What's the most ridiculous/crap advice you ever received about breastfeeding?

[Hardiharhar]

Just curious, as I've heard the most stupid things lately. Shocked at how clueless GPs and health visitors can be about breastfeeding :O

@Dilbertian

GP: "You're putting her at risk of malnutrition" when I mentioned that I was still breastfeeding my 18m dd. While she was playing actively at his feet, glowing with health and on the 75th centile for height and weight.

I wonder if your GP thought you meant exclusive BF with no solids? But what a peculiar assumption to make if that were the case!

@PrimeraVez ouch! Though I can't help but wonder if this would actually work 😂

This was not ridiculous advice, so much as awful support (and not me, but someone in the next bed on the postnatal ward). I overheard the brand new mother tell a midwife that her baby had been feeding constantly for the last 5 hours, obviously just needing a bit of reassurance. The midwife said 'and is that a problem for you?' and walked off.

That you don't need to burp a bf baby.

There are probably more but that's the one which springs to mind

A mw flat out refused to help me with my one day old and said there was nothing to learn, I just had to keep trying till we got it right. She was so very wrong - loads of things she could have shown me that would have saved me weeks of nipple pain.

HV when asked if he was teething when he was sucking his hands: noooo too young, give him a dummy, you don’t want him using you as a dummy.

HV weighing DC: hmmmm he hasn’t gained much in the last two weeks, you’ll need to give formula too ups.

Me: no, my supply is fine, I’ll stick to breastmilk thanks

HV: if he carries on losing you’ll have to top up (he hadn’t lost anything he just hadn’t had the massive gains he was having).

We then a topped using dummy and fortnight later reweighed.. oh great.. he’s gained 14oz woohoo so it was your terrible advice to give a dummy that caused the lack of weigh gain I’m pretty sure?!

I never BF, only FF but wanted to share this gem. I was told by MIL to keep back a small amount of my own dinner, liquidise it and mix it with next days bottles, so the flavour of the formula would change according to what I’d eaten, like breast milk. I was

MIL couldn't breastfeed. She had cystitis of the nipple

So many silly ones from health visitors

Anyone ever found one useful? We should start a thread

Another comment that I remember actually really upset me, from a relative: oh my goodness, he's so tiny, looks like there's no growth coming from your breast milk! LO was 2 weeks old, yes you read that right! Such a silly comment, like he would've been any bigger on formula 🙄 Breastfeeding is such a personal, sensitive topic I wish people just kept their comments to themselves!

And the good old, are you not giving him water? I have gave all my children water, and look at them, they're fine! They are indeed, but no water for my LO!

@flaminjo I have yet to hear anything useful come out of a health visitor's mouth. I had one who actually gave me decent advice to power through the cluster feeding...when I asked to speak to her again I was told she wasn't actually a HV and was just another member of staff covering to do overtime.

Me: a lactation specialist midwife says I have thrush
GP: there's no such thing as breast / nipple thrush
Me: ffs

@headintheproverbial OMG boob thrush is excruciating!!!!! I told my partner I'd rather go through labour again than get thrush in my boobs

I was on the post natal ward and was doing just fine. DD had latched on fine just after birth and again later, no pain, and also I had managed to express and freeze a significant amount of colostrum prior to labour just in case, so was feeling pretty good about things.

Maternity assistant "just because you've got the gear (big breasts) doesn't mean your going to be able to do it properly" or something like that. Talk about ruining my moment.

On the flip side. My community midwife wouldn't discharge me until I could feed lying down because I needed rest too, and GP when I went in about nipple/DD oral thrush at about 5 weeks, took the opportunity to mention how important it was for me to try to ebf as long as possible to keep by periods and therefore endometriosis symptoms at bay (just found out today that this GP has retired... I'm gutted).

@Zarene how funny! I did the c shape (holding your nipple by forming a c shape in your thumb and index finger) and was repeatedly told off bu a midwife even though it worked for us!

Midwife who was wildly keen to discharge me out of my single room on the postnatal ward, despite having never met me/DS (in NICU) before, "You'll never ever get a baby in NICU to exclusively breastfeed, so you may as well give up now".

The NICU nurses who spent ages helping me were extremely pissed off with that, and it apparently was not the first time.

Having said that, I seem to have had really good Health Visitors in the main. Very encouraging.

Mil: do you think bf can make your boobs look wonky, saggy and shrivelled up? Said while looking at my wonky, saggy and shrivelled up boobs.

When I was admitted to hospital completely unexpectedly with raging mastitis. My DD wasn't allowed to stay and even if she was, the hospital consultant insisted that she was not allowed to drink from the affected breast.

They didn't have a pump available either so DH had to make the hour long roundtrip to get me my home pump. To this day I still don't know why they admitted me, the hospital doctor was one of these old-fashioned types that didn't like questions from patients. They needed the bed the next day so discharged me with two different types of antibiotics.

“You’ll never get any milk out of those”.

Baby was 6 hours old. She took him away and gave him his first feed as we were, apparently, starving him. Ironically she made much more determined to breastfeed than I had been before. But I’ll never forgive her for how she made me feel that day.

Lady, these boobs have been feeding children for the majority of the past nine years.

That it's easy
That it's difficult
Advising a new mum to express into a cup (and expecting the baby to drink it)
That you can top up a month old baby with diluted fresh orange if they still seem thirsty. I am honestly not making that one up (less than 20 years ago, not like it was the 1940s).

That my baby wasn't getting enough milk, she weighed him before and after a feed. This was only 9 years ago and she was a senior midwife.

Another midwife was shocked that I was pregnant and breastfeeding DC2 as she hadn't ever heard of anyone doing that.

That if I didn't breast feed I wouldn't be able to bond with my baby.

When DD2 was about 8 months old she had an appointment with the HV to get weighed etc. I had mentioned she'd had a bit of a bad cold for a while, as had I.

The HV told me to stop feeding her as I was passing my cold virus on to her . She said I should use formula in the meantime 🤦‍♀️.

This was only a couple of years ago, what on Earth are HVs being taught about BF?!

You can't use n

You can't use nipple shields long term. Your milk will dry up.

I used them because i couldn't get a good latch. I stopped using them around 6 months. My DD is still breastfeeding now at 19m