if you chose not to breastfeed, why?

[thisisyesterday]

a genuine question. I can't imagine not wanting to breastfeed, and am honestly interested to know why other people don't want to. and partly because I am going to train as a LLL leader and want insight into this kind of stuff

is there anything anyone could have said or done that may have changed your mind?

do you regret not doing it now?

do you/did you believe that breast is best, but formula is an adequate replacement?

I realise that there is a distinct possibility of this becoming heated, but I am not posting it just to get people upset or anything. would be nice if we could discuss nicely, no?

Hi Thisisyesterday.

DD2 is only just over 3 weeks - early days I know. I saw a breastfeeding counsellor at the clinic. She said the latch was wrong...although previous HV/midwives and MIL (a breast feeding counsellor from the 70s!!) all said it was superb. It certainly felt great - nipples were holding up well, she's been gaining great weight.

Apparently the latch was wrong because I wasn't nose-to-nipple. She showed me how - and it was agony! but she said I was now doing it right! I kept saying it really hurt but she said it couldn't be!! I've carried on with it through the night and now I have huge sores on both nipples through rubbing and pulling Can't use Lanisoh as I'm weirdly allergic to Lanolin!

Not sure what to do now...as on top of constant feeding i've now got extreemly painful nipples which I didn't have to start with

No one there wanted to discuss anything other than 'the latch' as though it was the panacea for all BF ills. I think there must be more to it than that.....or maybe I'm wrong

Just wanted to say that I've read back all these posts and find it so comforting to hear such honesty. As I'm in the throws of finding it so difficult...especially with a small dd1 who just wants her mummy...it's so reasurring to find I'm not just some wuss, who can't get it right or hack the pace !

I bf DD1 for a year. I am now in the process of giving up bfeeding with DD2 who is 8 weeks old.

I dislike bfeeding a lot, and only perservered with DD1 because when I eventually tried to give her a bottle at 4mths, she flat out refused. DD2 takes a bottle fine and so will be gradually switched over to FF.

I've had loads of great support to carry on BF, but I don't like it because I have very flat nipples and find it very hard to get the baby latched on. With much practice I have achieved a decent latch, but it requires me to sit in a position that leaves no hands free, does my back in, and gives me repetitive strain syndrome in my wrists. I can't ever get the baby latched on well when I'm not at home with a thousand cushions etc. Thus bfeeding holds none of the "convenience" for me at all - it's actually easier to give a bottle.

I know BF is best, and feel bad about stopping this time around. But it is making me depressed and destroying my relationship with my 2 year old. DD2 is also not gaining much weight.

jeanjeannie, "I saw a breastfeeding counsellor at the clinic" Are you sure this is a genuine breastfeeding counsellor, rather than a NHS worker ? Their advice doesn't seem that helpful.

jeanjeannie: pain is the body's way of saying something is wrong, go back to how you were feeding because it sounds like there wasn't a problem in the first place.

jeanjeannie go with what works, i don't understand how everyone gets the same advice and it works! your nipples and baby's mouth are unique.

the reasons I nearly gave up breastfeeding, little one 13weeks now and still going

the several different midwifes who just shoved his head at my breast,repeated nose to nipple angle of the dangle slogans.

the fact the maternity ward had hard plastic chairs or your bed with one pillow so it was impossible to get comfy.

reasons i didn't; stubberness, supportive partner and being able to express whilst sorting out the breastfeeding.Mumsnet of course.

I do think the antenatal advice is pants i have a dvd from my midwife which although showing real women made it look as if it was instinctive and very very easy. Thus making me think there was something wrong with me when it wasn't easy. Also the emphasis on getting it RIGHT rather than what is right for you and your baby.They certainly shy away from telling you that you will mainly be feeding your lo for the foreseeable future.

Hi babieseverywhere...I honestly don't know if she's an NHS worker although she is very well respected here in NHS/NCT & LLL circles. I saw her before when DD1 was in special care for help expressing for her tube feed and I found her helpful so went back. Felt very patronised this time...all seemed slapdash...as much to say, well the latch now looks text book, so dismiss the pain. Didn't seem helpful to me either!

Tinkerbellesmum..We're going to go back to previous technique. Like you, I'm assuming pain means something is wrong. Shall try a sling to sort out the whole demanding, crying, feeding thing. Hope sling buying doesn't escalate into a serious fetish like my cloth nappy passion

I make my own, it helps then I can just pass them onto friends and make my money back, so I get loads of free slings!

haven't read the whole thread but tbh i think that if people don't want to bf then no-one should be quizzing them about why... and the reason i think that?

well, i can't remember the figs exactly but it's something like 80% of women start bfing and only 20% are still doing it at 6 weeks.

seems to me if you're a support worker (volunteer, whatever), that's your audience. help those poor bastards out, they chose to bf and it didn't work out.

leave the 20% in peace and longer-term as the others normalise the sight and practise of bfing, the 20% will start to challenge their own thinking. because i really do think it's a given that as new mums we just want to do our best for our kids... it's just that our bests may be different given our life experience and expectation.

if you're a bfing supporter... support bfers, there are plenty out there who need it.

i tried breastfeeding but within a few days I had cracked bleeding nipples, it bloody hurt and my dd wouldn't feed as she didn't like the blood in her mouth. So I went onto formula. Tried keeping up the breast feeding but I think I dried up pretty quickly.

What really pissed me off was being told that it was dd's fault for not 'latching on' - rubbish. There also needs to be a more realistic honest apprasial from those promoting breastfeeding for eg 'the first couple of weeks might be a bit difficult but just keep on trying'. instead i found the almost universal attitude was 'you WILL breast feed, it doesn't really hurt'.

that really put me off because it did bloody hurt.

Obviously breast milk is best but clearly formula milk is a perfectly adequate substitute. I think the evangelical breast feeders (like most evangelicals) do their cause more harm than good because they are going to turn the uncertain ones like me into those who don't want to breast feed anymore.

It shouldn't hurt and you should expect help if it does from your MW and HV that doesn't include giving top-ups. Of course when done right there can be some discomfort, like when you go to the gym for the first time, but toe curling pain is generally indicative of a problem. It wasn't your DD's fault, it was the HCPs around you who should have given you the support you needed.

I do get evangelical about BFing, but I think I direct it where it's due, at the health profession that's failing mothers and making it's own failure into the mothers failure.

I haven't time to read the whole thread just now. However, I did see a link recently that showed the benefits of bf for 1 month, 2 months etc. I think this might be a good thing to give out to pregnant women. If they could see that some of the benefits of bf come in the first few days with the colostrium they might be encouraged to give it a go - even if it doesn't work they will still have the benefits of that.

Didn't BF either of mine but wouldn't say it was an active 'choice' - certainly not with number one. I fully intended to breast feed but it simply didn't work - despite five days in hospital with midwife support and hours of tears and guilt. Part of the problem was that all ante natal classes etc were very gung-ho on the subject. I remember one woman getting her head chewed off by our ante-natal midwife when she dared to ask whether it was possible for a woman to be unable to breast feed. Consequently there was no discussion of the real problems which (a minority) of new mothers might face - for example I had no idea that I had 'flat' nipples (which certainly didn't help in those first few days). With a bit more open discussion I might have been alerted to this and worked on getting them 'perkier' in the months before I gave birth! In the end I expressed for four weeks but even then produced only dribbles of milk and ended up so distressed about the whole thing that I gave up and went full time onto formula.

I was fully aware of 'breat is best' etc which to be honest only made the whole experience even more upsetting.

With dd I was game to try again but had a spectacular PPH shortly after her birth, ended up in intensive care, then got a spectacular infection and was seriously ill for the first three weeks of her life. By the time I got out of hospital any milk I had was pretty much gone. I didn't have the heart to try and get it started again - and rather than risk the same misery I went through trying to feed ds I kept her on formula.

Spero - I had cracked/bleeding/sore nipples accompanied by the toe-curling pain with all 9 of mine. By the end of the first 2 weeks things were usually settling down although with 2 of them it took 4 to 6 weeks. I don't think that beyond the first or even second baby it was anything to do with me not knowing how to latch a baby on. I do think that some of the babies it took time for them to learn how to do it properly. But mostly I think it was my nipples that needed to get used to a suckling baby.

I'm not posting this to look like a martyr or whatever. I'm posting because like Spero, I do think that mothers should be told and be aware that for some it is nothing that they are doing wrong. It isn't the latch or anything else and if they just ride it out for a while it will resolve.

With my first baby I received lots of encouragement from a lovely community midwife which got me through those first 2 painful weeks. This set me up for future babies in that I knew it was normal to hurt etc and kept going until it passed.

A baby is born with the ability not only to latch on, but to crawl to the breast and latch on without any help. If allowed to do this they will go on to be able to nurse successfully.

However, any interruption in the process can change that. A medicated birth, being taken from the mother straight away to be messed with, not being given the opportunity etc will all stop it happening and could cause problems later.

I wonder how many people have even heard of breast crawl, let alone been asked if they want to try it or even had a birth that would facilitate breast crawl.

Not that I'm saying you can't successfully breastfeed without it, most women in this country don't have the option, I didn't even see my daughter for five hours and we're still going - it can happen! But we (as a country, not as mothers) do seem to put barriers in place sometimes and make being a mother a lot harder than it needs to be.

My babies didn't breast crawl but they latched on immediately and went on to successfully bf. In our case, I don't think that allowing them to breast crawl would have made any difference to the outcome of painful experiences I had feeding them in the early weeks.

My daughter was put to my breast almost as soon as she came out (by c section). She started sucking right away and it was fine. But within days I was bleeding. this must happen to lots of people. maybe i was very naive but I found it really frightening and painful. To see blood in my daughter's mouth was horrible. And then to pick up a carton of ready made formula and to read ... breast milk is best for your baby...

Way to go encouraging the breast feeding!

Tip to all professionals involved in this. Be honest. Be realistic. encourage and praise. don't bang on about how mother's who don't breast feed are doing their children a disservice because, believe me that doesn't help. Perversely, made me less keen to keep trying.

It's impossible to know what would have made a difference when you look at things retrospectively.

Er...no.
It would have made a huge difference if the HV could have said 'it can be difficult but keep trying, the first few weeks are the worst'.

Instead i was just told it was dd's fault for not latching on properly and that was the reason nipples were cracked.

Er...no. that was the thrush.

Psychologically, it made a BIG difference to me to be told I HAD to do something that I was finding painful and difficult. Turned me right off.

Do you genuinely think that letting them breast crawl would have saved me the pain, etc. of the early weeks? I really don't see how. Most of them I just held to the breast and they latched themselves on anyway. So I'm wondering what the difference would have been in letting them crawl up to the breast themselves.

Spero - that's what helped me through with my first. My midwife reassured me that it was normal for it to be painful for some mothers but that it would pass. She just referred to it as if it was a fact, was very sympathetic and encouraged me to persevere. As I said before, I think it was due to her that I was prepared with subsequent babies.

apologies if stomping on anyone's deeply held beliefs but this 'if the baby crawls to the breast he/she will nurse successfully' just sounds like a big pile of bollox.

What on earth does that have to do with anything? My baby didn't crawl to the breast but she latched on successfully within minutes of coming out. I then got thrush and was a freaked out first time mother. Can't say i found anyone in the hospital/hv remotely helpful.

so I didn't breastfeed.

I think these views that if you had only done X Y or Z then you'd have been 'successful' are of very limited help. We just need encouragement to get thru the rough bits, not constant lecturing about 'breast being best'. I don't think there is a mother alive who doesn't know that, but you have the counter point 'formula milk does a reasonably good job and your baby won't starve'.

juuule - wish I'd had your midwife! Maybe I'm being pathetic but i just wanted someone to say 'o you poor thing, you are trying, keep it up it will get better'

NOT 'you WILL breast feed, its only hurting because you're not doing it properly'

I'm sure I said that it's possible to be successful without doing it, my daughter was 17 days old before she was breastfed, I didn't see her till she was 5 hours old as I had a GA and a CS, so obviously I don't have any "deeply held belief" that it has to be done. What I was saying is it is how a baby is programmed to start their life, when we put barriers we have to do things differently.

There is a lot of research into breast crawl which we went into on my course, I'd have to go googling, which I don't have time to do now to give you links.

And no, you don't know what could have been done differently to make things better, no one can know that. No one person has all the answers and if you had met someone different they would have had different ideas. If a HV can't help a mother carry on feeding her baby after thrush I wouldn't hold much faith in her.

TBM you said "A baby is born with the ability not only to latch on, but to crawl to the breast and latch on without any help. If allowed to do this they will go on to be able to nurse successfully."

I interpreted this to mean that it is your view that breast crawling = success in breast feeding.

Sorry if I misinterpreted.

however, this is the not the first time that I've queried something on mumsnet and got the response - the truth is out there, but I haven't got the time to tell you where it is..

But would be interested to know of any peer reviewed, replicated research that supports importance given to 'breast crawl'.