was shocked by the amount of bottle-feeders in hospital

[misdee]

found it quite upsetting at times. my bed was by the empties 'bottle bank', so saw how many people on the ward were bottle feeding. in the 4 days i was there, there were 10 women on the ward in total, and only myself and another lady was breastfeeding. The midwives offered help to everyone, but most decided on bottles.

the reason i found it upsetting was because i didnt want dd3 to have formula but that choice was basically taken away from me whilst she was SCBU and was given formula by tube.

Totally agree with you GDG, it should be an entirely personal decision and nobody has the right to judge or even comment on whatever you decide to do.

But what I do think is shocking is how many people are unhappy about their experience, and that has got to come down to attitudes and probably more pertinently staffing levels on maternity wards. I'm pg at the moment and in the antenatal clinics there are posters everywhere you look promoting breastfeeding, but it seems that in a lot of cases that's where it stops. There seem to be a lot of parallels with this in the natural birth v Caesarean thread, women are not getting the support they need from the maternity services and so too many new mums are coming out of hospital feeling bad about things that are not their fault.

have tried to stay out of this but ....obviously can't

totally agree with gdg.

how one mum feeds her baby has got b*gger all to do with anyone else!!

I don't have a problem with people deciding breatsfeeding is not for them, just like I have no problem with people who feed their babies nothing but jars, or their children nothing but fast food and ready meals. It's none of my business. But I do think that more people breastfeeding could only be a good thing and it suprises me that so many people don't even feel like trying it. It doesn't really bother me and I don't look down on people who bottlefeed, I just don't understand.

I think it's sad that as a society our attitude to women's bodies is so confused that people think there is something 'yucky' about breastfeeding. It's sad that some women don't want to breastfeed because they see it as repellant. It's sad that many hospitals, midwives and health visitors are actually anti-breastfeeding by their actions, and only pay lipservice to the benefits for women and babies, even though these are clear, established, and evidence-based. It's sad that babies are denied the best food for them for any of these reasons.
No-one should look down on bottlefeeding mums, but we should criticise a society and a system that makes it so hard for women to breastfeed.

Edam, I sort of agree. But how exactly do you go about providing that support, without being accused of not respecting women's right to choose?

For example, when I was on the postnatal ward with DS3, the young woman opposite me was trying during the night to breastfeed her baby. However, when she couldn't get the baby to settle, she went and got a bottle of formula from the midwives at the desk.

So what should the midwives do in that situation? Should they have tried to persuade her not to do it?

Exactly Edam. I don't think any "pro-bf-ers" are criticising individual women for any of their choices about feeding or anything else, but I think we have a right to examine the society in which women make their choices.

Dino, in that situation, I would have said that the midwives should have established that that's what that woman really wanted - that she wasn't doing it out of desperation or embarrasment about disturbing other people on the ward, or because she was feeling unsupported. And if any of those things were the case, then they should have supported her to carry on BF, if that's what she wanted. If she had actually made a positive choice that she wanted formula, then that's different.

can i repeat, i dont look down on people bottle feeding, tbh i dont care if people bottle feed their child. what shocked me though was the % of mums on the ward bottle feeding, as i honestly didnt realise that bottle feeding was so popular, as i attempted to bf dd1, did bf feed dd2 and am breastfeeding dd3, and my sisters also breastfed, as did most of mum/aunts/cousins.

Well, they certainly didn't do any of that...

Lack of support is entirely different to not respecting choices imo.

When I had ds I was in hospital for 3 nights - on the 3rd night ds wanted to feed all night long, literally. I could not settle him at all. The horrible witch of the night midwife just said 'this baby has been fractious from the start' and then told me that I shouldn't let him disturb the other mums, so I was packed off to the day room all alone where I sat and cried for hours, and a healthcare assistant periodically came in and shoved my nipple back in ds' mouth. I was utterly ready to give up at that point, but had really really wanted to breastfeed.

Finally got a couple of hours sleep around 5am and woke up in a pool of milk, which had come in in the night. Lovely daytime midwife then said to me, 'oh you poor thing, what a horrible night you must have had with the baby trying to bring your milk in, didn't anyone tell you that was what was going on?' No they bloody didn't!

If the horrible midwife had been on in the morning, or my milk hadn't come in, I might not have carried on breastfeeding, rather than going to 6 months like I did.

mrsflowerpot - had a very similar experience with DS2 which culminated in the horrible night midwife calling a paediatrician (a woman paediatrician) who then ordered the midwife to give DS2 some formula! Luckily he wasn't having any of it, he was made of sterner stuff than me!

Jesus.

I am so sick of reading about medical professionals who sabotage breastfeeding. When are they going to stop doing that?

still not 100% happy about dd3 being given formula, but am happy that they decided to go with the feeding tube as to not interfere with breastfeeding too much.

I was such a wimp about it. I'd had no sleep at all during DS1's first night (he slept, but I'd had to have a spinal block for manual removal of placenta, so was numbed from waist down and just couldn't sleep). This was his second night, so I was recovering from giving birth and was on my second night of no sleep whatsoever. I was shocked at myself - I am a well-educated professional woman but I just couldn't stand up to them and tell them to p* off.

dinosaur, this can appear to be a source of conflict: respecting a mother's choice versus ensuring she i making a real choice and not respponding to real or peceived pressure.

In the case you mention, midwives can explain how a baby may settle being held/tucked in skin to skin with his mother. Or of the baby needed a cuddle and the mum was exhausted, a midwife could have supplied the cuddle.

There are two levels to this question: a society which cares about infant and maternal health will ensure it is made as easy as possible to breastfeed successfully. I get impatient with the arguement that you can't see which children have been breastfed and which haven't. As if health can always be seen from the outside! The fact is that while statistics cannot predict the individual outcome of any single decision not to breastfeed, overall, it is not controversial to say it makes a difference. Clearly, the people here who talk about the other factors involved in a health outcome are choosing to ignore the way researchers can control for factors apart from the breastfeeding. This is the same way smoking research can control for other factors, and come to the conclusion that independent of other factors, smoking is a health risk.

I am not equating formula feeding with smoking. I am using this as an example to show how despite the fact you can't do a randomised controlled trial of feeding, you can still show health risks of formula feeding.

dinosaur i was strong untill it got to 11pm and then they decided that dd3 had to be taken to SCBU. then i just felt helpless. wish the paed who was on earlier was still there as he was talking about dextrose rather than formula, bit tbh i dont know what was the better choice.

misdee - my DS1 had to go to SCBU and was tube-fed but I started breastfeeding him on his second full day of life and he took to it fine

misdee - given your family history of allergy, I can 100% see why you would have wanted to avoid formula completely.

as I understand the statistics, nationally over 60% of women attempt to start bfing - so it looks like your ward was surprisingly low for attempts to bf - was your ward a high dependency unit, for people who had had C-Sections/instrumental deliveries - as possibly that might also have affected people's motivation to bf

oh dd3 is taking to breastfeeding very well. i just felt uselees at 11pm at night, as was hoping to be home earlier that day and was still feeling down at being in hospital.

normal ward. most were in and out within 24-48hours.

DD's temp dropped when she was born and she was taken away by the nurses to be warmed up. They told me that if her temp didn't rise they'd give her a bottle. I had to stand my ground and say I wanted to feed her myself.

Having done that I then struggled to settle her. My support consisted of the nurse grabbing my boob and dd's head (she screamed) and shoving the two together, then turning on her heels and going back to surfing the net. I had such an awful night on the ward that I couldn't wait to get home and thought I'd figure breastfeeding out for myself. DD still wouldn't settle and the community midwife's advice was to be strict with her and she went on to describe controlled crying. She was 2 days old FFS! The on-call midwife who I telephoned me told me just to expect to be like an animal and lie in bed all day and feed. By day 4 dd was on formula, but I don't feel guilty about it as it was the best thing to do at the time

tiktok - I don't dispute any of your points, but at the end of the day, most people don't base their decisions on what a bunch of statistics tell them, they base them on the pros and cons that are visible to them for their own family and based on the experiences they have seen around them. Whether you believe that is right or wrong, that is how it is - we don't start googling for study results every time we want to make a decision about something - we look around our own environment for evidence and talk to people who may have made those choices before.

For example, the evidence for the safety of MMR (at least in respect to autism or bowel disease) is absolutely overwhelming but still people choose not to believe/trust it and decide on single jabs instead. Maybe their own experiences tell them the opposite to the stats and of course they are going to feel more comfortable with that. That is absolutely their right to make that choice - single jabs are not as effective but are a very good alternative (some will dispute that but I'm just using it as an example).

I think it's perfectly valid for a woman to make a choice about breast vs bottle feeding based on her own experiences and those around her despite what a load of stats say.

That said, I agree that support for those who really want to breastfeed appears to be severely lacking and that obviously needs addressing.

the question is why, when weighing up the pros and cons, do so many people see bottle feeding as the best option?

Can we be clear that there is absolutely no need for any mum to feel guilty about their choice. We all do what is right for us at the time. Its bog all to do with anyone else and I'm sorry but I just don't see why people feel the need to say how sad other peoples choices make them, its an indirect way of saying your choice is the right one.

Beansmum - I suppose if you start to try it and find it really hard, end up tears etc, you feel very uncomfortable about doing it in front of others AND you really don't believe (based on what you see around you) that it makes that much difference then you aren't going to put yourself through the trauma are you?

So there are 2 issues to address aren't there - 1)addressing the social aspect of it so that people don't feel uncomfortable (though i don't think that's going to make it comfortable for everyone, some will remain shy about it and that's just the way some people are, you can't argue with it) and 2)convincing people that there really is some major difference made to your child if breast feed rather than formula.