Breastfeeding - I don't get it

[crystalpony]

I can't get my head around the emotive issue of breastfeeding. I didn't breastfeed - quite frankly the thought of doing it repulsed me and the majority of my friends also feel and felt the same way. This doesn't reflect my opinion of others doing it - each to their own - but I just can't reconcile the desperate feeling the some MNers have about not being able to do it adequately....

I bottle fed my baby - and before there are any comparisons to me bottle feeding her by the more dramative types - ie that I might have well just have fed her cyanide or mouldy chicken nuggets etc. - and I bonded to her no probs, never felt I had missed out.

Can someone explain to me in simple terms why it's so important to them and so frustrating when it doesn't go as planned? Is there some kind of though on here that if you don't you're a bad and neglectful mother because there seems to be a general undercurrent of shame if you haven't managed to (or chose not to) breastfeed for whatever reason?

Thanks

I'm very intrigued by women who find the prospect of a CS repulsive (scary?) and thus are happy (ish!!) to have their fanjo ripped to shreds, face incontinece, painful sex etc. YET, depsite all the fanjo damage, some of these women find the prospect of breastfeeding repulsive. Why is this?

I was the opposite - 2 elective CSs yet mad keen to BF. I can't say I enjoy BF, but the health benefits and convenience far outweigh FF for me.

As I said I used the word about myself - no-one else, my choice surely?

Anyway, I am going over old ground so as I said, thank you all, am going to go out and enjoy the snow with my daughter, hope everyone else has a good day too

lawdy: - that's really quite funny and would imagine quite believable as so many repulicans are so right wing they lean towards fascism

(i.e, many of them OPPOSE abortion, but SUPPORT electric chairs/lethal injections/gasing criminals despite being christians (didn't christ say something about turning the other cheek, even if someone murders your entire family or something ??)

the wonders of being full of contradictions, eh ??

Highlander - I had an emergency c-section through necessity (so fanjo intact) and didn't breastfeed either.

I don't feel any missing bond or anything and if my daughter has missed out on the health benefits, there are no indication of this as yet. Like many virtuous mums out there, I've never smoked, taken drugs or drank much and I eat good healthy stuff (as she does), so I reckon I've passed on pretty healthy genes to her anyway at least.

It#s probably just a class thing. Some kinds of families just see breasts for sex and hate body products and nudity. Others are fairly relaxed about it, have oil paintings of mothers and children engaged in feeding/love and walk around the house naked. Depends how you were brought up too. I think it helps some people to get over their issues on this though so if they can step aside from the norm of that section of society they live in and enjoy breastfeeding which for me was huge fun and one of the nicest things I've done then they might find they can enjoy it but hard to make yourself different from those around you. I don't think I know anyone who bottle feeds by the way!

There aer many things we do to our children (see party food, sugar/junk threads) and I don't think breastfeeding is worth beating yourself up over. What I find hard to understand is how anyone could not want that physical closeness, the kind of intimacy, the let down, release of oxytocin, the warmth. It competely changes the moods and structure of your day if you're breastfeeding in a way that you don't get when you give a baby a bottle. For me there was almost orgasmic pleasure in the breastfeeding experience that I would not have missed for anything.

of course you can use that word, it's a free country. but it is very very odd and a weird attitude to pass onto your daughter.

cool - breastfeeding and class

this is gonna get even better

Glad to hear about another positive experience Xenia.

I'm rising above your class comment and I'm off to play out with my daughter

xenia i met a working class teenager who was bf on a bus recently

of course the other contradiction is that probably some of the more nutty republicans DO oppose bf in public as it would offend their delicate sensibilities, but the christian fundamentalist ones forget one simple fact, christ was bf (i am sure Mary bf him in public too !! as was every other christian throughout history !)

Yes, the Highlander repulsive comment is what I was getting at tool. I think how weird. Did your mother mess up your potty training? Have you hang ups? Why is using breasts for what they were intended repulsive? How strange that people feel like that. But then some people also think sex is repulsive or don't like menstruation or cleaning up dog mess.

Does anyone find bottle feeding repulsive?

Sorry about the class but every study every done shows it - the middle classes mostly breast feed. The working classes largely don't. Probably working classes hide their bodies at home and the middle classes are happier with nudity etc etc.. It's just a cultural pattern repeating itself. And surely better to mirror what those around you do rather than trying to take a different path. Easier all round.

I can understand why women who love to breastfeed find the word 'repulsive' ascribed to that activity odd, but some women do find it repulsive but that doesn't mean that they are odd. My own SIL used to say the thought of her bfing her dd made her 'shudder' - who am I to judge her feelings?

Lots of people have phobias over the weirdest things and probably can't explain that either.

Why we have to pick and probe every word, deed and action astounds me.

A poster can't even ask a question without being told she's worded it wrong and be accused of being aggressive (I didn't tbh).

oh dear, now we have CLASS and POLITICS in here too ?

ah but joolstoo, i think thgere's a difference between a phobia and a dislike of something, likely cause by social and cultural factors

xenia - i am as bloody middle class as they get - but was embarrassed to undress in front of girls at school and have always had a problem with any kind of nudity - yet i have bf on public buses and on bournemouth pier in front of a whole load of oap's !!

i think you may be right about the body issue thing in general though. the less comfortable you are with your own body, the less likley you are to see bf as being "natural"

"Probably working classes hide their bodies at home and the middle classes are happier with nudity etc etc.."

WOW!

lawdy

pho·bi·a - a persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it.

?Synonyms aversion, hatred

I think that might just about cover it

ooh, i do like the inclusion of the word 'irrational'

FFS who care one way or another? Each to their own

but, tired one, lost of people here (not me, tbh) clearly do, hence the discussion

if you're not interested go elsewhere - simple

I felt the same as Mears about formula. When the midwife on the postnatal ward said that DS2 would have to be topped up, at first I didn't know what she meant - it didn't occur to me that anyone would suggest formula to me, because I breastfeed. I was only a few hours postbirth, which also explains my confusion, I think!

But I would have been devastated, as Mears said, if he'd had formula. I am only very glad that he was my second and I knew enough about bfeeding that I wasn't pressured into giving him formula (and heaven knows they tried). Had it happened with DS1, he would probably have been ffed and I'd have descended further into PND than I did. Bfeeding was the only light in the darkness for me in the early days - the only thing I could do!

Some of my very favourite women ffeed some of my most-loved children. It doesn't affect how I feel about them, not one jot. But it would have devastated me.

So I can understand why it's so hard for some women who don't manage to breastfeed. But I am pretty baffled by those who don't want to at all. I think we are just opposite ends of the spectrum, Crystalpony.

oh and i think working class men and middle class men have an aweful lot in common: hence my amusement to see the builders in the City reading (looking at ?) the same material as my City colleagues at work: THE SUN

It's all "tits out for the lads" but NOT when it is used for feeding a baby

Xenia, I recently attended a mothers and baby group run by Surestart in one of the most deprived areas in the UK.

Of the 15 mothers attending, 11 were breastfeeding their babies.

Its not a class thing, its more to do with having support and encouragement and valuable information offered.

Oh and im working class and dont give a jot who sees my naked body, neither do any of my working class mates.

crystalpony I think I understand what you are asking and I suspect you have been a bit misinterpreted on here. You're trying to understand why people felt it was so important???? And why they were so upset when they couldn't??? I personally think that sometimes theres a lot of pressure these days to do things "perfectly" and people approach babies in the way they approach careers- but struggle with the whole being on call all the time thing, so if breastfeeding doesn't happen they see themselves as a failure or something.

Total armchair psychology and possibly total bollocks.

I breastfed my first 2, ds1 for a year, ds2 for 2 years. I couldn't feed ds3 (just didn't happen for a number of reasons) and can honestly say I wasn't that fussed. I was irritated that it meant I would have to spend the next year sterilising, and I would have preferred ds3 to have a longer dose of antibodies but I didn't feel huge sadness. And I do kind of see what you are asking in your post because I couldn't imagine getting that hung up about breastfeeding either- even given that I would have preferred to breastfeed ds3. I suppose its a case of each to their own maybe. Probably I have some issue that I feel really strongly about that others couldn't really care less (vaccinations maybe), and I see this as the same sort of thing.