"'Breast is best' bias blamed for hundreds of dehydrated babies"

[beef]

let battle commence!

I'm saying nowt!

Trying to decide whether that's dumb or fluff...think the former...

"its only recently some of the mums have told me that they used to give their babies bottles before they came (to a baby group) so that it looked like they exclusively breast fed"

Just trying to imagine a situation where I would have been happily feeding DS infront of other mums at say 11pm but have actually been so unconfident in my milk supply that I would have been secretly feeding him formula before hand??????

MP, it's bonkers.

I cannot tell you how pissed off I am that people who've read this bag of shite article might assume I'm sneaking DS2 formula.

Fucking formula manufacturers with their multimillion pound budgets, their utter disregard for babies all over thw world and their fucking SLY "breastfeeding support lines" - WANKERS!

I read on her site recently that: "Clare Byam-Cook is 49, married (for twenty-five years) and has two children, aged 19 and 21. She is a qualified nurse and midwife, but retired from practicing as midwife in 1985."

UH so she trained nearly 30 years ago and she "retired" when she was ... 28!

Hmmm!

So many of these childcare "gurus" seem to lack the fabulous CVs that one would assume they have! (Including one well-known guru who is apparently only formally qualified in hotel and catering management, of course.)

Message withdrawn

MP...

I was to primary school that long ago. Perhaps I should be a teacher...

CBC is intimately linked with the Contentedbaby website.

Nuff said...

Also I hate the "married (for twenty-five years)"

I hate it so much for so many reasons

ahhh, kiskidee, that explains it. I always had in my mind that they were both from the same school ... but could never put my finger on it.

This struck a chord with me. When I was in hospital with ds he wouldn't latch on. The hospital was incredibly hot and I was scared he would dehydrate. So I asked the midwife for formula. At no point did anyone suggest that I could just give him some water and wait for him to get over the birth (which was long and may well have been a bit traumatic for him) and latch on. WHY? So I mixed fed from day one. If I had known you could give water to new babies I would have done it. So I agree the support is not there even in well-meaning hospitals working towards their bf accreditation.

Nobody's denying that lots of people have problems feeding, my first bf experience was horrendous. It's the emphasis of these articles on encouraging more acceptance of mixed or formula feeding rather than campaigning for better bf support or giving out numbers/websites for bf support that pisses me right off.

agree with northender. I went from 4 midwives to community midwife to health visitor to two bf counsellors and none of them could get ds to latch on for over 7 weeks. i eneded up with PND from all that pressure (poisoning my son with formula, being a bad mother etc).

The bias is a very bad thing. When I had sore nipples, I was told to take paracetamol and keep trying.

By the way, in the tropics where I'm from virtually everybody introduces water and a lot of women really don't produce enough milk. Unicef and WHO admit to that espcially in my native village where there's poverty and sometimes famine. ORT is standard issue for babies. Formula is for the really rich as is breakfast cereal.

Would you please ease up on the women who give their babies a bottle of formula before meeting other mums because they want to appear to be exclusively breastfeeding? (Fair enough that that is an undermining comment - but aren't we in agreement, more-or-less, that these are articles are undervining bfing anyway?) I was almost one of those mums with my ds. In the first couple of months of ds's life I was utterly terrified to pull out a bottle of formula at my post-natal group. I was mix-feeding him - due to the usual pathetic bfing support in the early days - and spiralling down into PND because I was convinced that I was poisoning him every time I put a teat in his mouth. Viscious attitudes like yours would certainly not have helped me!

Vicious? Where? I'm not cross with women who give formula, far from it! I'm pissed off with formula companies who are making out that women who say they're exclusively bfeeding are lying.

Well you knwo what, it's funny how many women at my pn group started pulling out bottles of formula after a few weeks of seeing me breastfeed and then follow with a bottle - and then start talking more openly about the fact that they were doing the same thing. Maybe it's actually true!

Calling me a liar, PC?

No just flaring my own feelings on this. They're quite strong, as you can see.

Fair enough.

Not sure why you thought my attitude toward women who mixed fed was vicious though - I assume it was me you meant?

Not you individually. There were several posts and they felt hugely arrogant and dismissive.

Sometimes with Mumsnet it's better not to post immediately, but to go off, stick your head in the fridge for a moment, and then come back and post.

Would still have been cross - but probably wouldn't have worded my post quite that way.

PrettyCandles, on ANY talk board, it is sometimes better to walk away have a think and decide "why is this making me feel so upset/angry" because the answer will tell you more about yourself than about what that person said in cyberspace.

I am also annoyed that some entities are suggesting that a lot of bf mothers give formula on the sly. How dare they! The pain and guilt some women feel if they are not exclusively breastfeeding should lay on the shoulders on the crap bf support in the health system. Being women, so many of us blame ourselves. the medical community in cahoots with the pharmaceutical companies destroyed the breastfeeding knowledge in the West. It is a damn long hard road to retrieve that knowledge.

finefatmuma, where in the tropics are you from? i am from the Caribbean. is ORT, Oral Rehydration Salts? Where i come from, this is only given to babies if they have vomiting and or diarhea.

PC - at least there were others in your pn group bfeeding. I am the only breastfeeder at mine but that's a whole different thread really.

I think everyone would agree that mothers have the right to make a choice as to how they feed their baby. Its just that it should be an informed choice, with as much information and support as is required, when it is required.

Its like the "Breast is Best" campaign is trying to work from the top down - I like the idea of b/f councellors in maternity wards - it would be best if then they could follow through and be available to visit you at home too.

I found the "treat 'em and street 'em" attitude to b/f with dd1 meant that so long as I looked like I was doing the right thing and smiled a bit they would let me go home (after 3 days in hospital in labour and a further 6 days after an emergency c/s, going home was all I wanted). Once at home i floundered seriously and gave up b/f on the advice (?) of my GP as had nearly blacked out from mastitis that had turned to blood poisoning. I was exhausted, angry and lacking in confidence and didn't feel I had the where-with-all to pick up a phone and talk to a b/f councellor. That's where continuity of care after the birth specifically with regards to b/f would have helped me continue. Phoning a stranger in a time of great stress takes a leap of faith. I felt like a silly little girl who had done something wrong.

Do wonder sometimes if the reason I had 3 children was to refine my b/f technique and finally get it completely right - just to prove to myself that i could do it. (Mind you, the same goes with the giving birth bit too - as if there is a right and wrong anyway)

Kiskidee, I'm from good old tropical Africa. My original village has two communual water taps and 50% of the village now have electricity 25% of the time which is propgress. most of the houses are on stilts on a river so you can only keep small domestic animals. no cows. It is accessible by 30minute speedboat ride - No roads. Average number of kids is 7 per woman. national average though is 5.6 per woman. My dad escaped early to the big city.

Sadly, infant mortality is 95 per 1000 (i.e 9.5 per 100 almost 1 in 10) IN THE COUNTRY. Most births are 'natural' homebirths cos there's little choice. That's why I'm not too impressed with people who go on as if hospitals are more likely to cause births proplems and I don't get the point of candlelight meals. candles are those things we light everyday coz there's no electricity.

ORT is standard issue and there are national adverts on how to make it at home with salt and sugar. my mum worked with unicef, unesco and who on a lot of campaigns so we had a lot of literature and samples growing up.