Here's a thought....

[lazyhen]

Last night after posting on Hunker's thread, I started wondering about why I couldn't continue to BF.... My Mum (62) was FF as it was the 'done thing' at the time apparently. She struggled to BF me for 4 weeks before getting Mastitis and stopping. I BF my daughter for 10 weeks but REALLY struggled, so now I'm wondering will my DD struggle to BF any children she has in the future. Does FF not only increase risk of Asthma, Excema etc etc but also muck up the abilty to BF in later life?

This is my general wondering and I'm not here for a fight!

i don't think so. the vast majority of women are able to breastfeed.
unfortunately they are let down by health professionals when they run into problems and aren't given enough support to carry on.
so i don't think it's about not being able to breastfeed, but not getting the necessary help.

I think that if a new Mum's mum hasn't managed bfing, then the primary source of support is missing. Thus, people who are bf will create a culture of bfing through the generations.
the physiology of bfing is not understood by many many people which leads to incorrect advice like ' only feed every x hours'. Also, much of our society seems to have forgotten that breasts are primarily for feeding kids!

bTW, I speak as a bitter failed bfer!

my mum tried really hard to BF all of us (3) but never managed more than 2 weeks - she had bleeding nipples and no support

I FF my first 2 dc and have now exclusively BF my 4 week old baby, and so far, touch wood, we are doing great at it.

I think its down to lack of support mostly.

I was formula fed and I've managed ok - 22 months and counting.

My placenta failed, I was severely jaundiced and spent two weeks under the lights. In those days babies were kept in the nursery and mum could look through the glass. She called a MW one day because I was sicking blood, she laughed and said "it's yours". No one told her how to adjust the latch or anything, I guess they didn't really know then. After all that she didn't have much hope.

Maybe it is another you never know thing, but I would hate to think it was. Your daughter will have a wonderfully supportive mum who will make sure she has all the help available, will probably kick up a fuss if she isn't helped... so I'm sure she will do really well with BF'ing.

i was ff i bf all mine as did my sis , my mum wasn't around though so no idea if that would have made a difference.

In answer to the OP, my Mum was FF (she had a cleft palate) and she FF me as was the fashion in those days but I have BF 2 babies to toddlerhood without too much trauma.

I do think that if you come from a family of FF then there is a certain amount of pressure to give in and give a bottle - my Mum was aghast at my bleeing nipples first time round and kept telling me that I should look after myself and stop, that it never did me any harm. I think that there is less understanding of the need a woman has to BF so you have to fight your family as well as the pain, health visitors, worry about weight gain etc. Conversely if you come from a family with a BF background then it's likely to be something that you're more familiar with, you're more likely to get positive, keep it up type encouragement.

Funny thing is I think I did have a fair bit of support - My Mum never said "well you only had 4 weeks of Breastmilk and you're OK" (even if 'tis true so far). I went to the BF clinic, phoned a helpline, had HVs and Midwives round, spent a small fortune on things I thought would help... Physiologically my body just didn't seem to produce enough to satisfy DD. She was on the boob for ages VERY frequently day and night. I always thought it was going to get easier but it actually got worse (and more painful). It's weird because this does seem to be the only way in which my body has really let me down. I had a delightful pregnancy with no sickness or anything so I thought I was built to be a Mum but alas no.

well I think a lot of people have "problems" that aren't actually problems.
not to belittle what you went through at all lazyhen, I think it's a really common problem for a lot of people.

BUT, breastfed babies are supposed to feed frequently, and they can and do take a long time to feed, especially at first.
the problem is that most people don't seem to realise this, they don't get told about it and think it's because they aren't producing enough milk.
that leads to top-ups which leads to reduced supply which eventually leads to the end of breastfeeding.

I guess what I am saying is that instead of being a real physiological problem, what we have these days is a real lack of information about what breastfeeding is really like, especially if friends/family aren't breastfeeding.
and of course it's very, very worrying when you don't know how much a baby is getting and you're scared that they aren't taking enough.

Actually after I read my post I did think it didn't sound very bad but it was.

I think I hadn't originally understood how frequent/how long BF would take but when it got to the point where she still wasn't going any longer than about 1hr without feeding I just couldn't continue as I never got a chance for my boobs to rest and heal at all. DD did put on weight which seemed to satisfy the HV that I should continue but I was at my wits end - I felt like I was entering a very 'dark' place where I started to resent feeding my DD. Difficult to really express how bad things got, but I guess anyone who's been there can understand. I do think physiologially there was a problem.

well, my 7 month old still feed hourly most of the dayt and at least 2 hourly through the night, usually more often.
it does get me down sometimes.

but from what you say aboiut not giving you time for boobs to rest and heal then you probably had a latch problem.
I went through almost exactly what you describe with ds1. gave up at 4 months ish as I just couldn't bear the pain any longer.
turns out he was tongue tied, but no-one had ever bothered to check

this time round midwife spotted ds2's TT and we got it sorted, so thankfully still feeding.

this is what I mean though, we're made to feel like there is something wrong with us, when in reality it's usually something else that has been missed, or we haven't been helped enough

i hope not, i would love for my daughter to be able to breastfeed confidently and with mch support

You are more likely to breastfeed successfully if your mother did - I can't find the actual research, but lots of references to it in other stuff.

Have a look at the leaflets I've linked to here for examples of ways you can support your daughter.

It is perfectly possible, as other posters have said, to have a DD who breastfeeds if she was ff herself. I think a lot of it is attitude and the way you talk about feeding - if you say, "That baby's unsettled, get him on a bottle," or "Your milk isn't enough, surely? He was a very big baby!" or "Feeding again?!" or "When are you going to let me feed him and bond with my grandchild?" to your daughter, you'll undermine her rather rapidly (these are all RL examples, sadly).

But if you say "You're doing so well!" or "I'll cook your dinner/wash up/clean the bathroom/peg the washing out/do your ironing while you feed the baby and/or have a rest" or offer to ring a bf counsellor if she's having problems or offer to take the baby for a walk round the block so she can have a sleep or a long soak without worrying she'll need to feed.

You're already ahead of the game by knowing that the way you fed could be an issue with supporting your daughter, imo.

Have to say though my mum BF us and she was blardy useless, as were many of her friends. none of them could really remember what is was like and just had vague memories of the real stuff. I think if she knows what goes on, great, but a supportive partner and friends who BF may be more important...

I'm sure hunker's right, I think if you were bf it's got to be easier because you get the support from your mum. My mum still had all the old prejudices and incorrect ideas about bf. She keeps saying to me that ds is now over 8 months, he can't possibly need any more milk, and that I'm creating a rod for my back by bfing him so long. I was ff after four weeks, my sister was ff from birth as was the fashion 30 something years ago. She hasn't a clue about bfing and I've had to ignore all her "advice", I'm sure I've only made it this far because of mumsnet!

Not all ffing mums are unsupportive, my mum managed to bf me for 3 weeks before changing to bottles - she was told to only feed every 4 hours. I'm bfing my nearly 5mth old and she has been incredibly supportive. I think it is because she really wanted to bf me and my brothers (twins, in SCBU for 3 weeks and tube fed formula despite her expressing - nurses kept 'forgetting' to get her EBM from her ).

I think coming from am family of FFs can make breastfeeding more difficult, or rather coming from a family of BFs makes it easier. It is hard for people who haven't BF or who've only ever been exposed to FF to realise how different BFing is to FFing.

Both mine fed hourly from the beginning for a good three months, they had long (five hour) cluster feeds etc but I expected that & was pleased that they were feeding often enough to really build up my supply. Because I'd spent so much time around BFers (mum, sister, SIL, all my friends) I expected to spend the first couple of months doing very little but feeding (well anything else was a bonus). It didn'r cross my mind that they would sleep through until they were older (both around 15 months). You also don't get all the 'enough milk' etc comments.

Having breastfeeding normalised (rather than just supported) makes an incredible difference.