Sorry, haven't read whole thread but would like to say that although I had bf support and help from many highly qualified "experts" and had read all the books, I could not breastfeed without pain for many weeks, any of my 3 children. Also had other probs such as mastitis. I knew there must be something wrong with the latch but could not put it right. You'd think I could do it easily by the time I had #3 but that was worst of all. In the end it righted itself.
My conclusion is that it is the moral support given, the motivation of the mother to continue and the faith that she can do it, rather than technical support, that helps a mother to hang on in there.
I have always thought it very sad that many women go through the shit time at the beginning and give up without reaping the benefits later on, when bf becomes easy and is so rewarding and convenient.
We are all very hung up about Not Making FF mothers feel Guilty. Nobody wants to cast the first stone. What about mothers who smoke? Should we disapprove of them? It's not illegal to smoke tobacco and a few decades ago it was very common and the risks not known. If you're heavily addicted to nicotine it's hard to give up. I know a mother, in her 70s now, whose son was born slightly brain-damaged after a difficult birth in which he must have suffered some oxygen deprivation. That mother was a smoker. It cannot have helped her son that her smoking affected his oxygen supply in the womb. I have not, and would not ever suggest it to her, because there's nothing she can do about it now, and because no one can know if the outcome would have been different had she not smoked. She is of course convinced that a tremendous fuss is made about smoking nowadays; every one did it when she was young so there can't be too much wrong with it, can there?
Today there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that maternal smoking is detrimental to babies. There is also overwhelming evidence that breastmilk is the right nourishment for babies, and artificial alternatives can never be as good. But there will always be people who do not believe it, because they don't want to; and after all, it's not so long ago that doctors prescribed cigarette smoking to treat anything from constipation to "nerves".
You know, some people have criticised me for persevering with bf when it wasn't going well. I am secure enough in my own beliefs not to be "made to feel guilty" by such comments. I don't regret the way I fed my babies and nothing any one can say will make me. I take responsibility for my own decisions. That woman who wrote the article defending formula feeding? She's not the first, and you know, methinks she doth protest too much.