Mansplaining breastfeeding

[NaturalStudy]

Luckily a man who has rented a woman's womb has arrived to give us his view on breastfeeding. Lucky us.

www.howisfeedinggoing.com/

"I need the conversation around feeding to change so my child when he's older doesn't feel like a lesser child."

Such a weird assumption. Why would a child have any opinion on how they were fed as a baby? I don’t think I was even aware of how I was fed as a baby until I had my own child and was therefore asking for advice. I have a sibling 5 years younger than me so have vague memories of her being breastfed, but I don’t remember ever asking/caring how I was fed. I totally get that mothers are made to feel judged for any number of choices, but does that filter down to children feeling less than?

I have also never been asked “how’s the breastfeeding going” by anyone who didn’t already know I was breastfeeding.

@FluffyBattleKitten

thought donor milk was usually for premature babies, not surrogate ones.

My baby was very, very sick and has a life limiting condition which meant he couldn't breastfeed (heartbreaking for me)

We weren't even close to being entitled to breast bank so I can't imagine what you have to do to get it.

I pumped for a long time. Beyond when it was helpful to me or baby. I totally get why FF are defensive. A lot of the time the person that judges you most for failing is yourself.
People waxing lyrical about bf just salts the usually very fresh wound.

I'm so very sorry, Fluffy. I hope you and your baby have recovered from that, sounds very hard.

Mothers instigating breastfeeding at birth in the UK is really high - about 80% afair. (I would need to check).

This drops off very sharply, though, which to me says many, many women are not getting the support and help they might want. Reasons for this pattern are many, varied and complex, on an individual level, but on a society-level, worth considering whether anyone makes any money off of breastfeeding, of course.

www.amazon.co.uk/Politics-Breastfeeding-When-Breasts-Business/dp/190517716X?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Great twitter thread about it here twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1423429338268160000?s=19

That is a great Twitter thread. Love that Malcolm is talking about this on his Twitter.

The breastfeeding comments from Tan are a 'symptom' of widespread surrogacy itself really. Consumerism in its truest form.

Obviously, not all gay men are like this, Malcolm being a case in point, but surrogacy is presented so often as 'helping' gay men (and truly infertile heterosexual couples and single people) have babies it's not wonder women have to #BeKind and surrogacy agencies are always looking for 'breeding stock'.

I really don't get the whole ff vs breast feeding battle phenomenon.

I did neither. I pumped exclusively for six months, which weirdly worked brilliantly for us, despite midwives telling me "I'd never manage it." But I'd had big boobs all my life and would be damned if they were going to be completely useless when I actually needed them to do what they were supposed to. 😂

But all this fuss over baby feeding, which for most people lasts only for a year or so. And then, when your child gets to two or three, there's virtually no proper guidance or conversation about how to get toddlers to eat a balanced diet!

Surely, whatever you think about infant feeding, you've got to admit that getting young children to eat a range of vegetables is kinda more important in the grand scheme of their lives. Yet I know parents with babies that were either formula or breast fed that struggle daily to get their children to eat something other than a very narrow range of foods. One lad I know is 6 and only eats pasta and cheese. My DD only eats meat and fruit.

Yet there's no real conversation about this at all. 🙄

I really don't get the whole ff vs breast feeding battle phenomenon.
I'm not entirely sure it exists as much as companies like Bobbie or Tommee Tippee would have us believe. Disgusting that they've convinced Tan France it also exists through the medium of a fat check. He'd been a parent for five minutes and he's already found a way to make money off of it. He'll be releasing an impractical toddler clothing line and weaning recipe book in no time.

I'm not entirely sure it exists as much as companies like Bobbie or Tommee Tippee would have us believe
I think companies like that strongly dislike anything that promotes breastfeeding because they don't make money from breastfeeding mums.
Because they're focused on making money, they have no problem trying to set women up against each other, lying about breastfeeding whilst pretending to be supportive and generally being unethical in pursuit of profit.
They don't care about the harm to women (regardless of feeding method) as long as they make money.

My mum says the same about nappies, it worked to the manufacturers benefit to raise the average wage for potty training from 18 months to 3 years.

You can't argue with the convenience of disposals nappies and the time it saved women meant they already had a huge, previously untapped market to make a profit.

Totally agree @OhHolyJesus

A friend used to go mad because every time her MiL came to stay she would shed another six months on the age her children were potty trained. But she had to draw water from a well to boil the nappies on the stove. Quite an incentive to get the children out of nappies.
Mothers would sit the baby on a potty at each change, and each catch would be one less nappy to wash and also it did train the baby at an early age. Of course by 18months or so, whilst the child might be nearly 100% going on the potty and not using nappies except at night, it was still only a toddler, so Mother had to regularly help the child onto the potty and sort clothing out etc.

I think nowadays people think "potty trained" means a child can take itself off to the loo when it has the urge, use the loo, sort clothes and wash hands. Of course they can't do this until much older.
But it's quite possible to ensure that the child almost exclusively uses the potty from a very early age. My sister used to have my nephew sitting on the potty on her lap at six months of age as she couldn't bear dealing with pooy nappies.

Of course the disposable nappy industry makes a fortune by encouraging later potty training and it is much harder when a child is older.

Reviving this thread because it looks like Woke attacks on breastfeeding are going to be a thing. My guess is that we are going to see a lot more of this very soon. I suppose anything that can be done to attack the importance of the mother-child bond is convenient for queer theory types and associated agendas.

This doesn’t seem to be paid for by a formula company. I wonder how it came to be written.

mobile.twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1428444187909820418

[quote allmywhat]Reviving this thread because it looks like Woke attacks on breastfeeding are going to be a thing. My guess is that we are going to see a lot more of this very soon. I suppose anything that can be done to attack the importance of the mother-child bond is convenient for queer theory types and associated agendas.

This doesn’t seem to be paid for by a formula company. I wonder how it came to be written.

mobile.twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1428444187909820418[/quote]
This is truly astonishing.

The article doesn't appear to say what the tweet says it does. He's quoted a bit about antivaxxers as if that was actually proved to apply to mothers who breastfeed.

I don’t think the Tweet does misrepresent the article. I see your point about the quote, but the article is trying to manufacture a conceptual link, hinting at a causal link, between breastfeeding and antivax. It’s not a convincing argument whatsoever, but they went with it anyway. It’s propaganda of a sort.

The Tweet is mocking the tendentious bollocks in the paper by summarising it.

Must be a very different debate in the US, where, as I understand it, most women get hardly any maternity leave and therefore would struggle to continue with bf beyond the first few days, unless they commit to doing a lot of pumping, or go for a hybrid approach.

It's a great shame the ff/bf debate is so emotive. If men were the ones whose bodies did the feeding, would it be similar? I bf both my children for over a year, and loved it. I was fortunate that it worked out well for us. However, I was ff myself and have turned out OK. I agree with the PP who said actually there are bigger issues down the line where we get sod all support. Parents in general in the UK get nothing like enough help and support in the early years. It would be such an investment to pay for a cadre of experienced parents of both sexes to be a support to new and inexperienced parents. MN, but with proper training for the advisers!

I see we had an apologist for surrogacy earlier on the thread keen to say that those of us who are against it are infantilising women and assuming they don't have capacity to know what they're getting themselves into. No mention, however, of the baby, who should be front and centre in this debate, and rarely is. It is just plain wrong to create a baby with a plan from the start to remove her/him from her/his mother immediately after birth, no matter how that baby is then fed. No one will ever convince me otherwise. Babies aren't commodities.

That site seems on the edge of the law imo, not a lawyer so very happy to be corrected. As I understand it though its illegal in the UK to promote infant formula for under six month old?

One if the massive bonuses of bf for me was the way the weight just dropped off! I do still feel a little anxiety, though, as I had lots of exposure to now-banned insecticides as a child growing up in a mosquito-riddled environment. I remember reading that breast milk, if tested, would probably be deemed unfit for human consumption due to levels of fat-soluble chemicals.

I know there was DDT routinely put down for ants and cockroaches and our rooms were heavily sprayed nightly against the mozzies!

I think there was another long thread on this?

Anyway.

In real life. I mean normal actual life.

Do people ask how is breast feeding going? I mean just randomly? Not a friend or hcp etc who knows you are bf? And maybe that you've had a bit of a struggle?

No one asked me that. I've never asked that. It's a weird thing to say when encountering a new mum surely?

I'd think. How are you, how are you sleeping, aw so cute etc is the usual?

How is feeding going? I mean again. No one asks that surely?!

And this is in USA where as a pp noted there are low rates because a lot of mat leave is vv short.

So different ball game.

The other thread had the blokes Twitter I think where he said something really idiotic that showed he has zero idea of the history of formula including marketing. And the results around the world where sterilising stuff/ clean water is tricky to get hold of and formula is totally unaffordable to loads of people. The result over the years has been a lot of babies dying and it goes on still. Avoidable deaths.

He's waded into a really sensitive topic that he clearly knows sod all about. Except that as a man having a baby by surrogate the baby will be formula fed. And so naturally he wants to have any suggestion that the milk mothers produce for their infants is in any way a better option even if it's a life or death thing. Not suggested any more.

The breast/ bottle thing is a massive row on MN in real life though it's just not like that.

As ever there's societal pressure on women every which way so whatever we do someone will have an opinion and that's that we're doing it all wrong and are awful.

I think it is important to recognise there are benefits to bf.

I think it's important to recognise that with the NHS there is a lot of slogans when you're Pg but usually zero support to actually do it. That for many families it's not right/ that for lots of women it's not what they want to do for a number of reasons. And that in the UK we have clean water etc and so. So what really.

The division is not helped by the fact it's so personal. I mean it's your newborn. Obviously a topic that will be v emotional. And IMO quite a few of the pro bf types on here and teaching ante natal classes are really OTT. I don't know what they think they're doing.

What is needed is practical support for women who want to. Not just making pregnant women feel like if they don't they've failed from the off. I mean ffs

@Kendodd

That site seems on the edge of the law imo, not a lawyer so very happy to be corrected. As I understand it though its illegal in the UK to promote infant formula for under six month old?

Yes illegal here.

Don't know about usa.

Here they use babies 6mo that look younger. Of course.

They're areseholes. And doubly so because. Around 6mo is when they start taking less frequent bigger feeds. For me and I'd imagine most women by 6mo bf you and the baby both know what you're doing. From 6mo it gets way way way easier! And that's the message in general that it's time to stop.

My mum's a fucking doctor and as soon as 6mo passed she was on at me. When are you going to stop bf...

Is it to do with when they start getting a bit mobile maybe. Dunno.

'. I remember reading that breast milk, if tested, would probably be deemed unfit for human consumption due to levels of fat-soluble chemicals.'

Depends where you live and grew up, surely.

It isn't possible to mansplain away mothers completely.

The surrogate babies to famous men are little people, they will grow and will then be in a position to wonder how they exist and who their mother is. In Tan's case his thoughts and actions are published so his DC will be able to I hope fully hold him accountable.

I find it really interesting- realised the other day.

Watching a nature prog. Poachers maybe it was. Took a baby away from mum.
Doom voice, sad music etc

Anything nature it's accepted that taking a baby away from its mum is terrible unconscionable.

But then with humans. Suddenly it's ok to have the baby taken as soon as born. If it's surrogacy.

Other situations where babies get taken away it's recognised as awful. Massive. We as animals instinctively feel it's all wrong.

The other thing here is the history of male dominated science and misogyny.

Formula being a good example. I mean feeding a baby. That's just an animal thing. The men in the labs can do better!

And then. Things about breast milk are still being discovered. Oh wow it does this! Well why the shock? We're an extremely successful species. Obviously the milk for babies is going to be pretty nifty.

The assumption was oh well just boobs milk. Nothing special. We can brew up something better in the lab. And monetise it!

Same with surrogacy.
Babies can't talk. And we don't remember being that young.
But. When growing the baby knows their mum. Her voice. Her heartbeat is a constant. This taking away and it's fine plan. Does anyone really know that? Why the visceral reaction from both men and women when a baby chimp for eg. Not even a newborn. Is taken from their mother. Men and women think oh no! That's terrible.
I don't think anyone knows what the impact is of removing a newborn from its mum. I mean scientifically which is all that matters when it comes to us and our reproductive functions.

It's all very woman as vessel. Not a complex dual interaction. But she's just an incubator.

The whole donor egg thing is also a very male view. For them it's just the genes. The sperm. For women. We contribute to the baby even if not our egg in loads of ways.

The idea that not her egg = baby is nothing to do with her even though grew and birthed it is.. well it's just a male centred imposed nonsense tbh

If we look at research and areas such as Long Lost Families /DNA online, children grow and ask questions:
Who is my mum, did she want me, is she safe, do I look like her, do I have siblings, does she think about me?

The men who buy babies who are cute and fulfill their needs need to consider when older the child is an adult and free to discover the truth. They may feel a closer affinity to the person who was used.