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.

I also don't know why you would consider it amazing that most women in the world feed their children with the free milk available from their bodies, as generations of women have done throughout history (and if they hadn't done, the human race would probably have died out!) Why should that be surprising?

(Sigh) again I didn't say that b/fed babies don't get ill, they do, but that more bottle fed babies suffer from minor illnesses (endless tomes of research prove this) obviously one can pinpoint invididual cases which are different. Now does that sound less sweeping

And please can you tell me what ingredient in formula milk protects against illness - this is totally new to me? Sorry but formula milk definately does not have antibodies.

Caligula - good point - I think perhaps we don't like to critcise our own culture because at the end of the day we are obviously formed by it and it shapes our decisions and we feel uncomfortable discussing our decisions - especially an emotive issue like this. However that doesn't mean we should run away from it and put our head in the sand which is why discussions like these are useful.

Gdg, you are making some good points,not least of all your assertion that 'there is no doubt that breast milk is absolutely the best thing for a baby'. Yes, other factors come into it such as choice and (lack of) support, but we would be fools to deny that artificial feeds match up to breastmilk.
As I have said before, I really don't care what other people do with their kids. My only concern is that MINE get the things I believe are best for them, which includes breastmilk and proper food.
Who cares if bottle feeders do so after weighing up all the evidence that presents us with the inescapable truth that formula is not an ideal food for a baby?? Not me!!

Legalbegle,so you think I'm a bore do you?
Your choice of nickname alone confirms to me that you have an over inflated view of yourself which is only cofirmed every time i read one of your posts.
Oh-and I do so enjoy your strange and inappropriate use of inverted commas! I would be only to happy to pass on a few basic syntactic rules as you obviously never learned how to use them properly.

Actually many women do have a choice about BF or bottle. However, quite often the "choice" is imposed and propagated by the big global formula companies, such as Nestle. These companies have literally millions of baby deaths in the poorer countries to answer for. The fact is in poorer countries where women often don't have access to clean drinking water, let alone the possibility to sterilise and change bottle teats, babies die from contaminated water and infections. This can be AVOIDED by breastfeeding. Due to the obvious reason that breast milk is clean (indeed it kills harmful bateria in the baby's gut), nipples do not require sterilisation, breast milk does not require the addition of water, it is always at the right temp, etc... It has recently been reported that Nestle has been going around hospitals in China "giving away" formula. This has led to a drastic decrease in breastfeeding in some parts of China. Furthermore, Nestle and others continue these practices in contravention of international law (there are strict rules with respect to the labelling and marketing of artificial milk).

I digress. I wanted to add that the reason some women, especially younger, more vulnerable mothers in the less privileged parts of the UK end up formula feeding, is because formula is FREE if you are unemployed or on a low income. I used to live near Woolwich (South London, a relatively deprived part of London) and my surgery always had a "mountain" of formula tins on display behind its reception desk. But there wasn't a single poster, picture, etc. of a mother with a boob feeding her baby. Well, what kind of message does this convey to first time mothers who may not be well-informed about the benefits of BF ? I know this is a VERY controversial issue. If free formula were not provided, some underprivileged babies may end up not getting enough milk. But the NHS needs to balance this "catch 22" situtation with the following scientific fact: BF is the greastest leveller of society. All things being equal, a baby from a poor family and a baby from a rich family would end up with exactly the SAME health benefits if both were BF for the same period of time, this includes something that is often overlooked. Intelligence and IQ : There is well-documented research that babies that are BF rather than formula-fed have a higher IQ and do better in the first few years at school (please I don't want to be attacked on this one - There is info. and research on this readily available on the internet).

OK, so a number of people are happy with their decisions to either breast or bottlefeed. But are there women out there who wish desperately that they'd bottlefed (after the event, I mean)? I don't think so.

So shouldn't we be helping those who want to breastfeed by providing them with decent support postnatally? Write to your MPs, ladies!

Moondog - exactly - as long as you feel you are making the right choices for your children then that's fine. I'm not saying that formula 'matches up' to breast milk but it's no doubt and excellent alternative and lets face it, not everyone does the very best 100% of the time!

I'll bet many of the breastfeeders doing 'the very best' for their babies, 6 months down the line go back to work and put their babies in nursery. Now that's fine if you want to do that but personally I think that's even sadder than feeding with formula - BUT, that's just my opinion, I chose to stay at home with mine and I believe that's the very best way to bring up a child - I don't presume to start a thread questioning why on earth mothers would deny their children the given right of a mother who looks after them just as generations of women did before us. I wouldn't bloody dare!

sheeesh - I promised myself I wouldn't come back to this one, but here I am.

I would like to point out that in many hospitals (from mine and friends' experience) the breastfeeding support is excellent, we had breastfeeding counsellors available on the ward and at home and there was a distinct push towards breastfeeding.

I wont go into why I cant meet my babies' nutritional needs with breastmilk but I will say that there are some people with very sanctimonious attitudes towards this subject on MN at the moment

ANd let me just add, neither would I start a thread on it because I don't judge someone for doing the opposite to me - I accept and respect the fact that mothers have their reasons for making decisions about working or not and if they are happy with their decisions then great. So why can't breastfeeders accept and respect bottle feeders for making their decision about feeding? Quite frankly it is nobody else's business any more than it is your business whether I work or not, feed with jars or not, give dummies or not......

and what's more this thread really takes me back to those god-awful dark days when I was struggling to feed my baby and falling down the slippery slope into PND.

oh I know it's my perogative to skip this thread but I can help myself.

oops so passionate about this subject I forgot to preview. Should have read:

I can't help myself

quite dejags.

I think that there should be greater support for all mums in hospitals, whatever their method of feeding. granted that bfing mums will have different requirements, and require more expert advice on feeding.

while we are at it - why don't we start a thread along the lines of "those mums who had PND are bad mummies and lets all look down our noses at them"

I can hear myself sounding childish but this subject really makes me mad!

Here's a link to a site with interesting statistics regarding breastfeeding \link{http://www.babyfriendly.org.uk/ukstats.asp}

According to these stats, 69% of babies are breastfed immediately at birth, so I too would have been surprised if only 20% were breastfed as in the situation described by Misdee. You'd need to keep in mind, though, that the sample size was small (only 10 people) and may well not be representative of the situation in the same hospital at another point in time or overall.

I think you are being childish Dejags. I think you should just leave this thread if it annoys you. There is plenty of interesting opinions here. Some a bit patronising, but mostly just arguing their points I think.

BF or not doesn't make a good or a bad parents. I don't think anyone says that. I think we are interested in finding out why not more people bf. Most of us mention the lack of support.

Gdg, I think breastfeeders do accept the fact that some people do want to bottlefeed. They really do! However there is a great difference between someone like you (obviously intelligent, educated, well informed and confident about your parenting choices) bottle feeding and someone who hasn't because they have been discouraged/don't know enough about it/live in a developing country where they are easy prey for companies like Nestle/are swayed by the offer of free milk if on benefits and so on.

Having said that, it is interesting to discuss why people don't b/feed,whatever their reasons. I have many bottle feeding friends (believe it or not!) and it really interests me why they make their choice in the same way that they are interested in why I breastfeed and will continue to do so.

I think legalbegle is offensive for attacking misdee when she said she felt sorry for babies being breastfed in the ward. This is how she felt, so it can't logically be objected to. I feel the same (requested a private room in hospital for both births so that I wouldn't have to watch babies being bottlefed in fact), but then I feel sorry for a lot of children-those I see in Turkey in cars with no seatbelts,those who are surrounded by people smoking,those who think that watching tv and playing computer games is fun,those who eat crap food (for heaven's sake, even Mears admits to having a kid who is fond of Pot Noodles!!!!)

Now, I'm sure (sorry I know!) that people are sorry for my kids for a number of reasons, but hey, I'll live with it!!

BTW please don't assume I'm creating a hierarchy of heinous crimes against minors with bottle feeding on a par with passive smoking. I'm not, they're just random examples.

Fair enough Fairymum - I presume you haven't been looked at like pondscum when you have had to feed your baby with a bottle. It hurts, and if my reaction is childish so be it. Opinion is fair and well, but when somebody makes themselves feel superior at the expense of somebody else that isn't nice. I couldn't really, really uptight about this thread, but I won't. This is only an online forum after all.

erm moondog i never said i felt sorry for the babies being given bottles, i was just shocked at the % being given bottles.

I don't think anyone here are saying anyone is pondscum. Apologise if I have overlooked posters which have been insulting.
What I have picked up from this thread is that it is fine that some people choose not to bf, but why so many? BF is best for baby, so what can be done to increase the numbers of women bf?

Eulalia what you said is that when breast fed get ill they don't get as ill as bottle fed ones and I just dont think that that is true.

Caligula, I didn't say I was amazed that women want to breastfeed, I can totally understand that as I have successfully breasfed my own two and got on just fine. What I said was that I was amazed that the rate of breasfeeding is as high as you say. Oh and if the " vast majority of woman all over the world" are breastfeeding what the heck are you all worried about?

And logically, no parenting issue is anyone's business but one's own, but of course we are intersted in why other do what they do or sites like this wouldn't exist.

There seem to be two groups of people who get angry when this subject comes up, namely those who bottlefeed/fed and are confident about their choice and those who had b/feeding difficulties.
and feel very bad about the whole experience.

Neither of these people are being attacked. On the contrary the former group are lauded for their confidence and the latter are actually the recipients of a great deal of sympathy and solidarity. (The reason in fact for Hunker Munker's MP campaign and meeting with managers at her local hospital.

What is sad though is that some people are in the second group, but purport to be in the first. I can really see that there is a lot of anger and bad feelings about the whole thing.

Sorry misdee. My point still stands though.

I've just read Moondogs comments about requesting a private room to avoid seeing babies being bottle fed. Hoestly ! Reminds me of the men who objected to seeing babies being breasfed. I would have thought we should all be enjoying our new offspring rather than conducting surveys and judging other mums

wanda, it's true, and why wouldn't it be? Hospital admissions for gastroenteritis are much more likely in babies who are not breastfed....but babies who are breastfed do get gastroenteritis. It's a fair assumption that babies in hospital with g/e are sicker than than ones who are treated at home.

Babies who are not breastfed have more episodes of gastroenteritis than babies who are breastfed.

moondog, i think you seriously need to get off your high horse!!!!! the comment about requesting a private room.....that is so pathetic and i think that is taking it abit far!!! !!!