MNHQ here: what you told us about breastfeeding... and why some of you stopped

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

It's World Breastfeeding Week this week, and as part of our campaign for Better Postnatal Care we ran a survey with just over 1000 MNers with children under 5 asking them about their experiences of infant feeding. Many thanks to all who took part (it was a bit of a whopper).

We've got lots of really interesting information from you about breast and bottle feeding and your experiences of it, which we will use to inform our campaign - but for today we're focusing on the difficulties women encounter when they want to breastfeed (which 87% of respondents said they had wanted to do).

You can see the results here and our page about what we think the most common breastfeeding barriers are (based on the survey results) here.

In summary:

Among women who had wanted to breastfeed but had stopped within the first 24 hours, their reasons for stopping included:

The baby could not latch well: 41%
I felt I didn’t know what I was doing: 27%
I needed more help/support: 23%
It just felt incredibly difficult: 22%
Too physically painful: 15%

Among women who had initiated breastfeeding but had stopped by six weeks, their reasons for stopping included:

The baby wasn’t latching on properly: 56%
Worried I wasn’t producing enough milk: 42%
Breastfeeding was painful: 39%
I was overwhelmed/exhausted and something had to give: 34%
I found it difficult to express milk: 32%
I was worried the baby wasn’t gaining enough weight: 24%

Just ahead of the birth:

33% said they felt a lot of pressure to breastfeed;
47% were worried they would not be able to breastfeed; and
36% said they felt anxious about breastfeeding.

74% of respondents agreed with the statement: ‘There is too much emphasis on telling women why they should breastfeed, and not enough on supporting them to breastfeed.’

Among those who were still breastfeeding at six weeks, face-to-face support from healthcare professionals or breastfeeding counsellors was rated the most effective intervention, with 71% saying it contributed to their success. Partners' support was rated the best, with 81% saying their partners/spouses' support was excellent or good.

Many women found breastfeeding painful at first. Even among those who were still breastfeeding at 6 weeks, 31% agreed that ‘breastfeeding hurts/is uncomfortable’. Concerns about poor latch and milk supply also run throughout the survey results.

Among those who had stopped breastfeeding by six weeks, 34% agreed ‘I was overwhelmed/exhausted and something had to give’, and 22% agreed that ‘breastfeeding felt relentless’. Among all those who breastfed at any stage, 45% reported finding it difficult during ‘periods when the baby breastfed constantly or very frequently’.

Perhaps not surprisingly, women who had breastfed before were significantly more positive and relaxed about breastfeeding subsequent children. When compared with first-time mums, veteran breastfeeders were more likely to want to breastfeed (92% vs 87%), less likely to feel pressured to breastfeed (21% vs 39%), and felt much more confident directly before the birth about breastfeeding (54% vs 30%).

Have a look at our breastfeeding barriers page and tell us what you think - do our findings echo your experience? What can be done to really support women when they need it? What sorts of interventions did you have that helped you - or what would you have liked that you didn't get?

We will use these findings to work with health organisations to see if we can get better, more useful support for women who want to breastfeed.

Thanks
MNHQ

I haven't read the whole thread, not sure if oversupply has been mentioned already.
There is a massive preoccupation with maternity workers about mothers not producing enough milk.
This is important, but especially in mothers who have Breastfed several children, oversupply can lead to problems in weight gain too.
I found that my local services were completely unaware of this problem, (despite hv being"passionate about Breastfeeding") and gave me no help or support. My only source of information was the Internet, which obviously can't diagnose. I felt disappointed and saddened by my lack of ability to feed my baby well enough for him to maintain his centile. Despite having successfully Breastfeeding my previous children.
I wish I had found money to pay for a private lactation consultant now, but only in hindsight do I realise how much this has affected us.

My experience is not reflected in your research which says that the problem is not enough milk, and that experienced mothers do much better.

It is very good of MN to do all this and very helpful.
I was verylucky to breastfeed my children including twins (when at work I expressed which is not ideal but works fine in terms of career preservation).

I don't see enough written about the pleasure of breastfeeding. For me once I got it going it was one of the most pleasurable periods of my life each time - to do with the build up, let down reflex, that release of oxytocin, the bonding and the fact that little baby with glowing skin is 100% growing just from your own milk for all those months.

I just seem to read about the problems of breastfeeding all the time!

I've read the whole thread and my heart goes out to so many of the previous posters.

I have EBF my 7 month old. I am really proud of this but it has not been easy.

One of my main issues was cluster feeding. No one had told me about this and I was mentally unprepared for the physical and mental toll.

More troublesome were the repeated blocked ducts I got. Fortunately I never developed mastitis but I spent so many days applying heat, massage and getting rid of blebs. I got blebs repeatedly. The internet was my friend and helped me solved these problems when I didn't know who I could get help from. My HV had never heard of blebs and appeared to disbelieve me when I told her about them.

I didn't especially feel pressured by any HCPs but possibly that it is because they didn't need to pressure me. I applied all of that pressure myself. There were so many times that I wanted to "give in" (as I saw it) and give her formula. It was my own stubbornness that made me stick it out. I didn't want these issues to force me to stop I suppose. I wanted to choose to stop. And of course I am lucky that my issues were not as serious as many of the PPs, especially in that after the initial weight loss, my baby gained weight really well. So that I did have the choice to continue.

Whilst I understand the sentiment and purpose of the phrase "happy mummy = happy baby" for me it was not helpful and not supportive. There were times when I was deeply unhappy bf because of the aforementioned issues. But surely, I think I did do the right thing by sticking it out...aside from the health benefits it is so convenient and actually enjoyable now.

I think what I'm trying to say is that parents need to be aware that bf is not easy. It's incredibly difficult, demanding and at times painful. But if you can (and if it is appropriate to) stick it out, the benefits are great.

There is no point telling women "if it is painful, you're not doing it right". Sure, it's not painful for me now, but it was painful at the start and for a long time. Painful nipples, painful let-down, pain in my wrist from holding my baby's head, pain from blocked ducts etc.

The things that did help me were a bf support worker at a children's center and the NCT helpline (when I was at my wit's end after 10 hours of cluster feeding). But the thing that helped me the most was my wonderful, supportive husband and actually the kellymom website.

I agree with everyone who says that there is too much time and money spent on marketing the benefits of bf and not enough money spent on practical, accessible support. Bf is a skill and sadly the way our society is nowadays women are trying to learn a highly practical skill on their own with little help, sleep deprived, in pain, highly stressed desperately trying to do the very best for their new child. What is needed is experienced (ie. people who have bf), caring women to come to your house and help you. In person.

I'm not vaguely surprised by the 6 week detail. With dd1 6 weeks was absolutely the worst period where I most wanted to saw bugger this it's not worth the pain/stress/drama.
Dd1 went on a feed binge that could not be satisfied and I lost the plot a bit. We were saved by a very sensible and supportive nurse who rang us back from 101 service as was in 2009. She told dh to take dd1 out for a walk in the pram and just ignore the screaming and that I must have time out hell or high water. She told him to walk her for an hour if he could while I had a bath. She told him to order a takeaway when he got back and make sure I had a decent dinner and a nights sleep. Dh asked if he should buy some formula - she replied absolutely not you're not there yet. She said if I had enough to eat and some sleep that my milk would come back in the next morning and everything would be fine. And it was and she was spot on. If she had said yes buy formula that might have been it for us - kind you dd1 bottle refused express milk so who knows!

I fed dd1 exclusively for 12 months and dd2 (as a lone parent) for 18. My kids never had formula but that outcome probably hinged on that one phone call of very robust support.

Secondly it was probably easier for me because I crashed an nct group who all bf so the boobs out everywhere was totally normal and there was lots of peer support.

I feel very lucky it worked out so well.

A friend and I payed it forward and ran a latch on group during maternity leave. I loved it and am still friends with most of the mums. Even then the hca would come in with incorrect advice about this and that and be loudly corrected by one of the mums who was a consultant paediatrician!

Great thread and campaign Mumsnet.

One thing I'm not sure has been mentioned is the role of men/partners. I found bf impossible at first. I eventually managed it but that was in no small part thanks to my husband having 6 weeks paternity leave. If he had gone back to work after the standard 2 weeks, I know that I would not now be breastfeeding. The cycle of pumping/attempting feeds etc was too intense. I have no family nearby and friends all have DC already but in any case there's no substitute for the round the clock support a partner can and should provide.
All the advice on bf/cluster feedng etc is 'go with it, get cosy on the sofa, just feed feed feed' but honestly how are you supposed to do that when alone in the house? Who feeds you let alone keeps the laundry etc ticking over? If the state wants bf rates to increase then I think men (generally speaking but obviously I mean partners) need to be given longer paternty leave and for it to be acceptable for them to take it.

I remember thinking no wonder the aristocracy used to hire wet nurses as bf is literally a full-time job especially in the early weeks.

This thread makes me so sad to read of others terrible experiences with breastfeeding. I BF DS for two weeks, but I never felt that he or I were getting the hang of it. He would never stay latched on for long, always seemed like he was falling off my boob. And he just seemed to cry whenever I wasn't feeding him. I had never been told that babies pretty much will want to feed most of the time, so I didn't know it was normal. I was sliding into PND, but I put my feelings down to the BF as I thought it wasn't working and that was why DS cried so much.

The silly thing is, that DS started sleeping through the night at a week old, and looked healthy so was probably getting enough to eat. That was the point when I stopped sleeping, and I didn't sleep for a week and just became a nervous wreck. I was diagnosed with PND when he was two weeks old, by which time I had stopped BF (without too much grief or pressure from HCP to be honest, apart from the GP who told DH that 'almost everyone BF in New Zealand' ), but I was at the point where I was too scared for him to wake up as I wouldn't know what to do with him if he started crying again. I ended up having my dad come round every day to keep an eye on me and feed and change DS as I couldn't bring myself to do it, and DH had to work as he's self employed.

Even now, DS is 15, and thinking of that time makes me so sad and even though I know it was the PND, the BF is all tied up with those feelings. Seeing some of the comments on here about how painful it is etc made me realise that I don't remember it being painful, and that makes me wonder if maybe I could've continued if I hadn't been such a mess otherwise.

I have a new boss who is quite militant about BF, and talks and posts on FB quite frequently about her extended BF etc, and it just all brings back the horrible feelings and guilt I have about those early weeks with my DS, that have been in the background mostly for a lot of years now.

When I had DD there was no way I would do anything other than FF as there was quite a small age gap between the two and I was terrified of getting PND again (I did but much milder). I don't know what could have helped in my situation, apart from expecting DS to want to feed all the time, but there clearly needs to be more support for women, no matter what way they choose to feed their baby. And I think women need to support each other in their choices, rather being certain that their way is the only way and judging each other, when, ultimately, we all do the best that we can for our babies.

Sorry, that was a bit long, but it was good to get it down, as I don't talk about it much.

I hated breastfeeding. It was agony, and when my DS1 was diagnosed with tongue-tie it was a 3 week wait to get it snipped. And after that it was still agony, he still wouldn't latch and all the 'support' I received was midwives, NCT people etc telling me 'not to give up' and that it would get better. It didn't, and I suffered with PND and anxiety, the effects of which still have an impact on me today.
After my DS2 was born I asked the paediatrician to check him for tongue-tie, she told me he didn't have one. 2 weeks later and after a lot of emotion the midwife diagnosed him with tongue-tie and he had his snipped at 8 weeks. In the meantime I took the decision to stop trying, to stop expressing and to stick with formula. I slept for more than 2 hours for the first time as my husband or other members of the family could feed him and everything massively improved.

I'm glad that I actively chose to formula feed, but I am fed up of the message being of failure. Breastfeeding wasn't for me, and I feel that there should be support for those who don't want to or can't, and less judgement. The mental health of mothers is also important, and people seem to be so obsessed with breast milk that they forget that.

I would have liked to have been prepared for the possibility of tongue tie and informed about the procedure of tongue tie snipping whilst pregnant; not 48 hours post caesarean having had no sleep and with screaming hungry twins who were agony to feed and I was failing to bf because of it.I was an emotional mess too Why was it never raised when I was pregnant? My convo with midwife re breastfeeding went thus; MW; " you're going to breastfeed?" me; " yep, really want to. It was easy with my first, any reasons it should be different this time?"
MW; "No, you'll be fine" conversation closed. I'm still livid with her 16 months on. A bit of prep and my twins first weeks would have been very different and maybe I wouldn't have been floored by PND for 6 months plus because of the stress of it all.

sounds like we had similar experiences sense