Bottle feeding mum asked to leave breast feeding cafe

[Dawnybabe]

In my local paper, the Eastern Daily Press, of Norfolk, they ran a story about a mum who had, through a friend, been asked by a member of staff at a PCT run breast feeding cafe not to return because she had bottle fed her four month old son. Please tell me I'm not the only one absolutely incandescant with rage over this? Apparently she had a medical reason for bottle feeding as well. Aren't the staff being as bigoted as the general public who force the need for a breast feeding cafe in the first place? Surely the attitude should be that you are safe to feed there however you like without any prejudice? There is enough pressure and guilt forced on bottle feeding mums as it is without staff who should know better joining in the witch hunt.

Situations such as this just strengthen the divide regarding methods of feeding it simply isn't necessary, and leads to resentment and media stereotypes. not really what as mothers we want to be promoting.

When I went to my local breastfeeding support group, with cracked nipples, being in a lot of pain from trying to feed my newborn daughter (bad latch) and dreading even the thought of feeding in public, I was comforted by the other breastfeeding women in the group. I knew they understood me and what I was going though.

I would of not felt comfortable with a bottle feeding mum at this group, maybe that is not PC etc but as a breastfeeding mum with problems, this is how I felt.

I wouldn't of wanted to uncover my breasts to try and latch on my baby (which took a while as I was crap at it in the beginning) in front of a fully dressed bottle feeding woman and without doing that I wouldn't of got my bad latch sorted and properly wouldn't be still breastfeeding today.

I agree that mums who have issues over being unable to breastfeeding should also have support but this should be at specfic groups aimed at that specific group of women.

Breastfeeding support groups are for the benefit of breastfeeding women and not for those who want a free cuppa.

well, there are other bfing support groups but the one i went to is at the only bfing medical centre in the country. so i'd say that no, it's probably not better as a whole country but that the bfing centre i went to sets the gold standard for the care to be aspired to in Scotland.
no reason not to aspire to be the best, though, even if you are in a church hall in norwich... if only cod were here to say something hilarious about alan partridge...

You can't win with this really. The funding is there to promote and encourage breastfeeding. If you call it a "support group" it feels too formal and may not be utilised. If you call it a "cafe" it's too casual and implies that everyone is entitled to partake.

And I don't believe that formula feeding is encouraging breastfeeding. There's this attitude that "Oh well, you tried and it didn't work out. Just give a bottle and everything will be fine," that is not helpful to a mother struggling with breastfeeding. Nearly all breastfeeding problems have solutions given the right support and that is what these organisations are trying to do.

but that very bottle feeding mother may have had knowledege to share with you, may have had similar experiences in previous circumstances. She may have simply been there offering support to her friend. had another breastfeeding woman been attending with a dp/dh /mother or friend would you feel as apprehensive or is it purely born out of this womans choice (or not) to bottlefeed?

God can you imagine the up roar if this was the other way round?

I HAD to bottle feed, and the mdwife treated me as if I was planning to sell my baby to a paedophile ring.

I don't think a formula feeding mum is really that much less "worthy" of the seat space than a PG woman - surely both are potential future bfers?

Well in that case any woman would be able to go...

The support at this particular hospital is excellent but unfortunately not replicated throughout Scotland going by the fairly dire experiences of friends. I feel very lucky to have given birth where I did. The bfcs there are the reason why I'm still bf.

There's a hell of a lot of lipservice and misinformation masquerading as bf support. It needs money throwing at it and should definitely follow the most inclusive model possible. You only have to read posts on here from women who assumed they would ff their second child because bf didn't work out the first time and are supported, and sometimes succeed by mnetters to see how it should work.

very good point, mummytosteven. i agree with ceolas as well, that the 'cafe' thing might give people a wrong steer (although i do think that it wouldn't do more than once, iykwim?). but i think it's really unfair to assume that everyone who ffs has a 'oh give them a bottle' attitude. i am hugely pro-bfing. it's just that my medical condition didn't go along with my desire.

God this thread is moving fast - want to make it clear that I'm referring to the support group that Aitch is talking about, not the one in Norwich.

I breastfed twins, succesfully whoopeee doo for me. in my hv eyes i was celebrity farkin status. With my ds 15 months later I had severe post natal depression and subsequently due to medication bottle fed after four months. I could have happily turned up at such a cafe with a breastfeeding friend with all manner of knowledge to ahre but would i have been excluded due to my circumstances???
Actually this is irrelevant, if a bf mother choses to take a non bf mother to such a place it should be welcomed, as there is a possibility that the bf mother may not have saught such support without her friend,

have you been in receipt of rosemary's magic fingers, bookthief? i didn't give birth there, that's why it took me so long to get access to them and what fucked up my exclusive bfing.

ahre means share btw

i really do agree with you, quad. and as twofalls and i have demonstrated, even when welcomed by bfcs you still do 'get' that it's not really the place for you... so an experienced and sensible bfc would know that and let things take their course rahter than cause all this upset. it was very badly handled imo.

I agree the hype and subsequent debate would have been uneccessary had this been handled better initially.

I have indeed. Proud to be a graduate of the school of no nonsense expertise! (we have talked of it before - I am the-poster-formerly-known-as shonaspurtle)

i thought so, i'd wondered where you'd gone. and i'd also thought to myself on the EB thread 'who is that clever newbie, i like the gut of her jib?'

it's funny how from reading what we've written about it you could think it was a well-resourced thing, isn't it? when in fact it's a smelly room with some beanbag pillows and some penguin bicuits. it's obviously the staff that make a place excellent or not. and not that i've even thought about it before, they evidently have to know about more than 'just' bfing, iykwim? i think rosemary in her way is an excellent student of psychology...

Thing is, I thought that everyone had that support available...until a couple of friends had babies, had problems, got shite advice, no practical support and funnily enough the whole thing went pearshaped pretty quickly. And there's me bleating about "go and see your bfc", but they had .

You're right though. It's more than knowledge and clinical expertise. It's the way they manage to calm you down, cheer you up, inspire - oh I could wax lyrical. Which I will in the letter I've been meaning to send for ages to the Head of Midwifery about how excellent their support was and hoping this service has been taken into account in the planning for the new hospital.

it isn't, you know. they are having their funding cut and the area they cover expanded... you should write the letter. i did. [smug]

i had shite help at the PRM, but unfortunately the woman was lovely and kind and kept telling me everything was fine and i wasn't to know it wasn't, iykwim? it was only in retrospect that i realised that while she was sweet and encouraging she just didn't have the expertise. it was drugs i needed, lol!

I suspected as much. The whole thing's a nightmare of PFId costcutting.

Friend recently had a similar experience at SG - 3 different people told her everything was fine, she felt great that it was going so well, dd ended up on day 6 back in hospital dehydrated because it was not fine, she did then get some support (and an apology) but by then her confidence had gone and she decided she had to ff for her own peace of mind.

Will write the letter.

i ca't remember the figures exactly but it's something like they're bringing in 40 new audiologists to administer these baby hearing tests (a good thing) but they expect rosemary and whatsername (what is her name btw i alsways forget) to cover all the hospitals in the central area in terms of specialist help.

Linda. Which means that it will be even more of a lottery getting any help at all, and they'll have to concentrate on running groups rather than the one-to-one which was what I needed at the time.

It makes me want to hit someone very hard. But I'll go to bed instead.

booktheif and aitch - i also had the wonderful hands of rosemary laid on as i also did with linda. i got a home visit with a hospial pump in tow when i was at my wits end. they are the reason i am still bfing 9 weeks on. if i had been left to the suppot? help? and advice? from prm - it would have ended after i left hospital. i was told i wouldnt bf as my nipples werent "right". through pg i was of teh opinion that i would try to bf and if i couldnt - fine. i was not preprared for how hard it would be nor the emotions that went with it. i go to 2 bf support groups - one of which is just socail an the other were problems / diffs are dealt with. ffers are welcome. no big deal is made of it.