I am writing this post knowing that it will potentially kick off a bit of hornet's nest. I'm just really fed up with how much pressure there is on women to breastfeed, when all the evidence suggests that a significant number of women simply cannot exclusively breastfeed. I would even hazaard a guess that more than 50% of women cannot exclusively breastfeed. Its making women miserable and is the number one cause of post natal depression. Enough!!!
When I tried to breastfeed, I had real trouble providing enough supply for my baby. I was told that with the right support, almost every woman can breastfeed. I received help from 3 different lactation consultants. the first told me, less than 5% of women have actual low supply, and if low supply was really true of a lot of women, then the human race would have died out. This is objectively speaking totally false. Historically, women would share feeding of babies with other lactating women, and even then, lots of babies died. So the fact that the human race still exists is absolutely not evidence that the majority of women have enough supply. the second lactation consultant told me that if there was no formula, I would have found a way to exclusively breastfeed. this is also not true. My mother grew up in a tiny village overseast, where there was no access to formula. And she told me that it was rare that one woman would exclusively feed their own child, it was normal that it would be shared amongst the group and in the case that there were not enough other lactating women, they would put the baby at the teet of a goat in order to feed it because it was understood that it would be rare that a mother could exclusively feed her child from her breast. In my nct group, there are 10 women. One chose to formula feed from birth. The other 9 all wanted to exclusively breastfeed. only 2 of them are. and every single one of those 9 had the support of private lactation consultants, so we cannot say they are unsupported. A variety of issues from latch to supply to mastitis- so many problems that we all tried desperately to resolve, and we couldnt.
The third lactation consultant actually watched and listened to me breastfeeding and told me that my baby was not transferring enough milk. She was the only one of the 3 lactation consultants who had actually worked in a nicu ward and was able to recognise the signs of hunger. my baby thankfully was not starving but had I listened to the first 2 Lactation consultants, I think she would have been . This lactation consultant told me that it is very common on the Nicu ward to find very thin very hungry babies of mother's who are desperate to exclusively breastfeed, the babies are literally starving, drawn, crying and lethargic, because they are not being fed enough.
mixed feeding needs to be a system that is properly introduced to mothers. Mother's need to also be shown what an actual wet nappy looks like. I was told 6 to 8 wet nappies were a sign that my baby was getting enough food. Now that she is getting enough food because she's mixed fed, I can see what an actual wet nappy looks like, and it's really heavy compared to what it looked like when I was breastfeeding her.
I think this is a real issue and mumsnet is partly to blame for it, because the amount of threads I see where someone posts that they're struggling with breastfeeding, and they're told to keep going even when their baby is dropping centiles. It's the latch! It's tongue tie! Try an osteopath! Breastfed babies always lose weight! Its ok to drop centiles! You'll get there! It gets easier! Please PLEASE stop advising women to keep going no matter what, because in some instances, those women and there babies will end up in emergency care. Of course, many breastfeeding problems can be overcome with the right support, but in my experience, it sometimes never resolves, and the absolutely right and moral thing to do is to introduce the bottle.
I'm not blaming women here; the fault is in the system. Breastfeeding needs to be properly researched, but like all womens health, it's ignored.
I am still breastfeeding my baby girl, we mix feed very successfully. For anyone reading this struggling with breastfeeding, know that you're not alone.