Is breastfeeding just a middle class thing? Radio 4 Women's Hour

[Witchycat]

Interesting feature on Women's Hour today. Suggests women from lower socio-economic backgrounds don't usually even attempt b/f and interviews a number of women about why they didn't want to and what is being done to provide better information to encourage women to make an informed choice.

Think this will take you to the Listen Again page - go to the bottom & click Women's Hour on the Top 5 box (assuming your pc has speakers and you are not at work!)

I like both your points ks.

Supportive partner is important I think.

But what I found was, the ones that didn't breastfeed, it was the partners that were getting up in the night faffing about with kettles and bottles.

Maybe they would be more supportive if they realised that, lol.

Dh's friends were envious that he was the one struggling with a screaming baby at 4am, I just reached over and popped a boob in, sorted.

wasn't struggling I mean.

"Ironically economic success can result in babies being bottle-fed, breastfeeding being seen as the practice of the impoverished and the ignorant. Holland and Hogg (2001: 123) point out that early in the twentieth century

' Breastfeeding was a working class practice, mainly because it was cheap'."

Bit from that link I posted further down the page.

Yeah me too moondog but I am in some ways a pretty stubborn type. I can see why young girls are uncomfortable with it - I had such a different attitude with my second than my first. Far less hung up about it, and I think that was a confidence thing. KS agree with your posts.

Oh KS I now don't agree with your latest post! I am much harsher than that.

How old are you kama?
Are you British?

Oh no KS - go on as long as you like - just make sure its before bedtime or after getting up time! I would have been working on the broken nights. But each to their own. I was being a bit tongue in cheek really because all your other posts were sort of general, whereas that one was personal.

I think Sure Start are supporting new bf drop ins now and they're in more 'impoverished' areas. At the sure start playgroups I go to the majority of the women bf - from across the social strata. Don't know how long they keep at it but most do seem to start. One of bf counsellors told me London has the worst record for bfing and there's a major push on now in the capital. Seems to be working in my area.

welshmum..figures in Wales are dismal..

I miss breast feeding!

Am most deffo hard working class!

I don't think it is about class but more to do with attitude of self/peers/family/friends.

imo the worst image the general public have about breastfeeing is that it is always on demand or people have this image thats baby is constantly latched to the boob.
this is the hardest thing to overcome in peoples attitudes i feel.

i was absoluetly delighted when i meet my neighbour the otherday wth her 4 wk old and she told me she was feeding him herself, prior to this she was feeding.
at the last minute she attended thelast antenatal class and decided she'd give it a go after a good lecture from a midwife. how many people follow thru on the ante natal classes?

even on mumsnet alot of the breastfeeding queries are "will this ever end" sort of thing, because poor mums havent got the support in RL that it does settle down into a pattern and its no different to bottle feeding.

and the "dont get me started" on the sleep all night thing that also imo contributes to bottlefeeding.

after my ds was born in Wales, my hv there said that only a handful of her list of clients were bfing.
I had v good support from her and maternity unit in Ysbyty Glan Clwyd
My mother and her 3 sisters all breastfed - they were brought up on a N Wales poor tenant farm.
My dp's French mother and all her sisters/SIL;s bottlefed - and they're pure 'petite bourgeoisie'.

They called me a masochist for continuing despite cracked nips in first couple of months!

interesting point made in the prog about girls saying they 'didn't want to feel like cows' - although quite happy to feed cow's milk to their babies!

another important point was not to lecture, and the need for a good publicity campaign to 'make bf trendy' for young mothers.

I am involved in our local Sure Start initiative as a peer supporter (not counsellor.)

I still maintain that despite all the support in the world,you have to want to do it.

Teeavee,my sister in France reckons hardly anyone she knows breastfeeds and that she was looked on as a bit of a nutter for b/feeding four kids for a year each.

one girl of my age with 2 kids - primary schoolteacher- asked me 'why?' when I said I was bfing

A bf counsellor on this area told me that a lot of the Asian mums see the plump western bottle-fed babies and want to 'buy' the best thsy can for thier babies - it's such a shame.

Teeavee I know what you mean about the cow comments, as if that wasn't what breast are there for anyway.

it's not just asian mums who have that perception

I'd heard of the Muslim/colostrum thing too, hunker. I was also told recently that it is a cultural practice to shave a newborn's head as birth hair is considered unclean. There would seem to be a link between the fact that both colostrum and birth hair were produced/grown while the baby was still in utero.

A trend that is over 50 years old now, i.e. bottlefeeding, is going to take time to buck. Older/better educated women ARE more likely to breastfeed at the moment, but once we get beyond the generation whose mothers thought breastfeeding 'unnatural', I predict it will become more prevalent. I don't think putting your baby's health first is a class issue, but one of education. Sadly, class and education are still too interlinked in this country, but there you are.

My local Debenhams is very child-friendly, but sometimes has to field complaints from diners in its restaurant who object to nursing mums not using the (toilet-like) 'babies room'. The complainants are, to a woman, middle-aged ladies who think breastfeeding is 'disgusting'.

One day, people will marvel that this view was ever taken. At least, I hope so.