Daily Mail -"My beautiful baby was starving to death, until I defied the 'breast is best' bullies"

[theUrbanDryad]

i'm not sure what to think here...on the one hand it raises very valid points, but the headline is so inflammatory....

what do you think?

i think its very brave to print such an honest article given the amount of strong feeling that breast is best.

Of course breastmilk is the mos nurticious meal for a newborn baby but if its not working for a particular mohter and child then the midwives should be able to help, not tell her to continue trying until she cracks it....or worse.

The headline is inflammatory. It's awful that she had such a hard time, but then I think that is more a failure of post-natal care than a problem with the pro-breastfeeding lobby - someone should have spotted that she wasn't coping and helped. Don't most hospitals keep you in until you and the baby are coping with feeding (whether breastfeeding or formula)?

The article does go on to say that, for most women there is no reason why they can't breastfeed sucessfully, but that a few can't, but it says that very far down and it takes a lot of patience to read a Daily Mail article right through...

I have a friend who could have written the same story word by word. There was also a woman in my mother and baby group whose baby got so dehidrated in the first 10 days that he had to spent a week in hospital. So... I think they are very valid points.

Whether is the fault of the system, the quotas, the fundamentalist attitude of some groups, etc. is irrelevant, the main problem resides in women not having access to adequate help and babies being denied a "quick fix" in order to wait for that help that was not in place or didn't materialise.

With ScaryHairy on this

I beat myself for a week with dd1

Midwife beat me up also

Breastfeeding nightmare.... failure
Misery....worry,....pain....tears......suffering baby...

Took a wise locum to point out that BF was not to be in my case

I had torn ligament in back....knock on effect....couldn't bf

It could've been my story, the only difference is I expressed exclusively for 8.5 months, so he got the benefits of bm. He couldn't latch on, was dehydrated and lethargic, slept for more than 8hours barely woke up to feed. Now he is 17 month, and weighs 13kg!

I've never come across this intense pressure to breastfeed that eveyones always talking about. Having had 3 children I have never experienced either pressure to bf or negative comments about ff.

I'm sure its just another fallacy invented to support whatever side of the argument you may be on.

I can honestly say no one really cared what I fed my babies with (well,no one in RL anyway).

What a sensationalist crap headline.

Yes there are issues there which would have been better represented under the headline that lacking postnatal care rather than breastfeeding resulted in a 'starving' baby.

A first time mum going home 2 days after a C/S, without feeding established, is a disgrace. Did the mum push to get home?

Breastfeeding support in the community is needed - does not need to be midwives - could be maternity care assistants.

There was no attempt to solve the breast feeding problem on admission to hospital by the look of things. Yes formula should be used where a mother does not have enough milk, but in the vast majority of cases, there is an underlying problem to poor milk supply - often it is the fact that the baby has never been attached to the breast properly to effectively stimulate milk production of remove the milk effectively.

The writer of the article is blaming breast feeding propaganda for her problems. She is wrong. It is lack of proper care and support for breast feeding mothers that is the problem. What a shame she didn't highlight that

Good article. Bad Title.

I was never given any support with BF - both times.

DD1 - I was dishcharged after 14 hours, and only 1 feed. I tried to keep going at home for 4 days - NOTHING. I ended up on formula

DD2 - I came home 18 hrs after birth, had done 1 feed well, and then the MW spent 2hrs ramming my breast into her mouth before saying "ah well, try again in half an hour" Got home and put her straight onto formula. I couldnt bear to distress my new baby when all they wanted was food.

I will try again this time, but I will also have bottles and formula in the house as back up.

In my opinion, a baby who refuses to feed after 12 hours of trying, needs something given as an alternative.

I'm amazed that she didn't use the word "Nazi".

I'm amazed that she was discharged from hopital two days after a section.

I'm sorry that she didn't get the skilled breastfeeding support that she needed (and that was the problem, not that she or the baby couldn't do it).

I'm not at all amazed that this appeared in the Daily Mail.

Discharged just two days after major abdominal surgery, and a newborn baby to look after. That's horrendous. That is a failure of the system. In Belgium women are kept in for 8 nights following a C-section.

I have never met a 'breastfeeding bully'.

i wish my docs had been more reluctant to prescribe formula to my active, alert baby who'd lost 15% of her body weight, tbh. coulda, woulda, shoulda... it's the maternal condition, i think it's a fairly stoopid article as yet again it's about lack of support. there seemed to be no reason why she couldn't have expressed.

where was the blood from, btw, did she have bleeding nips? i couldn't see an explanation.

aitch - there was no blood, the nurse just thought there was.

well wtf, then?

JARM - a baby who does not feed after 12 hours should get some expressed colostrum. Not technically because they need it but because the mother should have been shown how to hand express to stimulate her milk supply. Any colostrum expressed should then be given to the baby by syringe so as not to waste it.

A healthy baby at birth can go longer than 12 hours without feeding however there should be lots of skin-to-skin contact to stimulate interest from the baby. There are various tricks to waken a sleepy baby who may be affected by drugs given in labour.

Ramming a baby's head onto the breast is not an effective way of getting a baby to feed. Read up all you can before this next baby and look for local support before you give birth. Good luck.

aitch - it is all a bit sensationalist.

I agree the headline is inflammatory and out of order and not at all accurate in my case.
Out of all my friends, 1/2 BF and 1/2 FF, their choice and noone, to my knowledge felt pushed either way.

When I had DS1 I was desperate to breastfeed and a lovely midwife sat up all night with me to get it right, she was so patient and caring and she enabled us both to get to grips with BF. I was lucky, I was in my own room and that MW made all the difference, had I been on a ward and not had her, I'm sure it would have been different. I never once felt pressurised to BF, in fact with DS2 I was the only one in a ward of 12 who did. Luckily, both times my boys thrived and we BF for 6mths each time, but I would have switched to formula if needed, why on earth not?

Dd didn't bf properly while I was in hospital. I pressed the buzzer for help and the night nurse came in and said "if it's a cup of tea you want I'm not getting you one". The help I asked for with bf consisting of her grabbing dd's head, shoving it roughly onto my boob, turning on her heels and heading back to the nurses' station to look up her flights on the internet. I couldn't wait to leave as soon as I could the next morning.

When I got home I read my notes and she'd recorded "bf well" .

I still get a lump in my throat when I think about those early days with dd now, 4 years later, and I so regret not writing a letter of complaint.

well like you belgo, i've never met a bfing bully. any pressure to bf on me was put there squarely by me. well, that and the fact that it's the Obvious and Right food for your baby...

Typical of the daily mail to have such a totally shitty headline. It detracts from any sense in that article - why turn it into a bullying issue - it's about lack of support and information.

aitch - yes, I 'bullied' myself into bfing far more then anyone else could.

"There was no attempt to solve the breast feeding problem on admission to hospital by the look of things. Yes formula should be used where a mother does not have enough milk, but in the vast majority of cases, there is an underlying problem to poor milk supply "

I think that's so true Mears, but unfortunately there are not enough resources (both in terms of information, knowledgeable staff, time, etc.) to check of this is really the case or to solve the situation ASAP. As it was said by Sue Ashmore, "Babies are put at risk when you don't have good breast-feeding policies or training, where hospitals are just paying lip-service to it,"

Now, in more general terms, I think that the NHS campaign of "Breast id best" is a bit out of target, we all know breast is best but we can not expect the full of the population to get it right just by instinct, or as was put in the article:
"They hark back to the old days before formula milk, conveniently ignoring the fact that there were wet nurses and a higher infant mortality rate due to malnutrition."

But I insist, Brast id Best, we just need to provide more help for all difficult cases.

Surfermum - what a horrible nurse. You could still write a letter of complaint. It's the only way things will change. Notes are kept for years afterwards.

I didn't get the blood bit - just sensationalism - as the nurse slid with horror down the door - great start. Always good to make a point by starting with the image of a horrific murder scene Look what the pressure to breastfeed did!

and apologies for all the typos!

i do think there is an emphasis during antenatal care to bf - there certainly was during mine. but the absolute lack of postnatal care made me feel awful. luckily for me, i had a baby with a natural latch, and good community support from the LLL and Baby Cafe.

at the end of the day, we're all trying to do what is best for our babies, but when you've just given birth (and possibly had major surgery into the bargain!) you're not at your most rational. and as an inexperienced new mum, you don't necessarily know what's best. and a lot of the time, new mums are left guessing, and panicking. that's why i thought some of the points at the end of the article were valid (although i agree that the writer and writing leaves a lot to be desired!!)