Article in The New Yorker Magazine about the history/ethics of expressing/storing breast milk

[ipanemagirl]

here
you can email responses to the magazine.

Dh thought I had lost my reason when I insisted on checking our luggage in instead of carrying it on, all because of my two days worth of made-in-Budapest EBM! Ryanair suddenly become far less cost-effective when you do that!

"BonsoirAnna a friend of mine who lives in France says the childcare provision and financial breaks for children are very good, but I don't know the details."

Yes, I would agree with this. But maternity leave is very short (16 weeks, though this is due to increase under EU legislation) and many babies go to crèche from 2 months where they are formula-fed to a routine, which is a great disincentive to breastfeeding.

great article. i hate pumping ...

Very interesting article, thanks for posting.

Anna, when you say they are formula fed to a routine, does that mean they won't accept EBM in the bottles?

chipmonkey - I don't know whether it's allowed or not, to tell you the truth. But I have never, ever heard of anyone doing it.

I will check the rules with some maman friends.

The bfing rate in Ireland is lower than in France and I have to say that on ds1 I think I was considered a bit of an oddity with my bottles of EBM in the nursery bag!
But it has never been rejected!
However by the time I had ds3, there were certainly a few other Mums leaving in EBM to the nursery.

chipmonkey: my neighbour is joint manager of the local crèche here in France. It is in fact against the law for crèches to accept EBM, because hygiene rules forbid any "foodstuffs" to be brought in from outside other than from the approved sources.
But she breaks the law every day.
Don't know how many other crèches do, though.

AA, that is terrible!

I'm amazed bfing rate is lower in Ireland than France. Why is that?

Am going to google to see where it's highest/lowest in the world

Personally I love pumps, I had to go work at around 12 wks with both dds but thanks to my lactaline they were exclusively bf until 13 months when I switched to cowsmilk. i used to express and mn at the same time [nostalgia emoticon]

Crikey, according to my googling Ireland has the lowest rate in the world

Though hard to know if I've got it right.

Am still fascinated. Why?

I knew breastfeeding rates here in Ireland were very low, but had no idea they were the lowest in the world! I lived in London when I was breastfeeding, but when I came back to Northern Ireland with my baby I was made to feel very freakish indeed by people. And now I'm living in the south, I don't know of any babies born to friends or family that have been breast fed. I wonder why?

The weird thing is Cow and Gate was first developed in the tiny village my husband is from (eleven pubs, one shop!). There is even a little plaque up about it.Yet my MIL had four kids and FF them all. I suspect its something to do with prudishness and the Catholic church.

Glastocat - I am in NI - and my experience is the complete opposite! All my friends and family circle (with 1 exception) bf. I am astounded Ireland has the lowest rates.

I'm really glad to hear that TYOTC. However I just spoke to my mum to make sure I'm not mistaken. She has nine siblings, and I have over forty cousins. I was the first one in two generations on her side of the family to bf for more than a few days according to her. Which is weird. My family are working class as you can get, so its not like they had spare cash to spend on formula or anything. And my husbands family were all FF too, even though they are all farmers (mostly dairy!) so you would think it would be the obvious thing for them to do!

Well, I was stopped at Heathrow security and ended up calling the police because I refused to taste the bottle (which was my own breastmilk). (Long story, but DD was being topped up with EBM due to weight issues)

I was also asked at the US Embassy when going to get DD's passport, why I didn't have any formula

All my American cousins expressed, but they also had terrible maternity leave; about 6 weeks

As a bfing Irish Mum, I really don't know either why the bfing rates here are so low.
But bfing here is a very "middle class" thing to do. Our health service in the maternity services is 3-tier, private, semi-private and public and in the private and semi-private wards, most women will be bfing, in the public wards, most women will be ffing.
I find the attitude of health professionals very indifferent towards bfing. There is a lot of lip-service paid to bfing but very little effort made to improve things.
When I was in hospital having ds2, I was in a ward with four other Mums. Out of the five of us, 4 were bfing. 2 days later there were only 2 of us left and I was appalled at the lack of help one girl was getting. I ended up moving to a private ward and I heard afterwards that she got very upset because I had been the only one helping her!
I find a lot of peoples Mums and MILs are very discouraging so people simply don't initiate bfing in the first place.

TYOTC, Northern Ireland has much better bfing rates that the South!

Chipmonkey I agree with you about the class thing. Some members of my family made veiled comments about me being a bit 'up myself' because I was BFing, and I do think the lack of support would have got to me if I had been living in NI when I was BFing. My mum was supportive in her way, saying she had wanted to BF but had utterly no support. ( Although when my supply dried up when I tried to express to go back to worktshe seemed quite relieved and said things like' Well it was tiring you out' and, 'you've done so well to do this much' . Anyway, it really does seem out of the norm here in my experience.