that I had to stop feeding ds because the meds I was on nearly killed him. Tbh I didn't want to bf - I'm 37, a proper, educated grown up who'd read everything I could get my hands on about bf before the birth but I still just didn't want to. Ds was prem and in nicu. I was pressured to express - I wouldn't have if ds had been well.

A long time ago I wanted to be a midwife, and it's opinions like jackshit's that partly put me off.

There's no chance I would want to push this breast is best stuff.

I want women to make the decision that is best for them ultimately. The baby is going to come to no harm from being FF, obviously there are benefits to breast feeding, but if those benefits come at such a great price then I don;'t see any harm in a baby being fed a food that can be perfectly fine, despite it not being the 'best'.

Signora ~ honestly you should be absolutely ashamed. Really.

Children are never an inconvenience firstly. Never ever.

Secondly, there is 'no stuff' that needs to be carried around, assuming you still need to carry a nappy bag full of 'stuff' what difference does it make to add the odd thing or two. None is the answer. Unless of course bf magically stops your darling going to the toilet, nothing will change the need for a nappy, the content of the nappy (beyond disgusting that you should mention this) or anything else. That is just clutching at straws.
There is no direct link with any health issue ~ no matter how hard you try and look for it. Babies tend to be healthy and happy regardless.
I had ten times more washing when I was bf due to the endless squirting and leaking over every single thing. I needed new nightwear every night not to mention numerous changes of clothes during the day. A few bibs is nothing in comparison.
If you are organised there should be no screaming at all for feeds actually. There are excellent baby warming units for the bedside, and your husband can get up and do feed the baby, and so you have a more restful and serene mother the next day. And lets face it bf are anything BUT serene. I was beyond exhausted for a large part of my life.
Babies sleep very well and are contented with ff.
At least we know the babies are getting all of the nutrients from ff, which covers the entire spectrum of vitamins and not just relying on the mother's intake of whatever she eats and drinks which can be entirely negative.
There are plenty of pissed bf mothers who really should not be getting their newborn babies drunk. Who would ever consider having a glass of wine knowing you were feeding your baby with it???
Stop your bullying tactics. Every mother makes a choice for herself, and they can choose whatever suits them, without the brigade marching out trying to lampoon others with their brainwashing. IT IS THE MOTHERS CHOICE. Their body, their baby and their life. I rest my case.

I should say that I'm aware I sound really sick of it, but actually I'm mostly over the emotional links with the things I've not liked - probably now that the end is in sight.

For me personally, I've had breast surgery . Didn't know if I could bf, didn't want to set myself up for failure so decided to just formula feed. Didn't fancy the drama of it all.