I HATE all this pussyfooting around!

[pandaface]

Iv just read a post about someones ff story, and have also commented on it.
Why are people so scared to say, "Well, at least try bf, its the best you can do for your baby."

Instead of all this "Is a mothers right to chose how to feed."
Well, yes, but it isnt the babies choice to be raised on powdered cows milk, compared to the PERFECT milk that is breastmilk.

Yes, sometimes its hard, and downright painful, but surely, as mothers, its something we should EXPECT to have to do? Motherhood isnt easy, so why is feeding the first thing people skimp on effort with?

Aitchywooooo! I like being a specpimp. I also love my new Kenzos.

congrats on both counts, UD.

Congratulations UD! And thanks for the link - I hadn't seen that. I'll link it to my NCT's yahoo group and see if anyone wants to organise anything local (I'm not one of life's organisers I'm afraid!)

I don't know if my presence would be much use though as I'm not currently bf.

I just think that the way our culture approaches the whole issue of feeding - the way first and formost we empasise 'choice', is wrong.

We can have a choice of course - but why do ALL infant feeding materials emphasise FIRST AND FOREMOST that you don't have to breastfeed....? and that it's fine if you don't. This is a really big bug bear of mine. I have a habit of dipping into popular parenting manuals whenever I go into Waterstones. I go straight to the bit on feeding and what do I find? Every time? 1) 1) The writer pays brief lip service to the 'benefits' of breastfeeding. 2) The writer refers to breastfeeding failure - usually not giving any figures 3) The writer acknowledges the importance of being able to choose not to breastfeed and 4) The writer says that formula is 'nutritionally complete' and that your baby will be fine if they're not breastfed.

It's almost like there's a template for discussing how a baby is fed - and that template puts choice and breastfeeding failure at the centre of the discussion. The baby is somewhere out there on the margins.

They're being sensitive sabire, so as not to offend anyone

Actually, Sabire, everything i've read (including infant formula tins) says that breastfeeding is the best nutrition for the first 6 months. Formula is nutrionally complete, and babies will be "fine" if they have that instead of breastmilk (incorrect preparation and dairy intolerances etc aside).

It is important to be able to choose to breastfeed - but i think it's important to make an informed choice. There is so much muddiness around the issue of infant feeding - not helped by the formula companies' advertising information and the refusal of most MW's to even discuss formula - that it's virtually impossible to make an informed decision based on what's readily available to the average first time mother. It takes digging around a bit, or going to Baby Cafes, or on sites like this to get a fully informed decision.

Congratulations UD!!!! (tis MrsC btw)

I bought this months copy of M&B magazine. One of the features mentioned on the cover: "Secrets of breastfeeding success". The feature starts with a full page picture of a baby at the breast - really, really badly latched on - you can see that the baby is just sucking on the nipple and doesn't have a mouthful of breast.It's a 7 page feature and there are four pictures of breastpumps - one on each page. The feature finishes with a mum talking about her experience of breastfeeding: "Mixed feeding was best for me" in which the mum talks about getting off to a really bad start in hospital - bleeding nipples, crying baby, mastitis etc. A HV 'insists' she feeds through the mastitis and the mum feels 'useless and depressed'. One night she calls the out of hours midwife as she is in tears. The midwife comes around and listens to her cry, then sends her husband out for some formula. "it was like she'd waved a magic wand', and 'I finally began to bond with my son'.

So there you go - what a great message to give bf mums...... No comment on why this mum had had problems, no comment on a different and more skilled approach to helping her with her problems that might have enabled her to carry on exclusively breastfeeding her baby - which is probably what she'd wanted to do in the first place.

In the magazine as a whole there are about 8 full page adverts for formula, plus literally dozens of adverts for bottles.

Other than in the bf feature, there are no pictures of babies at the breast. There is almost no mention of breastfeeding anywhere else in the magazine. There are no references to babies over 6 months being breastfed at all.

There is one feature on boosting your 'tot's' immunity, which points out (as number 6 in the list - after getting him to sleep well, keeping him active, getting him socialising, giving him vegetables and fruit, not smoking around him) that the mum can 'carry on breastfeeding'. Oddly though, while the rest of the article clearly refers to older babies (and is illustrated with a picture of a toddler), the text under the heading 'carry on breastfeeding' only refers to breastfeeding for the first six months and points out that 'even if you only breastfeed for the first few days you're still giving your baby a healthy start' and 'it's essential to get as much help as you need, especially in the early days'.

Honestly - I despair.

What is particularly vile about this namechanger coward is that this OP was originally posted on this thread.

I have my own suspicions about her actual motivation for posting her comments first on the flubdub's thread then starting a whole new thread based on her 'ideas'.

If this person is as naive about the breast and bfing debate as per MN, why in the world namechange? Either a coward or an attempt to inflame troll.

Maybe we should start a thread about why some bf mums are so fucking smug and sanctimonious - I'm quite new to mn but have really noticed it.

I'm bf but don't think me or my dd are any better than my friends who are ff. There is soooooooooo much more to being a good mum (reading to children, cuddles, support etc) and to be honest I think it just another way to bash women. We have to be clever, educated, independent, have a good career and now we are lambasted if we don't becaome uber mums who bf. AND it's women criticising other women. I sometimes think we are our own worst enemy.

Congratulations UD

fab news!

Off you fuck sally.

Christ on a bike. Why do people start these insensitive threads? If I would have read this a couple of years ago it would have tipped me right over the edge. I know breast is best. I fully intended to bf my first baby. There were no major issues with the birth (it wasn't a barrel of fun but . . ) She latched on immediately, I didn't shoot off the bed in pain or horror. Great I thought. Baby then sleeps for a good 4 hours and the cycle is repeated for the hospital stay. MWs seeing this are happy to discharge without another single word. What I hadn't banked on is within another 48 hours my world would come crashing down. Every single time I fed horrible dark thoughts filled my head. I thought my poor dd was dying. There was no earthly reason to think this. This was not just baby blues. I woke up in the middle of the night from horrendous nightmares. I was in tears so so often with no-one to talk to. Finally DH bought some formula and bottles and we started mixed feeding. The despair lifted slightly, but didn't stop until I tore my stitches and had to be put on anti-biotics. My GP informed me I could no longer BF (I naively believed him maybe now I wouldn't but the past is the past). Once I was fully ff all of the horror and nightmares and tears literally stopped overnight. By the time I had dd2 I had made the decision to take it one day at a time, but sadly the same thing happened again. This time I stopped sooner with a little less guilt.
To this day when I see a mom BF I feel a little wistful, but not so guilty or full of grief.
I can assure you I did not scimp on the effort to BF.
Back then I didn't understand that it was not me failing, but some hormonal thing. maybe with a trained counseller I would have had more luck who knows I didn't know about it back then. But MWs I think need to realise and admit that BFing is not necessarily in their remit and give the advice to moms to find pro advice. More support is definately needed. In my case it may well have not made a difference.
What we don't need is people starting threads like these. Whatever the intention, the message to a hormonal and possibly guilt ridden mom anyway only comes out at you are a failure*. Which is NOT true.
Sorry for the mammoth post, but this really really does bother me.

sally, maybe you can take your 'so fucking smug and sanctimonious' self onto this thread where you will find "some bf mums are so fucking smug and sanctimonious"! as you have so kindly described are taking some of their private time, which they could be using to tidy the house or spend with their own children, to support a mother who has bottlefed one child and is currently mix feeding another one.

obviously you don't have a clue but i won't let you off the hook for that. stick around a while, you may get a clue one day.

(oh, sorry, it has already been linked to right before you posted!)

it is really interesting, i have never seen any of the breast feeding supportive Mnetters referring to bottle feeding mums with foul language and aggression, yet here they are being met with such disgusting language.

many of the breastfeeding mums who give their support here are well trained, well learned and well researched, many of breast buddies, peer supporters or breastfeeding counsellors, giving their time here, for other mothers.

we should be grateful for their unstinting support not calling them names.

what a disgrace

Sally, Do One.

I wholeheartedly support a woman's decision to BF/FF and will fight tooth and nail for them to be able to successfully and happily do either, I don't see that as smug and sanctimonious.

What I do see is a group of mothers that have enjoyed breastfeeding,that have been unable to breastfed due to awful advice or lack of support, that have gone through the trials and tribulations breastfeeding can bring and have found somewhere they can talk about this knowing they will be listened to, understood and helped, and then being able to pass that knowledge, support and help onto someone else.

I think that's called caring and considerate, not smug and sanctimonious.

congratulations UD!

Some women are smug and sanctimonious. Breastfeeding's often an incidental thing, ime.

Oh, and M&B magazine et al can't run the risk of pissing off their advertisers - yet another reason why formula ads should be banned - perhaps there'd be some decent articles about breastfeeding in baby mags then. I know various journalists who've had stuff rejected over the years for this reason.

"Maybe we should start a thread about why some bf mums are so fucking smug and sanctimonious - I'm quite new to mn but have really noticed it"

Oh goodness - I read this and had the weird sensation that I was back on the Bounty debate board (or 'dumbasswoman.com' as it's referred to by those of us in the know...)

"Oh, and M&B magazine et al can't run the risk of pissing off their advertisers"

True. And they're not the worst offenders by a long chalk.

Practical Parenting's coverage of bf and ff absolutely sucks. I reckon the editor had a typical 'alphamummy' birth and breastfeeding experience ie: 6 months of macrobiotic yoga pregnancy classes, followed by a hideous 48 hour labour ending in a traumatic c-section, in a consultant led unit of a large teaching hospital (where she'd gone in preference to a birth centre, just in case she needed an epidural), all this topped off by repeated bouts of mastitis and supply issues, caused by trying to follow a Gina Ford type routine..... She's been 'debriefing' through the pages of her magazine ever since....

Oh not you again, you were around a few months ago, and started exactly this thread.

These threads are boring. We see at least one a month. People feel obliged to come and tell you why they had no choice, how their choices were eroded, how their unique circumstances meant breastfeeding wasn't an option. After a few hundred of these posts, we finally settle on the "Everone is an individual, everyone's life has its own uniques strains and difficulties, and you cann't judge except from a point of at least partial ignorance.

And I'm sure you're not arrogant and dim enough to judge frm ignorance.

Sabire, I really like your posts on this thread, but can I talk about the magazine story you referred to below:

'The feature finishes with a mum talking about her experience of breastfeeding: "Mixed feeding was best for me" in which the mum talks about getting off to a really bad start in hospital - bleeding nipples, crying baby, mastitis etc. A HV 'insists' she feeds through the mastitis and the mum feels 'useless and depressed'. One night she calls the out of hours midwife as she is in tears. The midwife comes around and listens to her cry, then sends her husband out for some formula. "it was like she'd waved a magic wand', and 'I finally began to bond with my son'.

So there you go - what a great message to give bf mums...... No comment on why this mum had had problems, no comment on a different and more skilled approach to helping her with her problems that might have enabled her to carry on exclusively breastfeeding her baby - which is probably what she'd wanted to do in the first place.'

Now, I know a woman who had pretty much exactly this experience, and she and her husband did (and still do) feel that the HV was unhelpful to advise continued feeding through mastitis, and they both did/do feel very strongly that ff was absolutely the right way to go for them. I'm not saying that they are 'right' - my point is, they were very badly let down by the HCPs they saw. Until the breastfeeding infrastructure in this country is very much improved, parents like this really cannot be expected to suffer agonies of repeated mastitis with no professional help and advice other than 'you must feed through it'. (My friend is now happily bf-ing her second child.)

"Now, I know a woman who had pretty much exactly this experience, and she and her husband did (and still do) feel that the HV was unhelpful to advise continued feeding through mastitis, and they both did/do feel very strongly that ff was absolutely the right way to go for them. I'm not saying that they are 'right' - my point is, they were very badly let down by the HCPs they saw. Until the breastfeeding infrastructure in this country is very much improved, parents like this really cannot be expected to suffer agonies of repeated mastitis with no professional help and advice other than 'you must feed through it'. (My friend is now happily bf-ing her second child.)"

But that's EXACTLY the point. The advice and information the HV gave was COMPLETELY inadequate (although in saying you have to feed through mastitis she was right - if you stop outright you can make it even worse). And people are bound to feel that ff is 'absolutely the right way to go for them' if they're getting terrible advice and support that is making breastfeeding unbearable for them.

What the magazine could have done was find someone who'd had this experience and got APPROPRIATE and skilled help and talked about that instead. It would have been far more valuable to the women reading the magazine to know why some women get repeated bouts of mastitis, how mastitis is treated (focus on latch and positioning and locating the source of the problem, plus appropriate use of antibiotics), and at least given some indication that using formula as a response to breastfeeding problems is not always going to be the one and only answer. I do think it was irresponsible not to indicate SOMEWHERE in the article that using formula when you are struggling with breastfeeding SOMETIMES (actually often) results in breastfeeding failure.

It's like their primary agenda is to acknowledge that lots of people fail with breastfeeding, and to stop them feeling bad about it. It's very undermining.

their primary agenda is to make sure that the woman who bought her copy this month buys it again next month, so that they can take their circulation figs to advertising clients and make money.

because of the failure of HCPs in this matter, women who started bfing and failed to succeed in it are vastly in the majority, as are ffers by choice. magazines reflect their audience, believe me.

on two fronts, as a journalist and as someone who has regularly been mis-quoted on the subject of BLW, i know it to be true. do a search on BLW on the internet, you'll come up with loads of press requests on sites such as these looking for negative blw stories... because they operate on the basis that one good, one bad is balanced.

it's quite funny, though, when you see how hysterical the tone gets as the journalist continues to search for the negative and is met with loads of responses that are positive. as it was, the example i'm thinking of was reduced to using someone who didn't do BLW and had their baby choke on puree and who therefore wouldn't do BLW. i've had friends of mine submit 'weaning diaries' to which lines about choking and fear etc have just been added. for balance, you see. it didn't need to have happened. lol.

"their primary agenda is to make sure that the woman who bought her copy this month buys it again next month, so that they can take their circulation figs to advertising clients and make money"

I know you're right. It's a shocker. It really is. I HATE those magazine. Hate them......

Though (backpeddling a bit here), M&B did have a feature on postbaby bodies this month that's given me a real boost..... to see how many mums in their 20's have tummies that look like sharpei puppies..... I'm 42 and have had 3 giant babies and while my tummy isn't washboard flat, at least the skin fits. I just concentrate on that and feeling smug, while studiously trying to ignore the acreage of corn beef thighs lurking below.....