how as a nation/society can we normalise bf

[robinredbreast]

these boards really make for sad reading,esp all the ill informed advice thats been posted in the last few days from hv gp etc

how are we going to improve things for us and future generations?

what are your ideas?

As the question in the OP is how are we going to improve things, we should all try to improve breastfeeding training to new mothers, first and foremost.
I think it was hunker that posted this link yesterday on a different thread, but as I want to do something to help and don't really know what to, this is my starting point.
making hospitals baby friendly

I have written to my local hospital, plus put something in my mumsnet local and some other forums I visit regularly to try to get support for my hospital, also my DP works for the Oxford Times and has said if I can get enough people fired up about it, he can get someone from editorial to put something in print.

If we all find just one way to help the information get out there and make authorities listen then surely it will amke even the smallest improvement, obviously many people feel strongly about it, if we all do something it may just be a drop in the ocean but at least it's in the right direction!

Brilliant VS! Things won't change without people actually doing things.

Posting on here is good, because it raises awareness.

But going out into your community, that's the key, imo.

Where I live BF is not the default option and I've no idea why. I had my older children 20 years ago and things have got worse since then IME.

We used to only get 18 weeks Maternity Leave. Now we get 39 weeks SMP and entitlement to a whole year off, yet it doesn't seem to make any difference.

I work in a small office where all of the women have children. The only one who BF has children in their late 20s. A girl off on Mat Leave just before me said that she tried BF but couldn't get the hang of it and they told her she couldn't leave hospital until she did. So she switched to FF because she wanted to go home

At my Toddler group the two first time mums I've got friendly with FF. One said she hadn't even considered BF and didn't like the thought of it. The other said she'd tried it, it hurt, she'd had a CS and had big boobs so switched to FF! (I had also had a CS and big boobs so couldn't see the relevance myself!)

I do think this attitude of "it doesn't really matter because formula is just as good" is sad. Also in this day and age where everything has to be environmentally friendly surely the waste of resources that is FF should be discouraged?

EH, I posted re the environmental impact of ff a while back. Grazing for the cows, production, packaging, transport, etc.

Here - I was undercover

Thing is evenhope, when we say formula isnt just as good, it upsets people, yes, formula is an adequate and sometimes necessary choice to feed your baby, but their are reasons to support breastfeeding instead.

Unfortunately, bottle feeding is seen as the norm, and IME hospitals don't always have the time to help, let alone the expertise, it took my midwife around 3 hours to get my baby latched on and feeding correctly, maybe if it hadn't been 2:30am when she came to me she wouldn't have been able to stay for those three long hours.

Also if it had been any other midwfie, she may have told me to give baby formula, which in the state I was in worrying about him not getting any milk, I may have unhappily resorted too.

omg i'm not so sure now about a neg campaign, those kind of ads you linked to, babieseverywhere, more likely to get people's backs up? i was thinking more of hv chats at antenatal appointments about links of ff to ear infections blah blah rather than benefits of bf being higher iq (teasing) - no surprise why the ads got pulled either

totally agree about concentrating on the women who want to bf but face probs. blackburn has a 'little angels' scheme so every woman is matched to a volunteer i hosp who can also do home visits later , I don't know if any other authority has a similar scheme? but one of the reasons why some women change from bf to ff when they encounter probs is that irritating 'ff is more or less the same' argument.

I'd personally ban the expression 'breast is best' and it's more common 'breast is best but . . .' both get on my nerves for reasons I can't explain

anna8888, meant to add, thanks for the reply, yes I can read french so a link would be great if you have one?, it sounds interesting

also about how we can improve things for us/future generations fiofio, my suggestion, crap though it may be, being through having one on one support from volunteers in hospital and beyond.
it's only going to be normalised if most new mums bf surely? i don't know much about the little angels scheme but presumably they also get out there with media contacts, raising profile etc
sorry, am I being snippy?

Fio at your MIL. Good on your mum though

Its that kind of insiduous undermining that makes it so difficult, isnt it?

Agree with paulaplumpbottom's comment along the lines of "the more women who breastfeed in public the more normal is will become".
I try and remember this and feed DS2 out and about as often as poss even though I am not totally comfortable about doing this.

He is also big for his age so looks older than 6 months - I think it's seen as ok to breastfeed a newborn but not so much a chunky older baby and IMO that attitude needs to change.

Having lived in Sweden, they do seem to have got it sussed, good maternity/paternity leave, breastfeeding women a common sight in public, good child care and obviously good support post birth. You do not see offensive articles in the press slating women who breastfeed or b-feeding support organisations either!
We should use the Scandinavians as a role model in this respect.

morocco, this is my cue to point out that one-on-one volunteer support is never going to happen in any widespread way.....why? Because with 450,000 women starting breastfeeding every year, there can never be enough volunteers (who, by the way, all have families and maybe jobs).

What is realistic is for a breastfeeding support group to exist in every community, and for this to be a routine service, just as every health centre has an immunisation service and a baby clinic for the young families on their books. This would be part of the way the health centre shows it is meeting the needs of the community. This might not even cost anything - money given to health centres for their group would be saved as the bf stats rose, and fewer babies needed medical care.

Volunteers can be part of these groups, as well as offering one to one support when they can.

I haven't read the whole thread, but am wondering whether it's possible that the hv obsession with growth charts have something to do with all the anxiety around feeding newborns. I was very lucky and had two large babies and never stressed about their weight, but it really upsets me to think how many mums I knew were stressed out about whether their (healthy, happy) babies were getting enough milk from them. I do wonder if in some cases this stress made feeding harder.

This is a really fascinating topic. I am kicking myself for having thrown away a magazine I had with bf rates for Italy (where I live) but I remember they were quite a bit higher than in the UK. There were also differences between the (poorer) South of Italy and the North. Lower bf rates in the North were ascribed to more mothers working outside the home.

It is also interesting that here there seems to be less perception of bf being "difficult" than in the UK, but on the other hand way more expectation that the mother may not have enough milk. They are obsessed with it to the extent of weighing babies before and after feeds, my bounty pack when I had DD included a chart for recording it (can't remember who sponsored by). This doesn't come from medical professionals, just one of those cultural ideas that's "around" - my PIL's neighbour, for example, badgered them into renting some scales from the pharmacy when I had DD so I could do that (as if!).

I have never heard of bf counsellers etc in the state health service here. I think possibly the difference here is that people (in many aspects of life) use their family for support, not just in terms of advice on bf, but also to look after older children, housework etc in the crucial first 2 or 3 months while bf is established, so there is a degree less pressure. In the UK people tend to live further away from family, perhaps longer paternity leave would be a good place to start.

Leaving aside for the moment peculiar British attitudes to breasts, page 3, Benny Hill etc, which would take another essay so I'll stop here for now.

The sodding journalists who have their own personal demons to exorcise re this subject ought to be a bit more responsible and think about the impact of their words, imo.

morocco - Look at this page

morrocco, would the little angels scheme be part to do with The Baby Cafe??
I was just on their website and saw something about a little angels scheme, I would assume it is the same one.

It wasn't a bad idea in the slightest, but it is going to be almost impossible to implement, so until we have all the breastfeeding counsellors we would need to be able to volunteer to do so, we need to look at the community surrounding the new mothers, the hospitals they give birth in, and the support groups around their area.

Aw, morocco, sorry if my reply made you think your idea was crappy - it really wasn't, and it does at least get to the heart of the matter which is that mothers need other mothers to make bf normal

tiktok, the "exclusive" definitely filters down into NHS and other bf literature, I'm with margoandjerry that there is something in the tone of some some of the promotional material that rankles, even with those who really want to do what's best for their baby. If you are trying to reach women who would not normally consider breastfeeding, because it's not the norm in their milieu, demonising formula may backfire as a strategy. I think if they see all their peers ff'ing reasonably healthy babies they may think, what a load of hysterical rubbish. In our self-centred times, you might find an approach that emphasises the benefits to the mother (weight-loss, cancer prevention etc.) more effective.

Anyway, I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this score, even if we both want the same result, which is lots and lots more bf everywhere.