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.

Ha ha, I hate those situations where you try and cover up what they say and then just dig yourself deeper.

She's probably telling her mates about it now 'this woman tried to bustle me in off the street'..

I suspect that the journalist has paraphrased the bfc badly.

Your average journalist working on a local newspaper is not going to have the first idea of the issues surrounding the senstivities about bf and ff. I bet the spokesperson for the bfc read out a really carefully worded statement which the journalist then paraphrased, because there is only so much space on that page and there's a more interesting story about a cat being stuck up a tree which is being allocated more space and a photo.

Happens all the time.

Sure does, blardy journalists

i'm not going to any meet-up in London, lol! or glasgow for that matter.
and yes, mrsc , it was hideous. i'm always doing things like that.

at vvv and vss.

Oh I didn't mean it like that It's just that I would be very surprised if an average journalist working on a local paper would understand the ins and outs of the politics around breastfeeding and therefore be able to paraphrase a sensitively worded statement adequately, unless they were personally aware of the issues themselves.

I wasn't, until I had problems myself. Most of the medical professionals I've come across weren't. So I don't think it's a particularly scathing criticism of local journalists, to assume that they wouldn't be. I really wouldn't expect them to be, tbh, but I would expect a statement from a bfc to be slightly better worded than that one. Which is why I think it probably isn't the complete statement.

ah well, you see, as a journalist myself i think it's just as likely there was no carefully-worded statement and it was just a wee phoner. [more speculation]

A breastfeeding support group allows mums to discuss feelings that they would not be comfortable to raise in front of some bottle feeders. Imagine the following conversation

breastfeeding mum: "my mother in law is pressurising me into stopping breastfeeding, she says its about time he went on the bottle at the age of 12 months and that its just comfort sucking".

breastfeeding councellor: "Ofcouse there are still benefits as research shows that toddlers who are breastfed are healthier and more intelligent"

Brestfeeding mum: "There are times I just want my body back, I'm sooo tired, but my baby doesn't want to wean".

What would someone who has bottlefed by choice make of this conservation? Would breastfeeding mums feel confident to have this kind of converstaion in front of someone not really interested in breastfeeding?

Its a long thread and thanks for pointing out that post. I don't see that the organisers of the cafe did anything wrong.

Aitch I agree it probably was a phone call, but that doesn't preclude it being a really carefully worded statement. I would've thought they'd have been horrified by the bad publicity and been really, really careful about how they worded stuff. This sort of publicity must be horrific for them.

Just to add, a breastfeeding councellor will normally listen to the mum and find out what she wants rather than frust breastfeeding down the mums throat.

If the mum wants to wean then organisations like La Leche League will help.

Aitch, have you ever been to a breastfeeding support group?

i just think it's unlikely that someone who bottlefed by choice would go to a bfing group. someone who is a bfer in their head but whose tits had another idea when it came down to it is not the same. believe me. and twofalls. and twinkle and blondie smallwhitecat and ooooh, loads of us here who have struggled with the fact that we are doing what we never wanted to do. it is difficult and most bfcs are sensitive to that because they were with us every step of the way until it became no longer possible to bf.

lolol, of course i've been to a bf support group. i mix fed for months, i pumped for months, i struggled for MONTHS.

Frances, I can see your point but the converse is also true. I am sure I have persuaded some wobbly bfs to continue when I told them about the joys of sterilizing, the hassle of carrying bottles/milk/powder about, having to warm a bottle with a hungry screaming baby about your person, the expense, having to come downstairs in the the middle of the night rather than staying in bed and whipping out a boob, not to mention the emotional wringer that you go through when you do actually throw in the towel.

Like Aitch said, I never went back to my group when I did stop but I would have been made to feel very welcome by the organisers if I did (most of my friends used to go and I think they also recognised that your support group is important, not matter how you feed). I think Aitch made a good point about the difference between those who bottle feed by choice and those who are actually bf in their heads but bottle feed because they have been left with no other choice. Of course, we don't know which camp this particular person fell into.

Breastfeeding support groups are there to help people carry on breastfeeding, rather than to help a mum who is suffering from postnatal depression because she failed to breastfeed.

Some areas do have NHS postnatal depression support groups and prehaps that is a better place for a mum for come to terms with her failure to breastfeed.

Pregnant mums who failed at breastfeeding for whatever reason are welcome at any breastfeeding support group I have attended.

I have a friend who failed five times to establish breastfeeding, but was sucessful with breastfeeding her sixth and seventh child thanks to La Leche League. She is now a La Leche League leader.

Frances, we don't know the particulars of this case but what if this person was the only bottle feeder in a group of BF mums, she was feeling a bit low and her friends, after the baby massage class said why don't you come along to the babycafe? She wasn't taking up resources because she wasn't looking for advice and may have just paid for a cup of coffee and a biscuit, had a chat and was on her way. That was exactly the situation I once found myself in. I didn't go because I felt awkward but I know I would have been made to feel welcome if I had of done. There were often bottle feeding mums at our babycafe and they were never made to feel unwelcome (the leaders understanding the sensitivity and isolation new mums can feel), they just didn't often go back. I think in this case they could have just left it for a few weeks and the person would have decided it wasn't for her. Of course, I am making a lot of assumptions based on my own experiences here.

I also think its not right to assume that everyone who had difficulty coming to terms with their failure to breastfeed has PND, by the way. I certainly didn't have PND but I did feel very low about it at times and my support network was very important.

Good for your friend, that is fantastic news. But what if this person decides not to give bf a go next time around because she remembers the attitude of the local bfc - she may fear that if she fails she will be treated as an outsider so what would be the point.

Its not complusory for breastfeeding mums to use a breastfeeding cafe. They could have easily gone somewhere else!

The woman was allowed to stay this time, but the friend was told not to take her unless she was seriously considering breastfeeding.

Its a support group for goodness sake, not a public cafe. Why can't the health professionals or volenteers who run the nhs support group have say in who attends and who doesn't.

Breastfeeding mums set up organisations like the La Leche League. What is to stop bottlefeeding mums setting up their own volentary organisations. Teaching mums how to bottlefeed safetly would save the nhs millions. Prehaps a bottlefeeding support group would attract funding if the organizers put their case well. There is an NHS support group for women who need to retell horrific birth stories to each other in my area. Why not a support group for women who want to get over their horrific and negative breastfeeding experiences.

Oh FFS. The bleedin breastfeeding mafia strike again. The extremist element of any organisation always gives the more moderate element a bad name don't they?

Reminds me of the person who once posted on here that anyone who bottlefed their baby was denying their child "species specific milk".

It was probably someone just like her who booted this poor "inadequare" woman out of the cafe and made her feel awful.

I wonder if that lot froth up breastmilk to put in their cappucinos .

Some people really do need to stop taking themselves quite so seriously and get a bloody life.

who, in your view, is the 'breastfeeding mafia'?

and what makes them so.

do you think that there is also a 'bottlefeeding mafia' out there?

Looks like you haven't read the thread KKK

"The bleedin breastfeeding mafia strike again"

doh! Its a breastfeeding support group. The whole point is being a safe space where fellow nursing mums can get support from each other.

It is scientifically accurate that cow's milk was made for baby cows. Breastmilk was made for baby humans. If this causes a bottlefeeder offence then she is being silly attending a breastfeeding support group.

The woman didn't get booted out. She was given a drink. She just didn't fit the criteria of the group.

No actually I don't think there's a botttle feeding mafia. And why don't I? Because no one seems to get more het up about how to feed your baby and seek to dictate to and impose thier views in a most dogmatic fashion on others than the evangelical breastfeeding lobby of the type who run groups like this do.

Just supposing this woman had had a double mastectomy and had dearly wanted to breast feed her baby but couldn't? Would she still have been drummed out because she "didn't fit the criteria of the group".

These women are dispicable. There are loads of reasons why people can't breastfeed. There may be scientific studies to show that breastmilk is better for babies than formula but I don't think you'll find that there are any to show that a breastfeeding mother is a better mother than one who either chooses to or is forced to bottlefeed her baby.

I don't think anyone disputes that breastmilk is best for babies but at the end of the day everyone is a mum trying to do the best for their baby and trying to be the best mum she can be. Who are the likes of these women to judge from the moral highground ffs?

Surely these people should be trying to establish a cafe where any women who want to are made to feel welcome and comfortable when breastfeeding their babies. They should not IMHO be seeking to make mothers who do not want to for whatever reason feel like social misfits.

Surely they are no less guilty of bigotry than those who make them feel unconfortabale for breastfeeding in public?

The word hypocrisy springs readily to mind.

Really, the use of the word 'cafe' was very misguided...

People seem to be posting at cross purposes.

Because if it were called a breasfeeding support group, then a woman who had had a double mastectomy would realise that, however dearly she would have loved to breastfeed her baby, it wasn't necessarily the place for her.

No?

And it was a breastfeeding support group...

How did the press find out?

If someone upsets me, my first port of call isn't the news room.