I honestly think that the reason so few people I know are breastfeeding is that because the health proffessionals want you to breast feed so badly they..

[AnguaVonUberwald]

Don't tell you how hard it is.

Then when it is hard, people think it must be some fault in them and give up.

I went to NCT antenatal classes and was basically told: its really easy, it doesn't hurt, you just have to get the latch right.

No one mentioned anything like:

My baby wouldn't latch at all at first (we saw several breast feeding councillors (sp), he just wouldn't do it.

I then moved on to nipple shields (not mentioned before hand) which at least allowed him to carry on breast feeding although I then got lots of comments about how I shouldn't use them, they would dry up my milk etc, at least he was feeding.

At six weeks, I managed to get him to latch properly, he then started screaming every evening because he was starving, he was going through a growth spurt and simply not getting enough food. No one tells you what to do about that!

Currently, at 10 weeks, he is once again feeding for hours at a time and screaming in the evenings, I strongly suspect he is not getting enough food and am struggling with what to do.

My point is, no one tells you: There are challanges but you can get through them. Here's some help.

Instead they treat you like children, and think unless they tell you its all easy, you won't do it. Which means people then give up when its not as promised.

i.e. BREAST FEEDING DOES HURT! GETTING THE LATCH RIGHT IS NOT ENOUGH. BUT THATS OK, I AM A GROWNUP AND I CAN TAKE IT FOR MY DS, IT HURTS A LOT LESS NOW THAN IT USED, TO. BUT DON'T PATRONISE ME BY TELLING ME IT WILL NEVER HURT!

Sorry, rant over.

angua, are you SURE he is hungry? My babies would get very obsessive about sucking when they were tired. I found that if I just detatched them after a reasonable amount of time, bundled them up and took them out for a walk (ignoring the yelling) they just about invariably went to sleep.

Angua - I remember those first growth spurts, DD feeding constantly & sometimes bobbing on & off whilst crying (although it's getting a bit hazy already at 5.5 mo). My mantra was "this too in time will pass" & it does too, although at the time it feels like forever.

FWIW, I had a great experience with both NCT general & breastfeeding classes (although I agree with Sydney, I was obsessed with surviving the birth). I meet up with the other mums every week and all 6 babies are still BF. The peer support this affords is invaluable. Our bf class instructor was great, even driving a 50 mile roundtrip for a home visit with one mum who had a colicky DD with a click whilst feeding.

MN has been a huge lifeline for me, so I recommended it highly when I was the "example" mum at our local NHS classes. The mw there did seem pretty good - eg telling mums that growth spurts did happen & to put baby to breast as often as needed then.

It's a small point but I've always been a bit confused by the idea that breastfeeding doesn't involve suction. How can this be? dd occasionally latches on to the wrong bit of breast and always leaves a big red suction mark (and then there are the cigarette butt post-feed nipples...)

Anyway, I have an awful lot of sympathy for the OP's point, and completely recognise some of the descriptions of near useless ante-natal bf classes. Of course you don't want to put people off breastfeeding with a catalogue of horror stories, but from my experience and from the stories on here, the balance just isn't right at the moment. We need to be better prepared for the possibility that things that can go wrong. And the old "it doesn't hurt if you're doing it right" line is just the worst when you're in agony, have tried everything, and are living in constant fear of the next feed.

Breastfeeding hurt with both of mine at the start.

DD1 was jaundiced and too sleepy to latch, I was basically told feed her or we will have to so I expressed for her. We always went breast then EBM top up and eventually got her onto the breast completely but it was hard work and it hurt for a few days (MN and LLL counsellor helped too).

DD2 was a natural born BFer we nicknamed her Dyson, I wouldn't say it was painful but the initial latch could be a bit toe curling but then it would calm down.

TBH this is what I has wished I had known first time around:

• it MAY hurt a little to start off with but check your latch, it should settle down quickly
• first couple of weeks can be rough but get over them and it quickly becomes easy
• master feeding lying down asap
• first few days after birth have baby on breast loads, helps to bring milk in quickly
• ignore relatives who have never breastfed but seem to know a lot about it
• lansinoh slap it on after every feed
• don't become obsessed with weight gain as long as baby is peeing and pooing a decent amount and seems fine they probably are

I agree with Angua too. I don't think antenatal classes should spend hours going over potential problems, but they should spend some time, just as they do with the potential problems that might occur during birth.

Also part of the problem I feel is that for second and subsequent children round here you don't get "top up" antenatal classes. I didn't want to sit through 6 weeks of mums expecting pfb's, but would have wanted to attend new bf class. If you lose confidence with first child then you can regain it in time for second then.

Angua - I agree with your opening statement.

At my ante-natal class (nhs) the midwife said that "you must protect the integrity of your nipples and not let them get cracked" - with no elaboration on how to do that, and that was it, except for telling us that newborns can feed for around 8hrs.

I have had a number of non-latch related problems and starting to feel like a bit of a hypochondriac, but it is only because of what I've read on mumsnet (and kellymom/hunker's site, both of which I found via mumsnet) that I have taken as much help and advice that I could. Most mums I know are struggling through breastfeeding problems without going out and getting good help, and some have given up before they wanted to because of problems that I've seen resolved via mumsnet threads.

I can see why health professionals don't want to tell pregnant woment that breastfeeding is/can be difficult and painful, but maybe they should place much more emphasis on the fact that it is normal to experience difficulties, and new mothers should seek help before they become insurmountable.

I wonder if part of the problem is that it is not absolutely clear what the NHS ante-natal bf classes are actually for: ie. whether the purpose is to help women to breastfeed, or whether it is to encourage them to breastfeed. There is of course a place for both, but they are two different things. I went in to my class expecting it to be about help, but actually it was far more about encouragement - a lot of discussion of the advantages of breastfeeding and no discussion of possible problems even when these were raised by the participants.

Suction - yes, I can understand the confusion. The baby doesn't really remove the milk by suction (in fact the physics of it all are still not fully understood or agreed on) in the way you suction a drink up through a straw. And if you try to remove your breast mid-suck, it could hurt (mainly because the baby compresses the nipple, not because of suction, though).

When nipple skin is broken , or grazed, and painful, it's not because of suction - it's because the skin has been compressed by the tongue against the hard palate or against the hard gums. Getting more breast into the mouth (done with a wide mouth, and the tongue down and forward, and the baby tipping his head back a bit so the gape is w...i...d...e) avoids this.

Some people do get sore and there is no obvious reason for it, I know.

Thinking back , although I nver went to an NCT ante natal class - I went to the NHS ones run at the manternity hospital, so obviously cannot comment on the NCT way of doing it - the coverage of breastfeeding at the "standard" class was very basi and really just went into the benefits (and showed a fiml about how Norway has for breastfeeding rates back up).

it was only at the "extra" workshop that I went to that I got any real sense of waht was involved - but only committed (to the idea at least) breast feeders would go to them

ITs been very interesting to read the comments, and helpful to see that others have had the same experience as me.

I am pretty sure my little boy is hungry, as he can indicate well when full, and previously was eating for 20 mins every two hours.

Currently he is eating for up to an hour plus and leaving less than an hour between.

He is going to sleep later and waking up earlier as well. Which I am pretty sure is down to hunger.

WRT to the wider point. I am not saying that breastfeeding classes should be all doom and gloom, they just shouldn't make us feel like we are failing if its not easy.

I am also stund by how overwhelming it can be when he eats constantly, something I was certainly not prepared for.

It's funny, I met up with a friend today who I met through antenatal classes (our dd's are now 2), and we were talking about just this. Our antenatal class teacher refused to acknowledge that any part of birth, b'feeding or having a newborn baby would be a problem. In fact when I went back pregnant with dd2, everyone else was pregnant with number one, and I was warned against talking about the bad bits (of which there were many!), which meant asking for help with b'feeding dd2 was rather difficult

I agree that so much emphasis is put on encouraging mum's to b'feed, and therefore not put anyone off by talking about problems, that a lot of women have no idea that it could be difficult. If I remember rightly everyone in my class said that they wanted to b'feed, so we probably needed practical advice (like where to go if there were difficulties)rather than encouragement to do it in the first place.

Also, had I known what decent b'feeding advice was, I might have known to ask for help when I got crap advice at the hospital.Mind you I have only been told once 2 years later that it is not right to experience pain throughout an entire feed, and whilst expressing - and that was here on Mumsnet - if only I'd asked for advice from here at the time!

Hazyjane

Nearly every mother I know wanted to breastfeed, yet the majority are bottle feeding. Its all gone wrong somewhere, and its definatly not that they didn't get the "breast is best" message.

It seems to me that its mostly because they simply weren't prepared for the problems, thought that this meant they were no good at it and gave up.

Wheras a realistic explanation meant they could have made an informed choice, and might have had more chance of sticking to it.

This thread has really struck a chord with me.

I gave bf'ing DS2 a go and only managed just over a week of it before giving up.
I asked my midwife and the HV etc for advice and help and was told by them (as I was told in antenatal classes) that it shouldnt hurt if the latch was correct. The latch was checked several times and was fine, DS2 was getting milk and was putting on weight but I was in AGONY! I was bleeding and red raw and in tears every feed.
If people had honestly said that pain is normal and is better after x time on average then that would have given me more encouragement to carry on. As it was I was told that it shouldnt be painful and it was 'odd' that I was experiemcing the pain etc so I had no prospect of it getting any better it seemed and felt like there was something 'wrong' with me and that I just wasnt able to do it properly.

I really do think that this lack of honesty is one of the reasons why there is a bit of tension sometimes between FF'ers and BF'ers.
When I felt like I'd 'failed' at bf'ing and was faced with other mums bf'ing at nct groups and other groups I felt a bit defensive about it (completely irrationaly of course). I sometimes feel the same way when I see posts saying 'everyone should at least try to bf' or 'i went through this, this and this and still managed it so theres no reason others cant' which are both valid, but rightly or wrongly, these kinds of posts bring back those feelings of failure.
I just think that if I had known more about what to expect before hand and at the time then I might have given it a better shot (through being better informed) or else I would have stopped bf'ing feeling more confident that I gave it my best shot and had made the right decision to stop.
If any of that makes sense lol

AnguaVonUberwald - I started a thread about this very issue soon after I joined Mumsnet.

You could say that the antenatal classes (mine anyway, which weren't NCT) take the same approach with b/f as with labour ie lead women to believe they can breath their way through labour so they won't worry too much. By the time they find out the truth it'll be too late and they'll have to deal with it.

The trouble is, unlike labour, b/f lasts rather more than 24 hours and you do have a choice as to how to deal with it. Many women (not all) will decide that the trauma and pain of b/f is too much, become disillusioned and move to bottles. Or women who are experiencing problems that could be resolved will assume (like me) that it's them at fault for "doing it wrong".

Having said all that, a few months after I started my thread on the subject I looked back again at the literature I'd been given (by my MW, not at the antenatal class). I found in hindsight that many of the articles did talk about the problems I'd experienced, but I obviously did not pick up on this at the time. So, to an extent, I had approached the subject with rose-tinted spectacles myself.

I posted too soon. I meant to conclude by saying that this is an argument for much better support and information to be available to all b/f women. Because with the best will in the world, most women aren't going absorb detailed information about breastfeeding prior to giving birth.

Angua, have you read kellymom about cluster feeding?

At around 10 wks my DD used to feed from about 5pm-11pm. Constantly. It was a phase and it passed, but at the time I thought it would go on forever.

breastfeeding workshops after the baby is born is the most useful I find, cos I'm always facing a new issue. I hope there is one in your area, your mws should know if there are. wish there were more of these. you even get a cup of tea!

I'd agree. You know I was never even told about the special b/f room in the hospital. I only found out when we went back for help a few days after I went home.

"I honestly think that the reason so few people I know are breastfeeding is that because the health professionals want you to breast feed so badly they.."

I'm not sure about this. It seems to be some women's experience. But for many of the women I know it could just as easily be:

"I honestly think the reason so few people I know are breastfeeding is because the health professionals want you to formula feed so badly they...

... push formula on you at every opportunity; baby gaining slowly? Top up. Big baby? Oh you'll never make enough milk. Top up. Need ADs? Oh you simply can't bf on them, give formula. Mastitis? Stop bfing, give formula. Baby six months old? Stop bfing give formula. Baby unsettled? Stop bfing give formula"

... and so on and so forth. Think it really depends on which health care professional you get.

Just wish they (any HCP involved in infant / paediatric / mother care) could all be fully trained in bf support and all sing from the same hymn sheet.

Agree with OP.

I find poor info on pain/cluster feeding/perception that not enough milk are the main reason women start the odd bottle feeds that lead to mix feeding and eventually to quickly stop BF altogether.

We can take the truth. We should be better informed about sleep deprivation and the fact that BF is a full time job the first few weeks and pain/cluster feeding very common/likely but only transitory.

Angua, go to postnatal BF support groups. They do help.

When I first started BFing and was out of my mind with pain and frustration, all I wanted was for the 'official' literature to acknowledge the pain I was feeling. It didn't. If it hadn't been for forums with real people describing their real pain (and giving me an idea of when it was likely to get better) I don't know what I'd have done.

As it is, I've continued until 14 months with no formula/bottles, loved it and wish I could carry on (very sadly weaning to TTC).

Yes, it did hurt for me for about 4 weeks, then it became easier and improved with time. I used nipple cream all the time, cabbage leaves and cool packs on my nipples. I changed feeding position with every feed, tried new ways to latch so no one part was getting sooked too much. And Yes my dd fed almost non-stop some days and I'd usually find these went in turn with a growth spurt.

But But But....as much as I got frustrated and worried about her not getting enough she was still gaining weight and she always looked healthy.

BF can be so wearing when your feeding all the time and I don't blame you for getting so angry about the many people out there who are not able to get a true understanding of how you feel.

I was told that it might hurt but I think if someone had said I was going to have bleeding nipples it wouldv'e scarred the s**t out of me.

Hang in there, your doing really well.

Oh and the best thing for your nips is fresh are, so let them all hang out, it feels fabulous.

vesela, I had to stop bf to ttc as well. Had been ttcing for a year with no joy so had to stop, even thought I would have preferred to carry on. I was pg within 2 months of stopping, though!