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

Some people need a csection.

They need it for their baby and for them to survive.

But people still make them feel bad for it.

Some people can't breastfeed.

They really can't w/o extreme impact on their mental and physical health. Or on the health of their baby.

But people still make them feel bad for it.

Why?

i agreeexpat

my SIL had a c-section, her son was actully gone when they pulled him out, and resusitated him,

that csection saved his life - but she still talked about it like she was a failure, like she didnt 'really do it'

she did wonderfully throughout the labour - but she feels inadequate

its ridiculous!

If everything goes to plan, breast is best, no two ways. And there's misinformation in the article, no two ways about it. But, as expat says, there are lots of reasons why women can't bf, and it's a shame that other women can't support them and understand them in this.

true kitty, my friend laboured for 24 hours, pushed for nearly three and was taken for an emergency C section. i laboured for 6 hours, pushed for 45 mins and pop, the baby was born.
for some wild and crazy reason she thinks she took the easy way out... baffles me.

I agree with some points she makes in the article. Someone in my parentcraft class asked the "what if you can't" question and the midwife responded with "we're not allowed to talk about bottle feeding!". I was determined to BF, hadn't a clue about formula, so when my DD was born after 3 days of failed induction by emergency CS, refused to latch during the first few hours and her blood sugar plumetted due to my being diabetic and the medical staff said "she needs formula to get her blood sugar up, which one do you want to give her?" I hadn't a clue. Despite being given the formula she was taken to SCBU for 36 hours during which time I kept asking the midwives for a pump, which was never brought to me. When she was returned to me (by now used to getting 4-5oz of formula from a bottle every 4 hours) there was no sign of my milk coming in, and this made her even less willing to try and latch. I was given virtually no support to try and establish BF and felt like the biggest failure in the world. I had assumed it would all be so natural, it never occurred to me there could be a problem, so I wasn't emotionally prepared for it. After 9 weeks of continuously trying to get her to latch and expressing every 2 hours (generally producing 5ml from 30 mins) I broke down and gave up. I've never felt so wretched, and it really impacted on my ability to bond with my DD in the early months. To this day (she's 1 on Friday) I cry when I think about how I failed her. I do think there should be more support for women to BF, but also more support for those who find they can't to help them get over it, and more emphasis on preparing women for problems they may encounter when trying to establish BF. I do think that promoting the idea that very few women are unable to BF can marginalise women at an incredibly vulnerable time, and makes you feel even more of a failure.
I'm now TTC again and will be going to hospital SO well prepared, with articles on bf & low-blood sugar in babies of diabetic mothers, my own hospital grade double pump, a "brest friend" cushion for after my planned CS, and an attitude that'll scare the crap out of any midwife who tries to convince me to do anything that'll interrupt those important first days in establishing my supply. Not knowing how difficult it can be made me completely unprepared, women need to know that it's not necessarily going to be the most natural thing in the world. Maybe if we were giving birth in natural surroundings it would be more so, but the fact is many of us give birth in a highly medicalised circumstances, with drugs being pumped into every available vein, which can make trying to do something so natural seem like the most un-natural thing in the world. I believe if you're prepared for that you've a better chance of overcoming it.

BBWBabeLisa - so sorry you had such an awful time. FWIW I agree with you and have posted on MN several times to that effect.

Yes, a sad article and I feel very sorry for her.

However, it made me uneasy in a way I'm struggling to express. When I had finished reading, my gut response was, "Yes, but breastfeeding isn't MEANT to be enjoyable".

I wonder if there's a sort of feminist entitlement thing going on there - she seems to feel so monumentally let down, not just by the people around her, but by life itself, as if she's been deprived of something lovely that she was entitled to.

I breastfeed but don't particularly enjoy it (it's been agonisingly painful starting off both times), and I have a much more bloody-minded view of the whole thing.

Ultimately, the essence of breastfeeding is that it's how we and all other mammals nourish our babies. Whether we're loving it or hating it, babies need milk. That's why we lactate.

Through the millenia until now, it's been a baby survival thing and survival overrides everything else, so there's been little evolutionary pressure to make it fun.

I'm very pro-bf but I think it's brilliant that we now have a choice, so that if bf is really awful we can still feed our babies.

BBWBabeLisa, poor you, that sounds dreadful.

Good on you for your "attitude" for the next time though - you tell them!

What a good and interesting post. I agree I thought her article was terribly sad and I think it is a sad fact there aren't more resources available to help bf mum's. I agreed with her article up until the bit about her milk being soured (what a load of nonsense) and really don't see why she will be taking the formula in next time.

I thought BF would be easy peasy, it's what nature intended etc, all you have to do is stick a child on your boob etc. When I went to a LLL meeting earlier this week, the facillitator asked "what would you tell expectant mums". For me, this would be, don't expect BF to be easy, it's really hard to start with.

I was determined to have a natural birth and BF. I had a dreadful labour and eventually a CS (gutted). I embraced BF but was in tears on day 3 when my milk hadn't come in and DS was on the boob all day long and passing NO urine. On day 5 or 6 the milk came in and he did a big wee and poo - huge relief. By this time I had cracks forming in my nipples.

Hated MW and HV was lovely but didn't offer much good advice. Pain got worse, tongue tie discovered and snipped, thought all would now improve. Pain feeding getting excruiating and toes curling at each feed. Felt distanced from baby and dreaded him waking up. When he was 3 weeks old I woke up feeling like I'd been kicked by a horse in the boob, shaky, couldn't stop crying. My mum (who I was visiting) made me phone her GP, who was wonderful. I'm sure she thought I had PND but said maybe mastitis, maybe thrush, here have some antibiotics and antifungals. She also sent the local MW round to see me even though I was over 10 days post partum. By the evening I had a bright red boob, a temp of 40 and uncontrollable shaking. My baby hated the antibiotics (so I thought) and my mum begged me to bottle feed him. And I really felt tempted. Five weeks later and another mastitis, bubs was unsettled even though I hadn't this time taken antibiotics. So now I think it was me being unwell and perhaps the mastitis that unsettled him, not the antibiotics. Besides which, I took lactulose from day 2 post partum and don't believe this made any difference at all.

I had said to myself before the birth I would give BF 6 weeks before giving up, and at 8 weeks it was still awful. Finally I went to the breast feeding clinic and said I would wait until a particular counsellor was free as I was fed up with conflicting advice. She spent an hour with me working on positioning and by the end of that week I was tempted to write her into my will! The massive crack had started to heal and BF no longer hurt.

My norks won't win any competitions as a result of the first 8 weeks, one nipple looks very moth-eaten!! But I love BF now it's pain free. Especially as I don't feel "all woman" from the delivery I had, BF has really helped me regain some feeling of womanliness if that's a word.

Currently I'm on antibiotics for a post-partum womb infection and I don't think DS has noticed it at all. I'm sure what I thought was a reaction to antibiotics when I had mastitis was in fact a reaction to me being very hot, less responsive to his needs and perhaps the infection changed my milk slightly - but I don't believe it was the antibiotics. As I said I also take lactulose on and off and notice no diffence in DS's behaviour.

Some people, notably my sister, do call me the milk cow, and i find that terribly upsetting as I love the BF relationship I now have. But i just love breast feeding and the pride you feel in seeing your child put on weight from your nutrition... not to mention the fact I weigh less now than before I was pregnant. However of my antenatal group, not one of us found BF easy and 3 now bottle feed despite originally wanting to BF. I think sometimes they feel guilty. Especially since us BF mum's have all been slagging it off and now at 3 months are extolling the virtues of BF. I wish they didn't feel guilty as they did their best and couldn't BF for one reason or another. This week at the LLL meeting, the facillitator said that about 1% of women don't produce enough milk for their infants. i hate the fact that there is a milk mafia that make women feel guilty for how they feed their children. I also feel that quality Bf advice should be available to all post-partum.

I hope that next time around i will avoid the cut-in-two nipples by having a bit more experience in attaching my baby but who knows, it's not as straight forward as i ever thought it would be.

If any expectant mum is reading this post - it's hard but keep seeking the support you need.

I'm so glad someone introduced me to this article and it's responses. I hope we all feel strongly enough to empart to others that whilst BF can be hard it is wonderful once you get it right.

BBwBabe I feel for what you went through. I agree that the difficulties are not highlighted to women. When my ds had sucked all the skin off my nipples and I was in more pain then in labour (or so it seemed) and was sobbing on the phone to my big sis ( a midwife) and said why don't they tell us how hard it can be and she just said: we don't want to put more people off! I can understand that - it was absolute hell for the first few weeks and I only persisted because of her and my mum both hugely enthusiastic bfers. Without support, I don'tknow how anyone would persist through a rough start, I was just so vulnerable and so open to any kind of strong opinion. my mil was really anti bf (because she hadn't) and kept pushing me weirdly to stop trying. That in itself was really unpsetting.
All the best for the future.

joolsandoliver, another awful story.

I couldn't agree more that I would stress to expectant mums that it can be very hard.

At the same time I would stress that
a) most of the problems have solutions and
b) the early phase feels like an eternity but is actually quite a short time.

I think that's what I'd have wanted to hear beforehand, ie honest but reasonably positive.

Absolutely welliemum, there's the most MA-HUSSIVE grin on my face now I can breastfeed without having to do deep breathing exercises!!! I love it. I had a couple of friends tell me they had done it but didn't really enjoy. DS was a bit slow at looking at me.... but now sometimes he can't help but break off from tuck time to smile at me and oh god does my heart melt... and he's on the 91st centile from my boobies! Wow, they have only ever felt like a sexual object before and now they are proving to me what they can provide. I've fed in cafes, restaurants and churches no probs. What was most embarrassing was at 13 asking my mum if I could possibly get a bra, not BF. However, recently a bill re. bF in public was passed in the house of commons and rejected. I think this is important. Breasts are designed to suckle young, why do we not have the support of the government in this??

Right who really needs help in hospital?
Many women struggle for a couple of weeks, cracked nipples, mastistis, thrush etc. Some carry on to BF some don't. Who is to say what a true experience of Bf is is 6 months enough 6 weeks why should we put a time limit on it.
For this writer really, if she had not have taken these milk altering drugs what would have happened to her? If she had perservered would she be writing a different article? Before you can compare breast and bottle feeding surely you need to have experience of a real breastfeeding experience not just the first few weeks in a haze of PND.
Sorry so long.

aaaaahhh... lovely description joolsandoliver!

a very true article in terms of the crap advice hv's etc give...

imo hv's should warn you before hand that for a few weeks, yes it might be painful, yes it might take a lot of hard work but it will get better.

i also thought she was wrong about most people hating to breast feed. i think its the opposite. yes a few people hate the idea of it and if they want to bottle feed so be it. but the majority that try it love it.

i thought it was a bit sad that she has already decided her next baby will be bottle fed. she might not have the antibiotics etc next time so the milk would be fine and the baby would take it.

Author of that article sounds like such a perfectionist.

I WAS given explicit bottle-feeding instructions from midwife in antenatal classes. MW did a demonstration, talked about sterilising, differences (or lack thereof), between formulas, measuring it out exactly right, etc.

And the quotes from the article!! "I'm not trying to put anybody off breastfeeding" (but) "I was the only first time mum on my ward in hospital and all the others brought bottles", oh and "it was purgatory trying to breastfeed".

NO... Those statements won't put anybody off even trying, will they?!

And she's already said that she will bottlefeed from day 1 next time. So she already KNOWS that the perceived causes of her problems before are going to recur (she WILL need lots of antibiotics and laxatives, it will definitely hurt too much again, so no point in even trying?).

Sums up life, really. If we can't get it perfect, why even bother? Or at least, write a whole essay to justify yourself, your valiant efforts and your final negative attitude rather than just say "It didn't work for me and I can't face the trauma of trying again."

"I do think that promoting the idea that very few women are unable to BF can marginalise women at an incredibly vulnerable time, and makes you feel even more of a failure"

That is very sad, that women are made to feel failures, but medically speaking, it is true that very few women are genuinely unable to breastfeed. In our culture, we make women unable to bf because we sabotage them.

Joolsandoliver something you said struck me -at 8 weeks it was still awful and finally you went to the bf clinic. Finally? I think there's a nub of something there - we're not encouraged to go and seek help at the earliest avaialable moment, we're encouraged to give up. (That is of course, partly because the help is just not there in many cases.) I remember being treated like some kind of wacky earth-mother hippy for going to a BF support group. And also, BF clinics/ support groups are usually only once a week and frankly they need to be every day for women in the first few weeks when they're having problems. The BF clinic I attended was on a wednesday, and I do remember that sinking feeling on a Thursday when I knew that I had 6 whole days to get through without any real, expert support and wondered if I could make it through to next week.

welliemum, - you said - '. When I had finished reading, my gut response was, "Yes, but breastfeeding isn't MEANT to be enjoyable".'

but were told it IS!

at classes, you get told it wont hurt if your doing it correctly youll feel this overwhelming love and bond with your baby its sooo natural ect

and thats not always the case

it BLOODY hurt , and according to my MW he was latching properly, but my nipples were still bleeding

i DIDNT feel a bond with my baby over breastfeeding, in fact i started to resent him for hurting me so much!

harsh, and hard to admit but true.

i would cry, actully CRY as my DF brought him towards me for a feed.

So, whereas mums that have breastfed before KNOW its not a bed of roses, first time mums are given this beautiful rose tinted picture of breastfeeding

and when it comes down to it, its not like that, its alot of work, alot of pain - in a time when your vunerable, sore , hormonal and bloody knackered!

and it doesnt always work out

and when that happens, after high expectations of perfection and naturalness for 9 months, it can be DEVESTATING

and i should know

hat wasnt me having a go by the way, i just picked up on that comment

I agree Caligula, bf for many of us is a difficult skill that needs to be acquired when it can be difficult to sit up and have the calm/ privacy to really master something. I was in hospital for a few days after ds was born and my dh kept letting people come and visit - I actually didn't want anyone to come until I'd got the bf established. I also had three different nurses give me three different approaches, very confusing. And then weeks of agony as my nipples took forever to heal. You need the equivalent of a boxing coach not to give up!

It needs to be a much bigger priority ante natally and post natally. Unlikely to happen in a country where some of our most successful maternity units are being closed by NHS trusts to stave off bankruptcy despite all the gov says about how important good ante/post natal care is!

I think the main issue is that some women need LOTS of support for it to be successful.

Support at 3AM, too.

I realised that, kittylette, don't worry!

But I know what you mean - I had this conversation soooo many times:

Me: This really hurts.
Midwife: It shouldn't hurt if you're latched on correctly.
Me: Please have a look at my latch then.
Midwife: Great, that looks really good!
Me: But it really hurts...
Midwife:.........

It was just sheer stupidity and stubbornness that kept me going through the toe-curling stage, and if I hadn't found mn I'd have thought I was the only one.

I wish someone could have just admitted that, yes, sometimes it hurts, even if you're not doing it wrong.

I do agree that women are a bit pressured into BF - however, it is not always a bad thing. Many women who would not otherwise BF do so and may continue to do so. Most women, as you say, are able to BF.

I would have appreciated a little more support and honesty, though, TBH. In my area, my HV was amazed that I was still BF DS at 14 days. BF rates in my area were so low. I personally found BF very painful. For about 6 weeks. DS was later found to have had tongue tie though, which is why I found it so hard. No-one identified the tongue tie, I had my latch checked by the HV and several midwives. No-one told me it would hurt like it did.

The amount of women on here saying 'yes it did hurt for the first few weeks' makes me think that yes, some pain is to be expected, and wouldn't it be better to be prepared to experience that than have the shock of the baby sucking your nipple off for the first time? For me it felt a bit like the final insult after labour!!

I agree, kittylette, it is difficult when the reality doesn't live up but I am torn because I did find it an incredible pleasure once it was established and that was the truth for me and for many women I know so maybe it's worth telling people that perhaps so they push through what can be a hideous start to bf.
I really feel for people who do not choose or are not able to bf and would never want any of them to feel guilty for that fact.
However it can be an amazing experience when it goes well - a privilege and no surprise because it produces all sorts of hormones that can make a woman feel better! But also I think for me it continued the exclusivity of my relationship with him - I loved that he was still mine in this one respect despite having to share him with the family.
Also, it is often not mentioned that it is much less hard work once bf is established, less effort for an exhausted woman who is also recuperating from a massive physical effort.

Absolutely Expat. Also, we have stopped doing that "lying-in" thing which women used to do when they'd just had a baby.

What used to happen (at least in non-destitute families), was that the woman would sit there for 24 hours a day establishing bf for a few weeks, while her sisters, aunts etc., ran around seeing to the shopping, housework, older kids, etc. Therefore, a woman who had just had a baby didn't have any other expectations except establishing bf.

Nowadays, the spare women who were available are all in the office and we're supposed to get up, put some make up on, go to tescos, clean the house and organise the bills two days after giving birth. Fit the baby into our lives, instead of the other way round for the first few weeks. No wonder it's difficult to establish breastfeeding.