Another article about how awful breastfeeding is, this time in a feminist publication

[Caligula]

I thought some of you would like to read this.

This misinformation bugged me:

"Times change though, and the formulas on the market are hopefully as close to what comes out of your boob, as they will ever be".

Wonder what the rest of you think

the new breastfeeding taboo

Yeah Hunker - I started reading the article and thought - yippee!!! But then I got more and more uneasy as I carried on reading. She does sound really really bitter poor woman (even more than me) and I was so disappointed that she wasn't going to give it another go with her next. For me, if I ever have another, it will be absolutely essential to try to purge myself of this experience by getting it right from the word go. And, whilst I have said and will continue to say that the promotion of b/f gives too rosy a picture, I don't believe that there's a conspiracy to lie to women about it being enjoyable IN THE END. Hell, even I started to enjoy it by the time DS was 4 months - unfortunately it was too late for my milk supply .

It did that to me for a long time Hunker. But it truly did save my breastfeeding - my only alternative was giving up altogether. I find myself looking back now and wondering if I could/should have done things differently, but then I remember how bloody awful things were. When you start hating your LO for daring to want to feed from you something has to change I think.

Chocolatekimmi

"What I hate is those people who don't even try"

Fantastic. You are so tolerant, and you are displaaying a broad knowledge of mental health, abuse, and self image issues tht young women often suffer from. You are a credit to motherhood. I'm sure if they only knew how hated their decision would make them, the young women would persist in brest feeding even if every ltch their bby made was making them feel physically sick.

good post twinkle you reflect my current thoughts on the matter perfectly

And why is "MY husband can help with the feeds" considered to be a selfish reason?

Hunker, do you know, I was thinking exactly just that......

but that is equally glib, fio. i'm delighted that not bfing didn't torment you but for a lot of us it's intensely upsetting.

intensely upsetting at the time, at least. i've pretty much moved past it, but i'd hate to dismiss the feelings of those for whom the problem is more recent.

I don't think it gives too rosy a picture - not quite. It gives quite a clinical, soulless approach to breastfeeding, which I guess you'd expect from NHS literature.

I think what I want from bfeeding literature is probably:
***
Look, breastmilk's best for babies, it just is, OK? Lots of clever people have worked it out, so just accept it. Nobody's getting at you if you don't want to breastfeed, it's just a fact.

Now, getting that breastmilk into your newborn may well be a doddle, but it might also be trickier than you would imagine, so let's explore a bit about the normal course of breastfeeding and some of the problems you might encounter.

After all, if we do it now, while you're not in turmoil from the most incredibly overwhelming physical and emotional experience you're ever like to have, you'll be better equipped to succeed with breastfeeding.

Before we go any further though, these are some numbers you might like to make a note of:

National Childbirth Trust Breastfeeding Line 0870 444 8708
La Leche League Telephone Helpline 0845 120 2918
Association of Breastfeeding Mothers helpline 0870 401 7711
Breastfeeding Network Supporterline 0870 900 8787

Put these in your labour bag, dial them into your birth partner's mobile, engrave them on the insides of your eyelids, just remember them. And if you get stuck, use them. You might also want to take a look at www.kellymom.com
***

And then going on to talk about the normal course of breastfeeding, including growth spurts, etc - and talk about what are perceived to be problems alongside that, as well as talking about some of the things that ARE problems and how to go about overcoming them (such as mastitis, thrush, etc).

Then maybe some discussion of the different reasons women bottlefeed, either from birth, from soon after birth, mixed feeding, etc, etc - but with information about how bottles from early on can impact on breastmilk supply.

Some stuff about the virgin gut.

And some stuff about how it's a good idea to explore what's important to the reader about feeding their baby - how do they feel about breastfeeding not working out for them, etc.

How about that?

Hunker you do know you hve to go and work for the NHS?

Actually, the more I think about this article, the more uneasy I become, because the author probably doesn't realise how much of herself she's exposing.

She probably sees this article as honest, "setting the matter straight", "revealing the truth" type journalism.

But the article is full of factual errors, strange perceptions, illogical conclusions (it will be exactly the same with the next baby) and even paranoia (the imidwives only remember the names of bfeeding mothers, as hunker notes).

I'm not censorship's greatest fan, but I wonder if it would have been kinder for her editor to advise her to just put this to one side and reread it in a year's time, rather than letting her expose herself in this way.

Hunker, funnily enough, I was thinking just that..

Seriously - that is perfect. IMVHO.

So, why arent you a BFC again...?

Hunker - I wish you'd done my b/f antenatal class!

Because I spend altogether too much time arsing about on MN, VVV

Colditz, don't make me do that, please!

Agree welliemum, completely.

MWAH Hunker, that is lovely, you are going to have to give up the day job!!

That's exactly what I would have wanted to read/hear.

Oh yes and you're right, the NHS is clinical but IMHO the NCT booklet I had was rosy! (But not as bad as I thought now I've looked at it again.)

what i objected to was 'it's not exactly the end of the world, is it?' Great that you feel that way and everything but to me at the time, living in a world populated only by DH, DD and me, it felt like it was the end... i was devastated.
and i think that if i'd read something like 'not the end of the world' then i'd have felt even worse. undermined for caring so much as well as useless in the BF dept...

I was in such a black hole after having DD1, I can hardly remember the first 18 months of her entire life.

I'll never get that back. She won't remember. I always will.

Sometimes I have to stop myself being such a softie w/her b/c of that, b/c it does her no favours in the long-run.

She's got a happy gene, thankfully, and a more self-content person you'll be hard-pressed to find.

But I've learned that's part of severe PND, a mental illness, and to move past and cherish what we have now. Every day.

One thing I took away from the experience was never to judge a woman by how she feeds her baby.

Sadly, women are one another's harshest critics.

You just have to be good enough. I remember my father bought me a book by that US psychiatrist - A good enough parent which is very wise. It's not a competition to be best. It's a compromise. A survey of women who worked and had children found those most content were those who felt they just had to do a good enough job at home and at work (I think they call them "satisficers" as opposed to perfectionists). I think I am like that. The women interviewed in that category all thought there were doing okay, that things were chugging along at home and work so they could shut the door on the house or office and say - that will do rather than agonising over the fact the floor isn't polished to the highest standard or the baby is slow to walk or the office work isn't the best it could be. But how you get that personality if you don't have it is a different matter. It may be born not made.

I would agree w/that last sentence, Xenia.

I'd not have believed it before I had DD1, but I do now.

She's just self-content. Always has been.

Happy enough dodging along.

DD2 is going the same way.

DH is like that, too.

I've become more so myself, with age, or maybe I always was, too.

Did you leave a comment on the article, hunker?