Ok all us BF supporters, we are wasting our time <sigh>

[AnarchyAunt]

Well, so says Clare Byam-Cook....

"Well, I'd end breastfeeding week for a start. You get all these breastfeeding mothers trotted out, but how does that help? It's like having an infertility week and putting up pictures of parents showing off babies. What we need to do is stop all this endless talk of "support" - if I hear that word again in relation to breastfeeding, I'm going to scream - and start looking at ways to show women properly how to latch on.

The simple fact is, most mothers don't understand the practical knack of getting a baby to fix on to a nipple and feed, and what they need is a midwife or health visitor who will show them how to do it. It's not rocket science: what you need to do is shape the breast so it's doughnut-shaped rather than apple-shaped, and when the baby's mouth opens you shove her on and she starts feeding happily away.

The other thing I'd like to see is a bit of honesty: you get these counsellors who bully women into carrying on breastfeeding when they feel their milk supply isn't good enough, and the fact is not all women can do it and there comes a stage when it's right to call it a day. To say every woman is physically capable is to say every human being has perfect eyesight: it just isn't true"

Fruity - making enough is only half the story. The baby has to be able to get it This can be affected by many things

• tongue tie or other oral, palatal anomaly
• restricted feeds either in length or frequency or only ever offering one side
• developmental delay in the baby
• baby ill
• baby weak
• baby pre-term
• baby separated from mum (bf gets off to the best start with no separation at all, and close physical contact day and night)

When the baby stops being able to get it, then production will slow.

I have no idea what went on in your own case - but if bf is important to you then of course you can try again. Many women find the 2nd experience is much better

I think some people are too frightened or too embarassed to ask for help and support though, which either means they give up completely or carry on struggling and being unhappy. Either way it isnt an ideal scenario

Fruityandnutty, you say you were using formula from early on so it is definitely possible that you were capable, with the right help and support, to produce enough milk, just that it didn't happen. Although it is also possible that no matter what you did you wouldn't have been able to feed your baby exclusively from the breast.

However, people like CBC trotting out the 'not all women have enough milk' line doesn't help anyone. Most of the people I know that didn't breastfeed told me it was because they didn't have enough milk. From my Partner's aunt, my cousin, a close friend to many others I have come across in all walks of life. This cannot always be true. Sometimes it is, of course it is, but those who wish to breastfeed being told they didn't have enough milk when in fact they didn't have the right help and support is dire.

pcos can in some women be unhelpful with bfing, fruity. i had a rought time with dd1 and only mix-fed, i thought i had good support etc and the fault was mine.

with dd2 i seem to be doing okay at the bfing. i think thats partly because my breasts seem to know what they'r doing a bit more even tho' dd2 was quite prem, but also that i now know enough about bfing to ignore much of the advice i was given by hvs etc and to come here with questions. i wish i'd had mn with dd1, we had real obstacles to overcome, most definitely, but i've a funny feeling we might have if i'd had tiktok et al.

good luck this time round!

Hmm yes, alot of people also say their milk 'just dried up'. Thats not being educated properly about the mechanics of breastfeeding though, not necessarily a support issue afterwards. Or maybe its both

the latch is important though.

I b/f DD until she was about 13 months, but needed help with latch with DS.

But I wasn't afraid to look stupid, and I think that some women don't want to appear as such.

Ho hum.

CBC - I don't honestly care what she does, I just wish she'd stop bad-mouthing bfc from the voluntary organisations. I wonder if she realises how much damage she does to mothers and babies every time she shoots her mouth off on the subject of bf counsellors?

She's got a major chip on her shoulder because none of the voluntary agencies would consider her for training as she's not managed to feed her own babies for more than a few weeks.

Wonder if she's had the chance to 'debrief' her feelings on this. Once you know this it helps put some of her advice in context.

Sorry - should add, guess why CBC had to stop bf her own babies?

Yes, that's right. Insufficient milk.

really? hoe do you know that, fm?

It's in one of her books.

she really needs to work through that...

What gets me is how her attitude is pervasive in maternity wards.
Fruity - whatever happened in your case you definitely gave it a good go and as you said you know he got the best milk at the beginning.
Other women come out of hosp on day 1 or 2 saying 'they tried' - a woman who is married to a friend of mine said that about both her dds. she now says her boobs 'don't work'!

From another site i sometimes visit/post on/roll my eyes at:

"Tried my very best to breastfeed, it went brilliantly the 1st day and night, then the 2nd night he fed 3 hours, then woke 40 mins later eating his fists! I had heard the other girls in the ward asking for "top ups" for there hungry babies, so i asked for some aptamil to satisfy his hunger, and then id breastfeed for the next feed. so the nurse brought me the bottle. he drank 90 mls!! when the nurse came back she was shocked and said i was only supposed to give 20 mls! i didnt know that she said he might expect that the next time. So i put him down to sleep, and the nurse said he should sleep for 4 hours now, then to breastfeed. 2 hours later, somebody was eating his fists again!!! so I breasfed him, he fellasleep after 20mins, so I put him down, only for him to wake eating his fists an hour later lol!!!! So he breastfed for an hour. at this stage my boobs were KILLING ME!!! He was definitley latched on right, as the nurse was checking, but still hurt like hell. So i decided to try express when I came home. I tried, nothing came out!! blood wept from the sore parts intsead So last night I put him on aptamil. I bought all the things available for sore breasts in boots, hoping to sooth them and try again, but theyare starting to engorge....is there anything I can do I wonder? My aunt said she was the same when she tried to feed hers, only to find out that she produces practically nothing.
Im not going to get upset if i cant, DS is too hungry of a baby to be waiting on my little bit of milk lol!!"

With that willingness from hosp mws to hand out formula like sweets what can you do???

I really don't like the woman or her methods but I agree with the last sentence
"To say every woman is physically capable is to say every human being has perfect eyesight: it just isn't true"

FruiynNutty - sorry to hear about your experience. Hope you'll have more luck next time.

On a historic note, if your ds had been born before formula was invented, he might well either have used a wetnurse or been given "pap". Pap was not associated with good infant health... but nevertheless, some children did survive on it.

"To say every woman is physically capable is to say every human being has perfect eyesight: it just isn't true"

But nobody is saying that 'everyone' can breastfeed.

I think it's typically disingenuous of CBC to find an analogy which seems to suggest that insufficient milk (like short-sightedness) is extremely common. She undermines confidence in bf in so many subtle ways while insisting that she's trying to promote it. She also does that thing that a lot of populist authors do, which is to proclaim the benefits of breastfeeding in one breath, while denying them in another, so as to cover her back and deflect accusations of being militant. It's very annoying.

When she was on talking about cross-feeding she said the woman who cross-fed could have just used formula. The woman went on to explain she didn't want to purchase it as she felt it undermined breastfeeding and that a number of companies were unethical. CBC practically laughed at her saying they don't undermine it at all

Some of this advice is just awful, surely? Don't let the baby 'dictate' how long or often s/he feeds? Comparing a newborn to a hamster you have just bought from a petshop???

And I don't like what I have been reading on her opinion of BFCs - apparently as the NCT etc will only train women who BF for over 6 months, BFCs are a self selected group of women who fouund it easy and are 'the wrong people' who 'don't encounter real mums and babies as part of their training'.

Oh and how about comparing mothers to dairy cows - there are 'prize milkers and duff milkers'.

Surely milking is the cow equivalent of expressing, which is not a good indication of how well they can breastfeed an actual baby?

I think I had the supply of a hamster, and a very hungry boy. I let hormonal guilt (and reading too much sodding Gina Ford "open curtains at exactly 7am! / pump frantically whilst eating toast and hopping on one leg!")push me in to pumping to increase my supply, ruined my nips and damaged the feeds I could do.

All the while there is one breastfeeding councellor for three postcodes in my area! She's a wonderful, wonderful woman, but an eight week wait when you have thrush the doctors can't cure, and a massively growing inferiority complex, just isn't good enough.
She eventualy said, you must drop a feed or two in order to continue, and use some formula.

So although it's great to encourage breastfeeding - I totally understand that if it isn't pushed, it would die out because it IS so hard for many - the only midwife "support" I got was "just keep feeding", whatever the problem. And when you ring a breastfeeding helpline, they can only assume it's your latch because they can't see you.

There should be more support - both for the mums who like CBC says haven't got a good supply and have difficulty increasing it, and for the others who will use it as an excuse because they don't realise it might not be the problem.

re JustKeepSwimming's post.
Less than 24 hours after he was born DS cluster-fed from 9PM till 4 AM. He was literally at the breast non-stop, one of my nipples started to get VERY sore (despite good latch) but with Lansinoh managed to keep it under control.
The next day (less than 48 hours after birth) my milk came in- in HUGE qunatities. He obviously knew what he was doing...

God that article is shite, AA. Only thing I agree with is that you don't need a v pillow. I didn't use a pillow at all as I wanted to be used to bfing without support for going out. The rest is shocking though. 'Instead of waiting for your baby to 'open wide', squidge your breast into a suitable position for him to latch onto.' Now I did used to compress my breast to allow more into dd's mouth, but that is no replacement for opening wide imo. In fact dd didn't open wide enough which caused much pain.

It does annoy me that This Morning have a woman on who clearly has an agenda. Especially when her info is partly inaccurate.

Do agree with Hunker that Bfing Awareness week was misguided. I was involved in it, in a show where we were called 'bfing stars.' That stance, imo, is not particularly helpful in promoting bfing as the 'normal' way to feed a baby. But its intentions were good, and support wasd offered for a lot less than £100 odd (i.e. free)

Just read that AA, and I must say I'd have given up if I'd only had her info for support. It hurt and I did think I didn't have enough milk. I think I damaged my supply from listening to the MW/HVs (all 7 who visited in the first four weeks!) going on and on about hindmilk. I fixed it by reading on here and Kellymom.
I do shape my breast and couldn't get him to open his mouth properly for weeks, and we were much better off when we got rid of the cushion, but the tone of that article! It's just so divisive!

xx

Have to admit, before birth I was given CBC's book by a friend who said it saved her sanity. I read it, and as someone with no bf rolemodels and who has loads of bits of body that don't work properly, I found it most inspiring and reassuring - both saying that most problems with bf can be worked through, and that supplementing with formula isn't the end of the world.

It also had way more guidance than any NHS leaflet or other book I found on what to do when you're suddenly at home with a newborn - if it hadn't been for that book I'd have given up bf at 5 days - as it is I'll hit 6 weeks exclusive bf.

Given the controversy over CBC though, I was amused to see her listed as a local private bf counsellor in the leaflet the nearest NCT bf counsellor gave me...

I am not in the business of 'shoving' babies.

"To say every woman is physically capable is to say every human being has perfect eyesight: it just isn't true"

Fucking hell. If I gave up due to my piss poor eyesight life would be shit

I just need a bit of extra care, and to wear glasses to support me. It's not the end of the road to not have perfect eyesight. You can manage to work around it.

Someone women are able to b/feed easier than others. Some babies are able to b/feed better than others. It doesnt mean you have to lay down and take it.