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?

The video is the same on youtube as on the website, I never said that it was my link I was referring to. The website is the official one which includes a scientific study amongst other things.

Oh poohbah, now you tell me about the four days! Useless! lol. No one even told me that.

The sad thing is that on the second night in the hospital, ds was redfaced and screaming. i was clearly shattered after being in labour for one night, ds screaming the next night, so this was my 3rd night with no sleep. I rang the buzzer to get a midwife and told her that my ds was hungry and getting more and more distressed. She just looked at me and said 'well, what do you want me to do about it?' in a rather harsh and snappy tone. I wanted to cry. Some of the student midwives were very helpful but not many. I felt so so alone as most of the mums on my ward had opted to formula feed so had settled sleepy babies.

It was awful and I just remember looking at my newborn, fragile little boy screaming and feeling so helpless. No body cared, nobody helped all that night until the next shift change at 7am. It still makes me cry now!

I think bf is great, I just don't think I could put myself or another baby through that and the following months of doubting myself and being scared everytime my baby cried.

why DOES it take so long for milk to come in, does anyone know? it seems to be a major design flaw... have baby, can't feed baby for daaaaaays.

Babies can go for days without the first feed anyway, so it's not a problem to them. I think a lot of it is interruption of the normal processes. Medicated birth or CS, taking baby away from mum straight away to clean and take measurements, not letting mum and baby bed together etc because it stops or slows the release of essential hormones and they have to be built up a lot slower than if they were allowed to happen naturally. IYSWIM

why do they cry their little arses off, then?

I wonder if they are just generally cross at being born rather than hungry, and until the milk comes in it;s mostly the sucking that soothes them?

but that really doesn't seem to be the case for a lot of mums, that the baby is soothed by sucking alone. (mine, i should point out, hardly woke up and that's why the nurses were worrying, so it's eachy-peachy).

but there were babies who had just been born who did look and sound ravenous to me... why design them to make noises like that if they're actually not hungry, iykwim?

presumably so we put them to the boob...

I don't really know tbh. Do other animals make colostrum? What do they do till their milk comes in?

aitch, the noise triggers a response in your glands (your pituitary produces the prolactin and oxycitin hormones that bring in milk) but for the first 2d the glands are too busy producin painkillers and anaesthetic.

sure, lis, but why can't they just come out of the womb with a remote control and click the milk on? this crying and being made to wait business is NOT an efficient system, and absolutely one that is ripe for misinterpretation.

lol

and the colstrum is designed to make the baby suckle harder in order to kick start the pituatary because of its lower calorie content. (just beenwriting assignment on this for A&P)

but agree a switch would be fab!

Only in today's society of "there's a problem, must fix it". In other cultures they just go with it. I was talking to a Scottish lady in Menorca who was saying her sister (also on the island) was told not to worry about baby being hungry for the first 48 hours and no one worried about her crying, it's just what they do.

The crying helps stimulate the milk, but as I said before, if the normal processes aren't interfered with the milk comes in quicker.

nope, i'm not buying it. we're programmed not to like the noise of screaming babies, as humans, it's not just about our misbegotten society. It Is Not A Good System.

Colostrum comes in tiny amounts at a time.

I'm not saying people wouldn't have/don't put the baby to the breast, it's important they do and that's why they respond to the crying. What I am saying is if the milk isn't coming in it's not seen as a big problem. But often it's the natural processes being interrupted as well.

i know exactly what you're saying, i just don't think it's very clever. when you consider all the magnificent things our bodies do without missing a beat (say... hearts for example), bfing is ludicrously fragile regardless of where you are from and always has been (witness infant mortality, pap etc).

and don't get me started on eyes, ffs. WHY are so many people wearing specs? another rubbish system.

i don't mean clever of you btw, i mean clever design.

I posted this message on an identical thread in Feb 2007, and it still holds true.

Ok

This post may be misunderstood. Please read it to the end.

When I was pregnant with ds1, I knew I was not going to breastfeed. I had never in my life seen anyone breastfeeding, but had made formula up for my younger sister's bottles many many times.

The concept of breastfeeding was utterly alien to me. It was something for middle class mums in their thirties, with planned babies and husbands and mortgages and a lady who 'does' and a detatched house. What the hell had it got to do with a non married, unplanned pregnancy, homeless 22 year old? Nothing. That's not, in my experience, what single young homeless pregnant women plan.

Why, I thought, would I want to squeeze bodily fluid out of a part of my body and shove it down my precious baby's throat. Breast feeding repulsed me. Breast milk repulsed me. Whenever my nipples leaked colostrum, I had to wash my breasts and change my (permenent fixture) breast pad. I was disgusted with my body for taking over my life in this way, for not doing as I wanted, for getting in my way. I wanted to take the pregnancy off and hang it over the bannister until I could have the baby. My swollen breasts were a symbol of everything I hated about my life at the time. I hated them, and I certainly didn't want the revolting things anywhere near my precious baby. So I bottle fed him, very happily.

Of course, I had PND after the borth, but in the circumstances, PND was probably just a case of when, rather than if.

Fast forward to ds2. Pregnany was traumatic, as some here may recall. Perfectly healthy pregnancy, practically insane mother.

But this time, I was a little more clued up on breast feeding. I wanted to try to do it. I had finally brought myself to a point where I wasn't frightened to try new things.

Unfortunatly, by the time Ds2 was born, I had had to start a course of antidepressants, and had been prescribed (although refused to take) tranquillisers. In the delivery room, straight after the birth, the midwife asked me how I intended to feed. "Um, breast" I tentatively sqeaked.

She asked me about my medication. Disappeared to talk to someone, came back and told me I had to stop takintg the pills, or I couldn't breastfeed. I asked her to double check, she went of and came back 10 minutes later, and said again. No.

So ds2 has also been raised on the bottle, and that one hurt. That one really hurt, because I made that decision on what was best for %me. I would have become very very ill if I came off those pills - but ds2 could have had pure, unadulterated breastmilk, which I wanted him to have. But....

Doesn't he also deserve a well mummy? Should ds1, who was never breastfed, have to suffer a miserable and withdrawn mother for the sake of ds2's breastmilk, which is an advantage ds1 never had?

I made the decision and while I what outraged at myself, I was secretly relieved, too. I had been let off the hook by my own uselessness.

colditz, what if anything could someone have said to your 22 year old self to encourage you? (because i personally feel it's not really where people should be devoting their energies)

because if i had one iota more presure i might have had a nervous breakdown. the whole baby years were very traumatic for me

it leaves me in much dismay that there cannot be any understanding that some mums just can't cope. and the depths of what that statement means. = its a little more than ...i havent managed to get roun to the breakfast dishes - and more like - i reall hate my children.

"I will come round to your house and live with you for 6 months so you can sleep whenever you want. I will also ensure you have a good income and that your partner gets a job, so you don't have to worry about going back to work when your baby is 7 weeks old. I will staple your ignorant mother's mouth shut, I will make it so your father won't be too embarrassed to set foot through the door, and I will make it a socially acceptable thing to do amongst your peers. I will tell you exactly what the right thing is to do all the time - you need not put your faith utterly in the scales, and I will assure you that your medication for post natal depression need not stop you breastfeeding."

that's what someone could have said - but nobody ever will. My point is, the reasons for not breastfeeding are as varied and complex as people themselves.

so... nothing really. i do hope the OP is listening, because imo the story of your second child makes the point that sometimes people need to be left alone because they have their own journey to make. given that there are women crying out for good bfing support i don't really get the fixation about women who don't want to. leave them in peace, imo.

Agree. Leave them in peace. Help the women who want to breastfeed and have people on at them to stop, myths and bottles at the ready, desperate for a hint of unsettled baby, so they can make undermining comments about breastmilk and breastfeeding and ability to nourish your newborn and just generally be utterly nuisance-tastic.

If these people are health professionals, refuse them access to your baby and find someone pro-bf. Preferably hook up with someone before your baby's born - find out what local breastfeeding support groups there are, your local bf counsellor (or at least the national numbers), etc.

If, however, they are relatives making these comments, you can always lay a new patio - they don't have to be above it.

Aitch, you ask why breastfeeding is a flawed system....and fragile. It isn't. Breastfeeding is actually physiologically very robust, but socially and culturally fragile.

Look at the misinformation on this thread - women who were not told their milk might take more than 3 days to come in; women who were not permitted (!!!) to breastfeed because of spurious reasons; women who were badly supported, if at all, through a crisis which left them too traumatised to try again with a subsequent child...etc etc etc.

Babies do not usually need to have large volumes of milk until the milk comes in (any time between day 2 and day 5, usually). They are designed to be content with small volumes of colostrum and to be close to their mothers, skin to skin, day and night. Anything that interferes with any of this will disturb that system - it won't destroy it, but it can destroy the mother's confidence, and you can certainly kiss goodbye to bf if that happens

Birth interventions (which may of course be necessary)can leave babies in a poor condition to start breastfeeding. Separation of mother and baby ditto. If a baby is screaming and screaming inconsolably in the first few days, and will not be comforted by being skin to skin with mum, then something's up - not with the milk supply, usually, but with the attachment, or the baby's post-birth recovery (forceps, ventouse, effects, for instance). Sometimes, babies are roughly handled when being offered the breast by a midwife and this can turn the baby off.

I tend to agree with you, by the way, about breastfeeding support being best offered to people who want to have it! If someone really does not want to bf, then of course they should be offered the chance to talk about it, but if they're sure it's not for them, leave it there.

i did not choose to bf ds as was really uncomfortable with the idea with a baby on my breast, bad i know butat least i am honest and i was just young and folish.
my had dd i now regretted bf so tried with dd but she never attahed i did try my best but think she was having trouble as my boobs were so big. in the end i gave up
i was worried what she was taking was enough and was ore wingy