why do people bottle feed?

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first of all, i dont want this to become a slanging match. i am honestly curious about the reasons.
im asking about those women who do not even try breastfeeding. the ones who think that it is an equal choice between breast and formula. i dont want to judge anyone, i just want to know how these women can justify denying their babies species specific milk.
my eldest was mainly bottlefed, my younger two were exclusively breastfed till they were weaned. and moved to formula around the eight month mark.

As I say, I am only concerned since she has already put on my notes that I intend to breast feed, how can she make a distinction like that when we haven't even discussed it? I think I will discuss it with her if the subject arises and then mention it to the hospital when I go on the exciting "tour" of the labour wards. I have also told my DP that he has to support me if and when the time arises.

I had 'no labour' on mine, though I had hours of it. Nobody can make you breastfeed if you don't want to, so what is written on your notes is irrelevant.

Expectantmum, sounds like the midwife has just made a mistake - has thought she discussed it with you and she hasn't. Chill

No one can make you bf if you don't want to.

If you feel you want to have the notes changed (which is reasonable of you), then say, 'I notice you've ticked this box about feeding - but I don't think we have talked about it. I plan to opt for formula - can you change it?'

She will then ask you (and why shouldn't she?) if you have all the information you want and if you say 'yes, thank you' she will let the matter drop.

flamesparrow, do you really think the government has no public health role in this at all?

Not breastfeeding costs the NHS money - that is, it costs tax payers money.

Poor health is not only costly in cash terms, but it affects individual quality of life.

Many people are not aware of this.

You talk about the government thinking something is 'best' at the time, as if it was likely to be something else thought 'best' at some other time.

The other aspect of all this is that in fact, people tend not to want to know the full information about formula feeding because it is so very negative. Simply giving people the facts is resisted. Instead, we have one line slogans (though 'breast is best' has not been used for decades, as far as I can tell). One line sloganising is not helpful. Breastfeeding promotion (in my view) tends to overplay the joys of breastfeeding, and underplay the risks of formula. I think this tends to be the case with most forms of promotion.

Exactly Tiktok.
People have a right to know about formula, and they DON'T.(Irrespective of what they then decide to do with this information.)
Once I started doing a bit of (light) research, what I discovered about it scared the s* out of me and changed me froim being fairly ambivalent about breastfeeding to it suddenly becoming something that I knew I HAD to do.

Anyone who doesn't believe that the multi million dollar formula industry has a lot to conceal is naive to say the least.

OH Moondog, give your jaw a rest

How's it going!?

Group hug!

I do think it's very presumptuous of your mw to put bf on your notes without even discussing it with you, ExpectantMum.

Symptomatic of an attitude to patients, I'm afraid. Very bad. Makes you wonder if she'd listen to you in labour, either.

ExpectantMum - just out of interest I thought I would lety you know that we no longer ask mums how they are going to feed their babies because choices written beforehand can actually be limiting. i.e. a mum might have said they are going to bottlefeed and feel that they cannot actually change their minds which often happens after delivery. All mums are offered assistance to breastfeed (well they are supposed to be) when their babies are skin-to-skin after delivery. Quite often women give it a try as the baby is rooting around looking to be fed. For those mums who do not want to do it, they usually say, 'no, I am bottle feeding' to which I say, 'that's fine, what milk would you like'.

I have been amazed by the number of women who have actually said they had planned to bottlefeed before delivery and then gave it a go. A number of women have said they have been glad to do that first feed by breast and then gone on to bottlefeed.
Feeing intention should not be filled in prior to delivery IMO. Don't know what you all think about that?

I was asked how I was going to feed beforehand, and I said "probably" breastfeed which translated to "will be breastfeeding".

As far as "breast is best" not being used for a decade... My baby is not yet 2, and it was used non-stop in my area when I was pregnant.

Yes, I do talk about the government doing what it thinks is best at the time... When I was born it was more common for women to be encouraged to bottle feed. HRT was great a few years ago, and now it causes cancer - we don't know everything... who is to say that a few years down the line we'll discover that any woman who breastfed and ate cheese when they were 7 causes some weird abnormality?

Bottle feeding costs the NHS money, and us money... If you want to make women buy their own formula, then fine, but personally I think that if they have paid taxes like everyone else, then their choice to have formula for the few days they are in hospital should be supplied too. What about mothers who CAN'T breastfeed? What about ones who just the very idea makes them feel ill? Should they be made to suffer and be unhappy? Or simply they just don't want to - why should they be made to feel like lesser beings for their choice.

Health benefits... I have seen first hand that breastfeeding doesn't always give you healthy children, and allergy free children, just as formula doesn't wreck their bodies too.

I would rather my tax go towards making formula feeding mums happy, than spending millions treating those who have smoking related illnesses after smoking 40 a day for years.

People don't want to know the facts of formula feeding? Then that is THEIR choice - give a balanced view and let them decide. It is like cloth nappies - give a balanced view, the pluses and minuses of both, and let people make up their own minds!

"few years down the line we'll discover" meant, we won't discover!

well tiktok, of course I made all the right supportive noises at the time. She said I was the only person who supported her, she was really glad to have me on board. I wasn't on board at all, but that wasn't going to help her or change her decision and I felt she needed at least one of her friends to make the right noises. I was a total hypocrite, worrying for her safety but telling her I thought she was doing the best thing.

Thankfully I made the noises down the phone, so she couldn't actually see the look of concern on my face.

As for her showing off the breast milk. I really do mean show it off. She came into the sitting room, shook the bottle right in my face, and said "look what I made, look how clever I am!". Her words not mine. I'm not assuming she was showing off for any other reason, I do think this sort of behaviour is designed to say, well, as she said "look how clever I am". I'd call it showing off, but you may disagree with the semantics!

The "cheap joke" about the breast milk in the coffee was a result of a sense of humour. A huge failing of mine, I really should get someone to beat it out of me, lol . Apologise profusely and promise to treat breast milk and milk from any other species with due respect and regard in future. Perhaps motherhood will make me realise that I need to take life more seriously and give up the chill pills.

Double vodka anyone? Jeeeesh!

Absolutely - you should be ashamed of yourself for making cheap jokes about breast milk! It is pure and sacred and should be respected at all times.

I myself took photos of each bottle of expressed milk, and have them on a little altar to worship every morning.

Yeah yeah, I know I am going to be shot now by many people, but hey ho, I'm happy!

My vodka's on the rocks if possible!

You were laughing at her, mogwai, not at the breastmilk.....that's why I felt a bit sorry for her.

I now feel even sorrier for her.

Mogwai
Oh the smugness of those who have yet to give birth!!!
You honestly have NO idea!!! (cue sinister Vincent Price style echoey laughter...)

Mmmm, "breast is best" does seem to have stuck in our consciousness, and imo that's a pity, because it's not a very helpful message. Sort of hectoring but vague at the same time.

Like moondog, I've done a bit of reading around, and the evidence is very, very clear. Breastfeeding really does have proven health benefits when compared to bottlefeeding, and some of these benefits extend well into adult life.

I was careful to say "health benefits" because I'm not that impressed by warm fuzzy claims about better bonding etc. That's hard to prove, and anyway it seems we're programmed to bond with our babies and we'll do it one way or another regardless of feeding method.

It's also true that the health benefits won't work for everyone because there are situations where breastfeeding isn't the most healthy option. They are rare but they exist.

Then there are people who want to bfeed but it just doesn't work - in which case it's great that there is such a good, reliable alternative way of feeding.

And of course in life we don't always make the healthiest choices (or chocolate would never have been invented ... but that's too awful to think about so lets not go there). There are other factors which influence the choices we make, and some posters here have described their reasons for preferring bottle feeding, and that's fine.

However (loud cries of "Get to the point, will you!!") no matter what we might think or prefer or choose (and no matter what any government might say), the fact remains that for almost everyone, breastfeeding has clear health benefits over bottlefeeding.

That's never going to make a snappy T-shirt slogan, but as I said earlier, people have a right to know this.

So, yes, I believe breastfeeding should be promoted by health professionals, because helping people to make informed choices about health, and encouraging choices towards the best outcome for health is what they're there for, after all.

What people then actually choose, and why they choose that, is obviously entirely up to them.

Hey, where's everyone gone?????

First published use of Breast is Best was in a book of that title which came out in the mid-70s and which is still (AFAIK) in print. Because of the rhyme and the alliteration, it caught on, but never as an official campaign slogan...like you, WM, it's limited in its effectiveness.

I'd agree with everything you say, except that breastfeeding doesn't really have 'health benefits' - it's just the physiologically normal way for human infants to feed, so any health outcomes would be expected for the species, and not anything over and above this. Not breastfeeding has risks, just as you'd expect of any non-physiological process. However we are so used to thinking in terms of formula milk being the social norm, that we compare bf outcomes to ff outcomes and discover 'benefits', using formula fed outcomes as the line to compare them with.

I agree about bonding - if bonding depended on bf, then no one else would ever be able to bond with a baby (inc fathers and grandparents) and that is manifestly not true. It's also very difficult to measure, and when it can be measured, so many other factors are hard to exclude. However, I think a miserable feeding experience, of whatever type, contributes to an unhappy start to parenthood, and we know (from research) that unhappy mothers do indeed have problems with attachment - shown up in their toddlers' behaviour later.

like you = like you say

Welliemum, so well put!
We have a rival for tiktok when it comes to logic,clarity and reason!

(Still don't see what's wrong with breast is best though. It's TRUE!!!)

What is wrong with it is that it can be chanted at expectant mums until they feel pressurised and bullied into something that they might not be happy with.

Eh fs???!!
In which health trust is this common practice??

I totally agree with you Mears - feeding preferences should not be recorded by MWs prior to the birth.

It can work two ways, people like me who, prior to the birth, feel they won't BF yet change their minds entirely when they've given birth, and those who think they most definitely will BF (and naively think it will be as easy as pie - ha! what do they know) and then give it up after the first suck.

The truth is no one knows what they will feel like when they see their baby - it is something that nothing can prepare you for. I personally didn't do all this bonding in the womb stuff but once my son was born whoosh!! - that was it for me it hit me like a steam train and there was nothing I wouldn't have done for him. The decision I made whilst still pregnant not to BF was all about MY OWN preferences and about me. Once I saw my son it suddenly became all about him and I felt I just had to do it. It became something I wanted to do for him. I guess the nuturing instinct kicked in and what was best for him became best for me too.

My advice is that you should always just go with the flow listen to yourself and what your instincts are telling you to do - IMO the MWs are just there to care for your (and your baby's) clinical needs and to support and advise you in a totally non judgemental way.

As long as a person is comfortable with the choice they make they should never ever be made to feel guilty about it.

FFS........How the hell is this arguement still going on??????????????????

Our bodies, our babies, our choices, that is all there should be to it.

Some bottlefeed simply because the actual thought breastfeeding is repulsive.
Others bottlefeed because they just can't breast feed, either because they have been advised not to, or, as in the case of my S-I-L, her milk just never came in.
In one of my friends cases, it was because her husband was a bully and he said she wasn't to (I hasten to add here, she finally saw him for who he was and left, to a huge sigh of relief from me !!!)

Breastfeeding.....some do because they think it is the best choice for their child
Others, because of the health benefits
Yet more others, because of the apparent ease (altho it's not actually that easy really, speaking from experience!)
In my case, I was going to bottle feed, until my sister said she could never imagine me breastfeeding, cos of 1, the pain involved (I do have a low pain threshold..or at least, did then, before giving birth 5 times and breastfeeding 5 times !!), and 2, I simply 'wasn't that sort', whatever she meant then, I'll never know (confused face)
My stubborn nature kicked in after that comment, and I was determined to breastfeed, and I did....hooray for me....but not once have I looked down on those who bottlefed, it was my choice, as it should be anyones choice on how they feed their baby.

As for the health benefits tho...don't beleive all you hear on that score......my kiddies have been in hospital more than any of my friends kiddies, and mine were pretty much the only ones exclusivly breastfed too. AND, mine have the most allergies, and one has asthma, two excma (SP?), and two have immunity problems. Tell me where the health benefits went for mine!!!

LOL for the worship expressed milk tho, and to mowgli(SP? again )....some people here really need a sense of humour implant!!!! !

Said my piece now....can this arguement please stop......there are people out there who have real problems, and are extremely depressed, I think that deserves more thought than how we should feed babies, who will thrive whatever, as long as they get some form of milk!!!!

Yes, I agree with Mears and Kaansmum re feeding choices and had a long and ver intersting discussion with the mWs in this area who have decided not to do it.

I b/fed but don't feel I 'bonded' (I hate that word) with my first (or second come to think of it) baby for a long time despite b/feedin from literally the moment of birth. Didn't have PND but I can honestly say there was very little feeling there. Neither was I a tummy patting pregnant woman-did a lot of swearing and whingeing about how bloody boring it all was for me.

If you've got the energy Kaansmum, () I am still interested in what exactly about the 'milk of human kindness' b/feeding poster irritated you.