Why "choose" to bottle feed???

[Difers]

I am a breastfeeding mum and I meet lots of mums who said they tried to breastfeed but weren't able to which I can totally understand but My mother-in-law said she "chose" to bottlefeed and didn't bother even trying...

So I am wondering, given the benefits of breastfeeding, why would anyone "choose" to bottlefeed??

like i said we need lots more, better trained staff on the maternity wards. what a horrible experience for you lissie

tbh the mws played a good cop bad cop routine. one would shout at me and say "youre not trying hard enough. all these other mums can do it" another saying "you dont have to do this you know" i attended bf workshops for 6w prior to ds being born and didnt once consider that it wouldnt work, i knew it would be tough but even argued with MiL and SiL about bf in public etc....

moondog: I have indeed appeared on knitting threads, telling people to f* off and die 'n' everything, and stop making me feel guilty for using acrylic yarn, and arguing that any difference between bamboo needles and metal ones is over-stated, and saying people who knit hats are selfish. It's only on breastfeeding threads I come over all calm and non-judgemental, y'know....

still he got some.

still a v raw subject tho, which is why i get v emotive on this subject. however if & when i have another baby i fully intend to bf.

pmsl tiktok

My understanding of direct from breast versus expressed milk is as kiskidee said that the saliva on the nipple triggers the mother's immune system to produce the antibodies needed at that particular moment for the baby. Now, I don't know how much of a difference it is going to make if the baby only gets the occasional expressed milk, but in a situation where the mother is exculsively pumping, I would guess that the mix of antibodies is not as perfect as if the baby was always on the breast. Also, if EBM has been frozen for say a month, the milk being fed to the baby was perfect for the baby a month ago, when it was pumped, but is not quite as perfect in terms of antibodies etc at the moment the baby drinks it. I'm not saying that it's no good, but merely that the milk of the moment is surely preferable to last months! Also, expressed milk is a mixture of fore and hind milk rather than the baby getting foremilk first then hindmilk. I don't know for sure, but I am guessing that nature designed it that way for a reason and having it mixed possibly isn't quite the same, but that's only a guess and perhaps someone could enlighten me.

Absolutely shocking Lissie.

The inconsistent messages and approach are shameful. I can't imagine how awful that must feel when you have just delivered asnd are a physical and emotional wreck.I was lucky in that despite having big problems establishing breastfeeding,the unwavering message of all I saw was 'It's hard now but you can do it and we will help you.'

Lissie, you were shockingly badly let down.

I am sad for you.

Would you feel like writing and complaining about your care, I wonder?

Expressed breastmilk only as opposed to breastfeeding direct also means the baby is not driving the supply and the intake... again, not what nature intended.

But it does get breastmilk into the baby which is good.

The occasional bottle of ebm is not going to make much diff. and expressing is a useful skill to have, IMO.

But hats off to women who express long term because it is the only way they can breastfeed - it's not easy and they should feel good about it.

There are many other factors invovled in jaw development and the need for orthodontic treatment, method of early feeding only has a very small impact.

But tiktok, surely to a certin extent the baby is driving the supply because you more or less express the amount the baby needs?

we have already complained about ds's delivery and the resulting complications (he was wedged in my pelvis, took 3 men to pull him out, crash cs and they displaced my bladder) now i feel stronger i think that i would complain. a lot of women ive spoken to have been treated appallingly by the same hospital, it has 1 of the lowest cs rates in the uk but they are all emergencies iykwim

COV, when you say 'small impact' can you show me the study where it said 'small'?

you also stated 'method of early feeding' how do you qualify 'early'. early as in 6 wks or less? or 'early' as in 2 yrs.

lissie, that is just horrible treatment.

no midwife's job is to play goodcop - badcop either. that is horrendous and imo mental abuse!

you really need to complain and get someone from the NCT to scrutinise your case and and attend with you.

as i say we have complained and will be bringing a negligence claim against them. as i said, im 99% sure that given the correct advice and better care i would have been able to bf. and if id known more bf mothers/seen it on tv etc i would have known to argue. and i suspect that with many new mums this lies behind their reasons for ff, not thru laziness or vanity. bravado covers a lot of fears.

ComeOveneer - the baby takes what he needs at each feed, on a per-feed-level; and overall the frequency of his feeds establishes the supply (these two factors are linked). This is the baby driving the supply and being in control of it. Bottle feeding, by formula or expressing, does not do this.

Sorry no time to read whole thread and hope not too late to post answer to original post as I have strong views on this.

"So I am wondering, given the benefits of breastfeeding, why would anyone "choose" to bottlefeed??"

Our culture/society is really not supportive and conducive to breastfeeding in a multitude of ways (eg we usu don't have large extended family of women who have a lot of experience of bfeeding on hand; we often have to look after house/other children as well; lots of negativity towards bfeeding within families/society etc etc) so I don't see it as surprising that many women would choose not to.

You could also ask the question "given the benefits of organic food why would anyone "choose" to feed their kids non-organic food?"

Or "given the benefits of two-parent families, why would anyone "choose" to live in a one-parent family?"

There are loads of factors influencing all parenting choices and just because something is "best" for the child doesn't mean it is the "best" decision in all situations/circumstances.

Also in response to kiskidee:

"yes, you do get snuggles, eye to eye etc with bottlefeeding. it just isn't the same though in a way which i can't quantify."

That may be so in your experience, in my experience I didn't begin to bond preperly with ds til we weren't bfeeding anymore and I found/find the experience of ffeeding much closer and more bonding than bfeeding.

and why do you think did you found it so, scoobyc?

I'm very surprised to read that early feeding can have an impact on jaw forming, hadn't read that one in any literature. It seems that there are hundreds of scientific documents out there to persuade us all to bfeed, however they still have no impact on me. I went by my gutfeeling and never regretted it, decided early on in pregnancy to bottlefeed and stuck by it. As I mentioned earlier in this thread for no other reason than that the thought of bfeeding makes me almost sick. So then I read that some people get very angry when some of us decide to bottlefeed from birth without a "valid" reason, valid to her that is. My reason was valid enough for me and if that makes people angry that's tough. The bonding thing is another personal thing, although I had emergency c-section and didn't hold dd straightaway and didn't have skin-to-skin until much later and bottlefed, we bonded beautifully. All i had to do was gaze for hours at her and I was (and still am) sold! I'm very sad to read that some of you had awful midwives who made you feel so awful, I was lucky that all the mwives I met on the ward didn't bat an eyelid and didn't try to talk me round. Shame they don't teach a bit of understanding to go with the medical knowledge!

Does anyone know, is there really such thing as 'not producing enough milk?'. have known people from clinic who have said they FF for this reason but by putting a 2 day old baby on a bottle, surely theyre not giving their milk production a chance?

Kiskidee, I don't have any studies to hand I'm afraid. By early I mean the first couple of years of life

Ive had enough of thus thread

There does not have to be a reason why women dont BF its just a CHOICE.

So what if they dont 'fancy' it?

It makes me MAD MAD MAD that SOME people who BF like to get on the superior high horse
Since I became a mum I am amazed at how critical mums are of one another in many ways.Its like a bloody competition.Has it always been like this?

Its like who can be the most NATURAL mother.."I gave birth naturally after a 7 day labour, listening to whale music, with no pain relief,breast fed my dc for 3 years, never o never sucumbed to the odd fruit shoot or macdonalds, fed on organic produce...blah blah blah

Im at the half way mark now and all I hope for is a healthy baby that lives. If and when it gets here, I will decide how to feed and unless I start pureeing chicken nuggets at 13 weeks then I will NOT be judged.

Hi kiskidee!
(I should have said til I started bottle feeding, as actually I was expressing)

I found bfeeding very stressful and difficult and did not start to enjoy ds until we stopped bfeeding so that is part of it. But also, even on the occasions when bfeeding was fine, I just did not feel anything and I gather from talking to other women that not all women do feel the amazing enjoyment of bfeeding that some do.

I just do not agree that bottlefeeding cannot be as enjoyable and beneficial re bonding as bfeeding.

a scientific paper about jaw formation

reason # 77 plus scientifid references