Anyone else prepared to admit that they didn't b/f just because they didn't want to ??

[IllegallyBrunette]

Just wondered really.

I have 3 dc and didn't breast feed any. I was 19 when I had dd1 and was asked by a midwife if i'd be breastfeeding and I said no. There was no argument or discussion, that was that.

When I had dd2 at 34 weeks she had to be tube fed. I offered to express milk for her but was told i needn't bother.

With ds, again I didn't want to but even if I had it would have been hard as he was supposed to be on phototherapy 24/7 for a week.

I think the attitude towards ff mums on this forum by some bf mums is disgusting. I would never dream of saying anything against any mum for feeding her baby by whichever way she chooses, yet some of the comments on here like 'formula should only be available if there is a proven medical need' are just awful.

makemineagecko - I realise that some posters did actually give their reasons and you were obviously one of them. I was just curious about those who said that they just didn't want to - full stop. I was curious about the underlying reasons and whether they were related to body image or, as in your case, a previous bad experience. I was only asking out of curiosity and obviously if people don't want to share then they don't have to!

it seems a lot of people want to FF because of bad experiences in the past with trying to BF. This just flaggs up the terrible lack of support and advice for women trying to breastfeed in this country. Of course FF/BF should be a personal choice. But it has to be a choice made in the most empowered and supported environment - which it isn't usually. There is also a huge weight of cultural negative connotations towards BF. Mumsnet, in its perceived bias towards BF, is certainly not representative of our society as a whole.

very true ruty!

I'm interested By Rockin's exoperience of milk not coming for 6 days as my friend had similar.
Is it really safe to starve a baby that long and does the colostrum last enough time to bridge that gap?

Lotster, it is unusual for milk to take 6 days to come in, and action should be taken long before this to encourage it to do so....baby should be close to mum skin to skin for as much time as possible day and night, and the baby should be getting hand-expressed colostrum/breastmilk long before 6 days have gone by.

msSparkle, you say,

" Leading your child to bad eating habits is going to effect their health far more in the long run than not bf will."

Do you know this for sure? I think while common sense suggests this, we prob dont have the definitive answer. It could easily be the case that breastfeeding (for a physiologically normal time, that is, probably well into toddlerhood at least) may protect against the worst effects of a poor diet.

"These three bf children are wiping out any benefits bf gave them through a direct result in their own parents bad habits."

But no one has suggested that breastfeeding would prevent lung cancer....yet its perfectly plausible that breastfeeding might offer some protection against heart disease, and while smoking would undermine this, who knows if it would 'wipe it out'.

Of course you are right in pointing out that other factors are involved in long term health - it's not just down to the way a baby is fed. But I don;t see the point you are making with that! No one suggests that breastfeeding guarentees anything!

"No one suggests that breastfeeding guarentees anything!"

Well it appears that way to me.

Where?

In regards to 'starving' my baby, the fact that my milk did take so long to come in was certainly of concern to me. Hence, I spoke to BF counsellor (NCT), lactation consultant at hospital and doula to canvass opinion on how long I could solely feed DD with colostrum. The consensus seemed to be that DD hadn't lost vast amounts of weight, was still alert and peeing/pooing ok, then it was ok to wait-it-out. My milk came in on 6th day very rapidly. I literally went from colostrum only to full-on milk within an hour. DD gained around a pound per week after that and it was plain sailing from then on.

Anyway, back to thread subject:

Maria2007 - Yes, parents make choices for their children in terms of all the things you mentioned and more. Which is why it seems all the more bizarre to me that they don't make the choice that is proven to be better for their child - not just with breastfeeding but with the other subjects you mentioned too. Why would someone smoke during pregnancy or drink alcohol above the recommended guidelines?

IMO, when someone becomes a parent, the choices centre on the child. You take second place to that child and do everything you possibly can to ensure that the choices you make are in the best possible interests of the child. Especially when such choices are so fundamental to issues such as health.

I had DD very young, as a teenager. I had to grow up quickly and put my baby's needs far above my own. I made sure I was as informed as I possibly could be about the choices that I was making, not just with breastfeeding but with other issues such as weaning, education etc.

Whilst you say it's smug and self-satisfied to presume to comment on choices made by others, I'm trying to understand such choices from a different context - simply, why would anyone make a choice that's clearly not in the best interest of their child? If over 90% of women in Scandinavia can somehow manage to put their children's interests first, it seems odd that so many women in societies such as the UK fail to do so.

It 'appears that way' to you, MsSparkle...not good enough, sorry. If you are going to chuck accusations about (that people present bf as a guarentee of good health) then you are going to have to point to where you have read it.

I managed 6 wks with DS - including 3 hellish bouts of mastitis (hospitalised for the last bout). I don't think a single day when by during that 6 wks when I didn't cry my eyes out with the pain .

With my DD (7 wks old now), I managed 10 days, I think. Same chain of events started up and I switched to FF before it got out of hand, as I was frightened of it leading to curuhing PND like last time.

If i have any more (unlikely, but never say never and all that...) I will FF from day one and will not feel one iota guilty about it. It will simply be because I don't want to BF again, EVER.

I say all this from a purely personal perspective. I am still 100 % pro BF-ing.

curuhing = crushing

I think bf is a very good option to take, just as eating a good healthy diet and taking regular excersize is too (for
adults.) But how many women are out there who "are lecturing other women about bf yet are clearly egnoring the sensible advice given about diet, excersize and even egnoring the obvious advise about not smoking and drinking too much? Imo, maintaining good health is important throughout your whole life, not just in the first 6 months of life".

But breastfeeding isn't an 'ideal' to aspire to. It's just the physiologically normal way to feed a baby.

And there are some people who'd argue that how you feed a baby in their first year is extremely important because those few months form the foundations for later health and development. Think about the research suggesting increases in IQ at the age of 7 in babies breastfed for 6 monhts, or the research showing lower blood pressure in adolescents bf as babies......

It's much easier to 'fix' someone's diet in childhood and adulthood than it is to reverse the decision not to breastfeed an infant. Milk forms 100% of a baby's diet during their period of fastest growth. Surely the decision not to give a baby the physiologically normal food at this particular time is one that should be treated with real seriousness and not made on a whim....?

tittybangbang - I think that's an excellent point - we talk about breastfeeding as a choice - when the options are feeding your baby in the way that you and your baby are designed for or feeding them artifically. Not much of a choice to be made there in my view.

I don't want people to feel guilty about how they've fed their babies - but we can't avoid the debate just because it makes some poeple feel bad. Breastfeeding rates are too low. Formula feeding is too much an accepted part of raising a child. The real demands of breastfeeding and what is 'normal' for a breastfeeding mother are too poorly understood by the population at large and the sexualisation of breasts is too much a part of common culture.

Bf or ff as 'choices' go way, way beyond an individual. These are 'choices' made by a culture, by a society. Individual preferences will always remain, and in a free country, that should be the case - I don't want anyone forced to use their body in a way they don't want to, even if it does impact on the baby's health. To increase breastfeeding rates, we should (IMO) actively avoid individual pressure, and instead look at the barriers to it - these are overwhelmingly to do with attitudes in general, training of HCPs, lack of society's understanding of the normal needs of babies.

I come from a family who find breast feeding 'yucky' (my sisters explanation for not trying when I asked her) I tried to bf my prem ds who spent some time in SCBU having phototherapy & I really struggled. I was constantly told by my family that I should quit & that ff was just as good. They quite simply refuse to believe that bf is the best thing for a baby & seem to regard any evidence to the contrary as some kind of propaganda. How can you educate people who think like that? According to my mum it's different for me because I always wanted to bf, as if it was some kind of lifelong
ambition. I didn't always want to bf. I got pregnant, looked at the evidence & decided to bf as it was the best thing for my child. Not that anyone in my family takes any notice of a word as I say as I have been brainwashed by bf Nazis (who are these people I keep hearing about) & they know best.

Kwani - that must have been so hard for you!

Agree with you tiktok re: the 'illusion' of choice when it comes to infant feeding.

I think that many things in our lives are presented to us as a 'choice' when there is actually no real freedom to choose. I'm thinking (bitterly - have a child coming up to secondary transfer age) about the laughable concept that you can choose how you wish your child to be educated. Because those of us whose children will be going to sink schools have freely chosen that haven't we?

TikTok, thanks for info.

Rockin, sorry if phrasing made you feel under attack, wasn't meant to. Just curious to know if the colostrum lasts until milk comes, or if it tails off after say a couple of days and then it's just a wait for the milk, and actual chance of going hungry occurs. Seems not, but my friend became unsure if anything was coming out at all for two days before milk came.

Regarding OP - I think that people who force judgement on those who supposedly "willfully" choose not to breastfeed despite knowing the benefits, are sometimes assuming that everyone really does know the facts. I don't think this very often is the case.
If you are pro-bf then you've probably sought out details about it, or had a good example to follow, but not everyone has. Even in my very pro-breastfeeding borough, they tell you they advocate BF'ing but very little time is spent on explaining why, and benefits, or in fact anything much at ante-natal appointments, it's so in and out and a different face every time. If you are lucky then ante-natal classes might help. I found out about BF'ing more from my sisters than any midwives and doctors I came in to contact with.

Whilst I always felt resentful of my mum for not even trying to BF me when I found out, and felt everyone should at least "give it a go" I don't think I have suffered from it physically. My mum says had a business to run and no time off, it wasn't encouraged and she stands by her decision. Personally (and having seen her reaction to me BF'ing) I think she just hated the idea.

I thought I'd be great at it, and although I breastfed for 5 months (some mixed feeding) I had a horrid time, think the desperation to "do my best" actually interfered with the bonding process - terribly painful thrush for 2.5 months, split nipple and low supply meant he screamed and clawed at me, I cried lots of the time, supply plummeted further through the stress and it made me very paranoid about how he felt about me.
Obviously the nutritional benefits stack up but emotionally I think it was quite damaging for us.
Still, giving it a go again from Feb, hoping it to be better, and calmer. But having had a hard time I am now less judgemental of those who ff. And if this time I feel it's affecting my mental state and relationship with my baby again, I won't torture myself in the same way and switch to formula or at least mix feed if neccesary.

Mothers come in all shapes and sizes, we all heal differently from different types of birth which can play a part, feel differently about our bodies, and if we keep our little ones fed, clothed, safe and loved it's really what matters IMHO.

interesting thread!

i don't know. i was completely ignorant with DD1.

i didn't realise that, even if i went home FF DD1 after 4 days, my milk hadn't come in and there was every possibility to BF her.

no idea. and so FF.

with DD2, i had MN. BUT she was a dream feeder. a natural, even according to the NCT counsellor. she fed like DD1 and DS do on the bottle. she'd suck for 15 mins. on one boob, then another for 15 mins., then she'd go to sleep. wow.

but DS.

oh.

i think looking back he may have a tongue tie.

but there is just NO help out here. none. zero. zip.

and i'm over feeling guilty, tbh.

i just want to get on with things.

so ff.

he's our last.

he was born a big boy - 9lbs., 5oz to his sisters' 7lbs., 1oz (DD1) and 6lbs., 9oz (DD2) and he's a BIG, hungry boy (15lbs., 11oz on 29 December).

but hey ho, it's water under the bridge at this point.

i've got a left boob that is still leaking, but i'll sort that out soon enough.

tittybangbang that is a very good example of the illusion of choice and the problem we have in our society that choice is always presented as a good thing.
We shouldn't need to choose which school to send our children to, as they should all be meeting standards, and similarly, if society wasn't biased against BF, and the support was there for all women, then perhaps the need for the choice to FF would disappear. As others have said, if you had bad support, then did you really choose, or was your hand forced in the end.
Choice is often represented as being between two equal options, but the choice of a good school or a bad school isn't a choice, and I think that FF is often perceived as being as good as BF because the straight choice exists, iyswim.
I'm not saying that the right to choose shouldn't be there, but rather that 'choice' shouldn't be considered in the way it currently is in our society.

ON the matter of choice...in my personal experience when you have problems ff, than there seems to be a lot of advice out there....
if you have problems with bf the general "advice" you will get is....oh just switch to formula

Lotster, with ds2 I had so many problems with thrush etc....and whilst he was a natural breastfeeder and didn't cause "trouble" otherwise....the thrush thing only stopped once we stopped bf....and bf and thrush is unpleasant and can be extrememly painful (I had it once so bad, my nipples were red raw and god the pain was toe-curling)....
anyway, when I had ds3 I wondered if we would have thrush probs....but no such problems
Never had thrush with es neither btw....so, with ds2 it was just one of those things...I have, however, always wondered if me having vaginal thrush (sorry tmi) when giving birth to ds2 had something to do with our thrush probs....but it was probably just coincidence...

I see EXACTLY what you mean wenceslasmyeducation (I think!)

The government AND mother and baby magazines/baby guides should stop presenting the choice between ff and bf as they do other consumer choices - ie setting out lists of pros and cons for each, as though they are in any way comparable.

Putting the pros and cons of ff and bf side by side is only meaningful in a completely adult centred world. In a baby-centred world the pros and cons would look so different as to make comparisons bizarre, as there are in almost all cases no benefits to ff if bf is possible for a mother.

I Bfead all mine but have absolutely no problem with anyone choosing not to. This is probably the most personal choice one can possibly make, and I do not think an "outsider" can possibly comment on it unless specifically asked to.

I think to say that the "there is no better way" approach is incorrect in the sense that someone can be physically able to but not emotionnaly. I have a friend that started Bfeeding under other people preasure and resented it, then started to resent her child as being the cause of the "problem". Given a choice any baby will go for harmonious relationship with their mum weather Bfed or not!(IMO)

I find that so sad....

It's interesting that for a lot of women BFing has become such an emotional issue, rather than just a natural and normal feeding method.

In France (where I come from) not many women BF past 1 month. There's a huge pressure to 'get your body back' and BFing is seen as a inconvenience- as in you're 'tied to your baby' (I've been told this by relatives a few times).
I've never once heard anyone in France discuss the difference between formula and breastmilk- it's always been about convenience and aesthetics.