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.

Reethi - the answer initially was not to give a bottle but to sack the midwife IMO. This illustrates my point that lack of proper help and support is the biggest cause of breastfeeding problems. You would not be able to produce milk when worrying about starving your baby. There is no point rolling out the beastfeeding expert when the damage has been done to the point of almost no return. That makes it a very hard struggle to turn things around. You are right that it is better for a mother to feel happy that her baby is fed than have a constant struggle with feeding.
I am sorry you had such a hard time and am not at all surprised breastfeding did not work for you. Expert advice should be on hand from the beginning to avoid the struggle starting in the first place.

don't apologise misdee, it's really quite easy to read between the potshots and factionalism and learn more about how women's attitudes and experiences towards breastfeeding have been shaped and supported. It's still a useful thread

Hmm, interesting, people who bottle feed are not allowed to use examples from their own experience (e.g. none of my children have had so much as diarrhoea despite being bottle fed, none have allergies, none are obese....) but those who breastfeed are allowed to use their own individual experiences to 'illustrate' how breastfeeding benefits (Karaj and Mears). Hmmmm..

Of course not. I know plenty of bottle fed and very happy and healthy babies. If I look at my children who was bf for months and compare them to children bottle-fed from birth, I see no difference at all. In fact I would say mine have been more sick after I gave up bf, but that's probably because they go to nursery and I can only compare with children who don't. You can't just look at what you see with your own eyes though. It reminds me about my mil who thinks babies are perfectly fine sleeping on their stomacks. When I ask her to please put mine on their backs and tell her cot death has been reduced by 75% since people started to put babies on their backs (in Scandinaiva anyway), she gets offended and tells me her babies always slept on their tummies and are fine.

Depends how personal experience is used Gobbledigook. I did not rubbish the research by saying because my child got bacterial meningitis (less likely in B/F babies) that the research is wrong. The research shows increased risk/decreased risk and I accept that. It is pointless to say well my child got meningitis so the research is wrong.
I am sure we all accept smoking increases your risk of lung cancer but we all know 'healthy' people who smoke.

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

Give up now - I'm not even sure why I bother trying to contribute to these threads.

I'm perfectly happy with my choice and that's all that counts really. I've got 3 perfectly healthy children with no allergies, no illnesses, no obesity, not so much as a bout of diarrhoea between them, never get colds and I've just been told by his teacher that ds1 (4) is 'exceptionally good at maths'.

Well, I'm not convinced breastfeeding would have made one ounce of difference as all of these things, IMO, are down to their genetics - we are not a sicky family, there are no diseases, no obesity, noone has allergies, we are all bright and quite academic, successful people and the chances are my children will follow suit and whether I decided to breast or bottle feed was really not going to make any difference.

That's what I think, it's been bourne out by my experience and that's good enough for me. If you want to feel smug about breast feeding and you really thing it's made a significant difference to your child then good for you, it's none of my business what you do and I really couldn't give a stuff.

What I do care about is making less confident mothers feel shit about a decision that quite frankly is entirely up to them and going to bring their children to no harm whatsoever. If you think it will then you are plain nuts and not worth discussing it with.

The risks of illness eg cancer, lung disease etc due to smoking (compared to not smoking)in this country are pretty high. Are the risks of serious (or otherwise) illness in this country as high for formula fed babies, compared to breastfed babies? I'm thinking this country in particular, as I know that worldwide stats (eg from WHO) aren't always representative of what's happening here.

Gobbledigook, there are plenty of balanced posters here both who bf and bottle-feed their babies. There are some who aren't and I would say you are one of them on the "bottle-side" of the fence. I think you read anyone's comments which are pro bf and which points out the benefits as smug posters who wants to deny mothers a choice /making them feel bad. Even as someone who bottle fed your babies, you should be concerned that more mothers should be given proper support so the number of bf babies increased.

You've clearly not read all my posts properly so I can't be arsed to argue with you.

Thanks happymumof2, I have finally twigged what Moondogs problem is with me. I was truly baffled at the sheer hostility thrown at me by her. She actually will never be able to answer the question of why she didn't address me directly if she was really outraged on Misdee's behalf. Because of course she wasn't, its a big lie on her part. She instead insulted me childishly to a third party because she saw my user name and assumed I was a lawyer, and saw my use of the word terribly and assumed I'm posh. It must be really hard bending down with that huge chip she has on her shoulders. Anyway, thanks for the support! As I said previously, MN brings out the best and worst in women. Moondog, I never made it personal about you and I never made assumptions, but I have now.

Isn't it because you can't argue with me? You are the one caling people nuts etc.....Look at your posts.

PMSL!!

Oh dear.... it boiled down to name calling and insults in the end.

For the record, I started out bf'ing both my children. Stopped for various reasons which I won't go into again. I think that more women should give it a go..... but not just for the health benefits, but for the experience of it and the closeness you feel to your baby. And the convenience of night feeds!!

People who bottle feed DO get made to feel like they are damaging the health of their child. No amount of smileys or dressing that up will change that. Unfortunately the only place I am made to feel this way is on MN.... and that's really not why I'm here.

I'm disheartened to see that smoking seems to have crept into a feeding discussion again. Is smoking around a child just as harmful as bottle feeding??? Bottle feeding as harmful to the health of a child?

Do people actually think like that or was it just a loose comparison to choices we make?

Message withdrawn

I think lots of people are very over-sensitive.

I bottle fed as well, but I don't think any of the pro bf posts are insulting me or condemning me.

I think that we all make our choices for whatever reasons. I don't think that people should be condemned for their choices. I am going to breastfeed or at least try.

We try and put our babies first but we as mothers also have needs and feelings.

just curious if there is any research as to health benefits of colostrum - i.e health benefits of a brief period of bfing?

I b/fed and bottlefed my ds for the first 3 months, i b/fed as soon as he was born and the midwifes in the hospital were brilliant in helping me, after 2 weeks of only b/feeding i was getting very tired so i started giving him a couple of formula feeds in the day, so someone else could feed him whilst i rested. He was quite happy to take milk from breast or bottle so we carried on like that. They both have thier good and bad points, so it's each to thier own taste,but i must admit i can't understand any woman not even wanting to at least try it once.

M2S - I was always told that there are benefits to bf-ing even for only three or four days, because of the benefits of colostrum.

Don't know of any research - maybe Mears or Tiktok?

yes, I was always told that too, so just curious as to what research findings might be

OK lets finish up here ? let me clarify that I totally agree that many bottlefed babies are healthy, happy, intelligent etc. My sister has 2 kids, one bottle fed and one breastfed. There appears to be no difference between them. As I stated before there are other factors involved in a child?s health. Formula milk is getting better all the time as technology progresses.

What irks me though as that it seems to be OK to ?have a go? at b/feeders and undermine their experiences and knowledge of the issues. I think it is misleading to others and entirely confusing to make statements like ?it doesn?t make any difference if you breastfeed or not?. Maybe it didn?t to you but it could to someone else. What about if a mum has allergies in her family or finds out her child is milk-intolerant? She would feel that she was given bad advice. Suppose there was breast cancer in her family and she didn't know that breastfeeding her child could reduce this risk (long term b.feeding can also do this by the way)

Also the original question has never been addressed as to why some mothers decide before they even start that b/feeding is not for them. Why don?t they ?give it a go?? Why is it so different in Sweden? For a start I don't think there is this suspicion and resentment and circulation of what are often just notions.

I agree that health promotion literature is often oversimplified and overbearing but it has to be spelled out to cover the entire population. Some people hate this kind of thing whereas others like ?experts? to inform them. I think also that health professionals worry about the consequences of bottle feeding ? bottle feeding isn?t ?dangerous? in itself but poor management can be - eg not sterilising properly, mixing up strong feeds, reheating milk etc. NOt that I suggest anyone here does this please let me say but this obviously does happen in some cases.

mummytosteven - yes there should be research on colustrum - not got time to look out somethign just now but try a search.

Somewhere on the web there is a US article about 'if your baby breastfeeds just once' and it goes on to list benefits of just once, then one day, then two days, and then a week, and then a month, and so on.....sorry, I can't find it!!

But this is all research-based stuff. Not giving a baby colostrum in particular has measurable effects on the gut.