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.

weasel milk? - I missed that one!

Tiktok ? could you clarify something? Further down someone said they had a big baby, 10lbs I think and they didn?t have enough milk to feed her and ended up mix-feeding. Sorry didn?t want to make this personal and I am not suggesting that anyone shouldn?t mix feed. I just wonder as technically a woman could b/feed a bigger baby, I mean obviously some people feed twins and even normal sized babies at birth soon grow to 10lbs and breastfeed without formula. Or is it something in particular about newborn big babies that a woman may struggle to produce enough milk? What can be done about this ? feeding the baby more often perhaps? It just got me thinking as I am expecting this summer and want to be prepared for every eventuality. I am sure I?ll be OK as its my 3rd but just because it was successful last time doesn?t mean I won?t run into problems this time. Thanks.

Eulalia
When I went into school with my ABM friend, she first talked to the kids about how different each species' milk is and the fact that cows' milk is very different to a human's. Told them that in fact, a weasel's milk is the nearest to a human's (challenging our acceptance of cows' milk as being ok.)
There was a discussion about helping b/feeders if you were a dad and one question on this came up on the questionnaire/activity sheet they did at the end (ie How could you be of support?')
One bright spark wrote 'Buy a weasel and keep it in the back yard.'

Eulalia, as you suspect, there is no physiological reason why a mother would not be able to bf a 10lb or even a 14 lb baby from day one....but women will hear a lot of negative comments, and wonder themselves when they see the size of a large baby how they are going to manage. But the same principles apply - frequent, effective feeding and lots of skin to skin contact will enable the body to respond with sufficient milk

dd2 was 9lb at birth, and i fed her for a while very successfully. not as long as i liked as during growth spurts she exhausted me, but i wished i had carried on for longer as she was doing well on breastmilk.

Thanks, can I ask one more question, sorry... I fed dd solely on breastmilk till she doubled her birthweight at 6 months (17lbs). I don't think she was feeding much more frequently. Does the milk get richer as the baby gets older or is this an old wives tale. I think feeding her at night must have helped. I used to wake up to sounds of her gulping and I guess that meant she needed less milk in the day so less work for me.

There is a lot we don't know about how the milk changes to meet the needs of babies as they grow....but after the first weeks/months, bf babies actually do not need greater volumes of milk as they grow (unlike formula fed babies, who do need more....some of the extra calories are used up simply because it is harder work to metabolise formula) . I have not heard that the milk gets 'richer' and don't see why it should or would. Babies do get more efficient at getting what they need in a shorter time, though.

My DD was almost 10lb and b/fed till 8 months with no probs.....don't think it makes a difference...just depends on how often you feed in order to build your supply. Babies are clever if they need more milk (for a growth spurt for eg) they feed more often so that you produce more milk.....isn't nature amazing. Love it [grin}

Thanks tiktok. I am sure I've got info on this in my La Leche book, just being lazy

It is a shame that so many on your ward felt so negatively about breastfeeding, it shouldn't be such a big deal that people have an aversion.
The only way that I can think that women will feel more comfortable about breastfeeding is to increase the support they receive before they give birth and in hospital.
I really think it's time we educated young girls and boys whilst they are still at school, about about the benefits of breastfeeding. Hopefully they wouldn't become so self-concious about the whole thing, and the boys could offer support to their partners.
My hospital was a baby-friendly hospital, which was committed to bfing (Edinburgh NRI) and all but one of the women in my ward breastfed: about 7 women in total in a four bed ward.
The young girl that wanted to use a bottle, looked very defiant when she asked the nurse for formula, I think she expected to get told off.
It does hightlight how the culture of a place massively influences the behaviour of the 'inmates'.

Of the seven women I saw over 24hrs on my ward, I was the only breastfeeder. I think many of the others had tried but had given up within one or two feeds. One girl said "I gave him formula because I felt awful after my c-section so I can't breastfeed him now". I didn't know at the time that 24hrs in she still had time! And none of the midwives suggested that she could still try.

Also, and this may sound like I'm completely stupid, but I was really sleep deprived before DSs birth...here goes...

I was so unsure of what to do with a baby that I would be asking the midwives "do I feed my baby now" and "should I wake him" etc etc. And instictively and from what I had read I knew all the answers, but I just needed to be told! I think that if I hadn't firmly decided to breastfeed I would have just grabbed formula on autopilot or at the first sign of difficulty.