I am really glad i didn't breastfeed

[gracemargaret]

I am mum to 2 ff dds (6 and 7 now) and as a new mum I actually didn't produce any breast milk at all (not very bovine). I now look back and am really resentful of how I was made to feel by nurses/health visitors etc. Firstly they let my dd go a whole 5 days without anything at all to "just give my milk a chance to come in" (it didn't despite her latching on like a dream) - After nights of her screaming hour after hour and only being able to calm her with teaspoons of boiled water I gave her some formula (which I'd had to go and buy as was completely unprepared having planned to BF) but was so ashamed (after HVs tales of mothers "giving up") I hid it when anyone came round. I even allowed myself to be rigged up to a feeding bottle with tubes that I had to stick to my boobs with surgical tape every feed (used for mums who adopt) but still nothing. At no point, despite producing no milk, crying when the HV visited and my dd not gaining weight, did anyone suggest giving her a bottle wich I now feel was a despicable way to treat a new mum and her baby. I eventually realised a few things though - Breastfeeding is ONLY best for baby IF IT IS BEST FOR MUM - Rather than my daughters having a tired mum, with cracked sore nipples, having to do all the feeds, unable to go out without leaking milk all over the place, they had a mum whose husband did half the feeds, who wasn't exhausted, and who now has two daughters who haven't been to the Drs for anything except immunisations and are working way above expected level for their ages at school. The way I look at it is that yes BF is natural but in the past women HAD to BF - we don't have to now - we are supposed to have CHOICE. By all means if it comes naturally to you and you don't get cracked nipples/mastitis/turned off by the thought of cabbage leaves in your bra then go ahead for the miniscule and debatable health benefit, however looking at the kind of things being posted in this forum I think a lot of women (and therefore babies) would be far better and happier "giving up" and hitting the bottle!!

gracemargaret, no one has suggested or even hinted you did not try hard enough to bf...why are you so angry here, six years after your last experience with a newborn, angry enough to be defensive and aggressive at the same time? Why try to minimise the health effects of breastfeeding? I am sad for you, because I think on some level you are aware you and your babies missed out on something. No one has judged you (apart from being offended at some of your comments and your tone) and generally speaking, posters are supportive of women who have ff, for whatever reason. I don't think anyone would agree that mothers have to breastfeed at all costs. I think you are pushing at an open door

Right off to bed to feed my little calf

but you're not being balanced, though, you're presenting the worst of bfing and the best of ffing.

i tried a supplementer, miss! i did! they are KEECH.

Aitch, agree that we're often our own worst critics when it comes to judging our failings as mothers. However I do think that our expectations have been heightened by a variety of sources- books, baby mags, ubber mums .From the moment you pop that first folic pill in your mouth and start dreaming of pastel booties(hand knit from unpolluted gossamer wool)you're under pressure . Every deviation away from best practice is first experienced a failure, particulary I think when its your first baby and you havn't learnt to trust yourself/not give a toss what others think.

Maybe, gracemargaret, this thread should be more about the lack of information and support you recieved at the time when all this happened. It's not actually about breastfeeding / formula feeding at all. And maybe you have emphasised all this 'bad' stuff about breastfeeding to help you deal with the sadness you have said you feel about the fact you couldn't breastfeed.

I really really wanted a homebirth. It didn't happen, I didn't manage to get ds's head out aftr 4 hrs pushing. I ended up in hospital with ventouse and episciotomy. I am tempted to 'do down' homebirthing in my own mind and feel a bit cross and jealous of those who did have one. I know this is illogiCal and I am dealing with it. Maybe it's the same for you and bfeeding?

no, you see, i just totally disagree with you ellie. it might just be a quirk of my personality but i just Do Not feel that stuff as an external pressure. i've never aimed to be perfect. i did want to bf though (laziness as much as anything else) and when it worked it was so lovely that i was prepared to knock my pan in trying to get it to work. it was only when it came to actually giving dd formula top-ups that it became crystal clear for me that this wasn't as good a product as bm, you know, the smell etc, and that's when i began to take it all very personally.

guilty as charged - my original post did present the worst of bf and the best of ff but the intention was just to provide a balance given the disproportionate amount of pressure I feel is sometimes placed on new mums to BF at all costs in spite of any difficulties they may face. I have also said that I am not suggesting for one minute that this would be the experience of all bf mums - clearly there are huge numbers of you here who find it a wonderful and rewarding experience and I am genuinely hapy for you despite having unintentionally caused so much offence.

yes but it's not up to you to say whether it's disproportionate or not, really. i wish i'd had your HCPs, i had people telling me left, right and centre that i should give dd formula. that made me feel like shit. and yet you would have loved that, you say?
as i say, you're in no position to comment on the numbers of people who those HCPs helped to keep bfing.

well, gracemargaret - you wanted to 'balance things' in some way, so the pendulum would somehow sit in the middle...but why do that here, where there is more or less universal agreement that mothers should not not be pressured to bf at all costs?

just as i'm in no position to say how many people are delighted to have been pushed into formula by my HCPs. which is why i've never started a thread about it...

Aw, you guys, I think gracemargaret's trying to be concillitory (I've got that word wrong - what word do I mean?!)

Message withdrawn

i would have loved a HCP who was skilled enough to recognise and support the choice that was best for both me and my dd (which was clearly for me was ff as I produced no milk - for others this will be bf). My comments are based on discussions I have had with a lot of new mums at toddler groups/pre schools who have felt this pressure also. Pressure to ff IMO is obviously also wrong if it is not what you want to do.

being honest, gracemargaret, i think if you were leading my toddler group and started talking about it, i'd be loathe to get into an argument with you about it, especially if i was a successful bfer. i'm not sure your intel isn't tainted by your own strong views on this subject...

But surely if you can breastfeed you should at least try it?

Yeah, information's the thing. Pretty much all the information I now have on bfeeding I sought out myself. I live in an area with a high no. of non-english speaking women, with a high level of deprevation. If you are not able, for whatever reason, to inform yourself, then no-one informs you. I mean, even having no internet would have been seriously detremental to my bfeeding I think, and LOADS of new mothers round here must have no internet.

i really do try and stay away from breastfeeding v formulafeeding and i've just skimmed this thread but it sounds to me like someone just wanted to start an arguement,

also just to point out that to breastfeed is normal to formula feed isn't - and to say that the health benefits are not relevant - wtf?

i'm a great believer that we should all be entitled to feed our babies as we choose - i mix fed dd and exclusively b/f ds.

it upsets me that there is so much anger/resentment/guilt surrounding breastfeeding and i really think that there should be some kind of support/counselling for woman who fail to b/f.

I had the opposite problem. I had HCPs pushing me into FF Ds2, he was born at 33 weeks (weighing 4lb 8oz) and had a lot of problems gaining weight, he was gaining 2-5oz a week which wasn't enough according to some HCPs. He dropped from the 50th percentile to off the chart. He then started following the very bottom line. We gave him a bottle of high energy formula (to get the HCPs off our backs) and he went up to the 2nd percentile, where he still is. He is 6 months old now and weighes 12lb 2oz. I wish I had the support you had. I am still BF and I am proud that I am.

Well Aitch think I'm a bit like you too. I never wanted to be the best mother just the best I could be iykwim. However I have witnessed friends beat themselves up over everything from inhaling a passers by cigarette smoke while pregnant to BB to weaning etc. When it comes to BB I think Gracemargaret has raised a valid issue. There is a lot of pressure from external sources.I have been aghast that maternity hospitals (where I live anyway) are not allowed to show mothers who have chosen to FF how to correctly prepare formula or give them any of those little formula bottles to have for the journey home when they leave. When I had my last DD the mum in the room with me hid a few in her handbag for the journey home. The pressure is there to BB , abeit for the best intentions, it's not just an internal invention.

But the pressure to breastfeed is there becuase they are trying to make it the norm, which of course it should be.

Actually, someone DID say that perhaps she didn't try hard enough, but I think it was meant to be a sarchastic remark rather than a serious one...

you see gracemargaret, from one point of view, lots of times I have seen written on MN that there is a lot of external pressure to bf. I see glib posters that do not say much at all and when you actually ask HCP meaningful questions, the majority are truly stumped because many are terribly underinformed. The breast is best thing is a partyline, a propoganda, if you wish with very little substance. I see and have experienced an NHS that spends about 9pence per baby in supporting breastfeeding. I had a very jaundiced baby and all the HCP's around me flapped about in confusion (dd and I were in hospital for 8 days) and a community midwife who told me that my sleepy, jaundiced dd was snacking and that was a 'bad thing' for a baby to learn. [dangerous advice when it comes to jaundice] The HV told me I had to top up with formula. that was my only feeding from her. The only thing that permitted me to continue to bf was Mumsnet and googling for info like a mad thing.

On the other hand formula companies spend about £18 per baby to promote formula. The advertising is subtle but effective. It is reinforced by 2 maybe 3 generations of formula feeding in the UK so is now something that most families know better than breastfeeding. So many people including my caring MIL and dh saw as the solution to the strain I was putting myself through. The outline of my story has been retold on MN in many many examples.

The end result form is a woefully inadequate NHS system which does far too little, in some cases dangerously too little support of breastfeeding. Most women actually want to breastfeed and you obviously know how vital that first week is to get knowledgeable support. Effective support is not something that you seem to have gotten, not by a long shot.

However, that is only my point of view and I acknowledge that. I wonder if a lot of the pressure women think they feel to bf actually comes from inside them. Similar to the guilt comes from inside but gets externalised so we can cope with it. Maybe some women want to fulfil what they percieve as an external pressure that really is not there.