A reason not to BF that I had no answer for, any thoughts?

[bohemianbint]

I recently qualified as a peer counsellor and the training was great. However, I met up with a friend of mine the other day whose daughter is about a month old.

She had BF up until the day before I met her but decided to pack it in and had just started FF. Her reason was that she already has a son who is 11, is very busy and didn't have the time to physically sit all day and BF.

I didn't say anything, as she wasn't asking for advice, she'd made the decision and had already acted on it. But it struck me that I have no idea what to say to someone who sites this as a reason to give up? I remember when DS went through growth spurts just sitting on the sofa literally all day with my boobs out and everything else went to pot, and whilst this didn't bother me I can see how it would be a deal breaker for some people.

So what can you say to that? Obviously FF is inconvenient in the prep time and faff, but does it eliminate that all day sitting around during a growth spurt? Interested to hear what you think...

The research on hospital stay is pretty clear - the longer you are in hospital, the less likely you are to breastfeed. There is some 'reverse causation' here - the women with probs tend to stay in for longer, and they may also have probs with bf, but it's not all that.

The lowest point for bf in the UK happened late 60s to late 70s when hospital birth became the norm for everyone, and long stays were routine.

By the early 70s, something like 80 per cent of babies never had a breastfeed at all.

We have crawled back up from that point since then, and frankly, part of the reason is less contact with people who can mess up your breastfeeding

Good, well-trained, bf-supportive midwives are essential, and there are not enough of them.

I read an interesting study the other day - link here.

Briefly, they examined teenagers for risk factors for heart disease and found that the ones with the highest risk had had the fastest weight gain in the first 2 weeks of life.

They conclude"... our data support the benefit of relative undernutrition associated with colostrum and breast-feeding very early in infancy in reducing the development of atherosclerotic CVD."

So what they're saying is that hassling a mother to give formula simply because her milk isn't in yet could actually be increasing that baby's risk of heart disease in later life.

Breastfeeding has worked for us for millions of years and I believe very strongly that we meddle with this at our peril.

I agree with Sabire - this wholesale change to a different, untested way of nourishing babies in the 20th century is a worry. Luckily we have people like tiktok et al who are doing a great job at putting the balance right again.

Whoos, should have speciifed that the babies in the study were premature, ao the authors are rightly cautious about extrapolating to all babies. But the risks were very clearly related to weight gain, regardless of how early they were born.

Yurt,

Do you wish that you had had a mothers help paid for by Social Services as your DS1 is Autistic to enable you to breastfeed?

I ask as a HP working with Disabled adults/Children. In my experience Social Services can be poor at meeting the whole families needs.

I get direct payments. Finding someone to look after my autistic son is the problem. The majority of PA's I employ are an extra pair of hands and tend to look after ds2 and ds3. I don't really like having people in my house the whole time so that wouldn't really have worked.

When I had ds3 I had just started receiving dp's but didn't have anyone employed (took ages to find someone).

Thanks for the earlier post Jaynz, I have never heard of vasospasm, and it was never mentioned to me. I've googled it and had a look at the Kellymom website, it does sound very similar to the pain that I had, as does the blanching and sensitivity at other times. I will investigate further, I just wish I had heard of this earlier, especially as it seems that there are lots of ways to help with b'feeding.

Yes Yurt, having someone in the house would bother me aswell. Glad you get DP's though!

DP's are great (except for the paperwork and the hassle of being an employer! - oh and they've justrefused by requested increase, but otherwise great!)

You were most likely refused because Social Services did not have enough money in the budget rather than any other reason.

The manager involved didn't apply the thinking that you as a mother had mental health problems and that your non disabled children have the right to the same standard of care from you that you can give them had not your other child had special needs.

I have seen mothers threaten to put their disabled kids into care to get extra help...which sometimes works as that costs SSD LOADS of money.

Shhhhh.........

yes I feel guilty moaning about my dp's hours when fio is in the same sort of situation and has really crap hours

i breastfed my first DS for the first 6 months and am determined to give my next baby the same good start in life otherwise it doesnt seem right/fair. must be hard having two to think about though... not like with the first when you can sit on the sofa all day feeding and eating chocolate, and visitors come round and say 'oh isnt he good' (when they have no idea how nackered you are from the night feeds!!)

i dont think she actually needs a reason to stop, its her choice, shes done well bf for a month, you should congratulate her on that. just because u dont bf doesnt make u any less of a mother and people who dont bf shouldnt be made to feel bad about it. :D

I didn't know that was how it was sorted in the end fio Cash, ffs

It's the finding people who can cope isn't it. In the 3 years we've had dp's I've only found one person who can cope alone with ds1 outside this house (and if I have people to help in the house then it's me who has to step in when ds1 is being tricky).