for fucks sake leave breastfeeders alone

[ohmeohmy]

aaargh, news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7867686.stm twunts.

"Women probably spend more time agonsing over buggys and nurserys than they do about reading about BFing."

I read lots. I watched breastfeeding videos over and over. I still wasn't really aware of the dangers.

And anyway, I was a first time mother, unfamiliar with babies who had just spent three days in labour deprived of food and sleep. (Due to being in SCBU, I was not offered food for almost 24 hours after the birth either ) I was not in the best position to objectively assess my baby's latch or her general well being. That is why there are health care professionals.

oh ffs! now people are going to be swayed off of bf because of some stupid journalist. dehydrated babies are not a result of breastmilk, they are like that because they are not latching on properly enough to get milk. that article makes it seem like the breastmilk is damaging children. and what was that all about "it's some sort of a religion"??????

they better come up with a really good rebuttal article to show just how good breastfeeding is for babies!

Foxy, I disagree with your interpretation of what was said. The article highlights a problem that can arise as a result of breastfeeding. I don't think it portrays BF in a negative way.

Clearly everyone on here agrees, and so does the article the way I read it, that better training is needed to support women in those early days and this problem would not arise.

THe nenonatogist merely points out that when it come to BF, many people are not prepared to mention the possible difficulties that can surround it, this being one of them.

Would it not be better to spend the money on having a breast feeding counsellor for each hospital. So that the women were getting one expert opinion rather that 6 differing ones depending on which midwife was working.

A BF counsellor, paid by the NHS whose only function in the ward would be to assist the BF mums.

LadyHelen:"The article highlights a problem that can arise as a result of breastfeeding."

no.

The article highlights a problem that can arise as a result of poor breastfeeding.

We need HCP who can spot poor breastfeeding and know how to fix it or to refer us to someone who does.

Many many HCPs don't know how bad their knowledge of breastfeeding is and that is dangerous.

Your sentence which I quoted above shows how thin the line is between saying breastfeeding is the problem and therefore discouraging new mums from even initiating breastfeeding or to give up at the first hurdle.

The article tries to sound balanced but the quote from the neonatologist is far from reasonable or knowledgeable. With that sort of scaremongering and prejudiced against breastfeeding statement as his, how unbalanced a perception it is bound to create in mothers who are primed to protect their babies from harm. After all, he is a neonatologist and will be far more informed than a say, lay person, like Tiktok for example. Get my drift? So many women will trust a medical person before a lay person when getting information on infant feeding when they are sometimes the last person they should listen to, IMHE, of course.

IMO, and yes, I have issues especially since he works in the hospital where DD1 and I were cared for neglected in, but his words are inflammatory and ignorant. eg: "There has become something of a religious affiliation to breastfeeding," Is breastfeeding a cult? Is that the more PC way of saying breastfeeding muffia these days?

he is used to seeing the pathology of when breastfeeding goes wrong without having a clue of how to make it right. he is not the most appropriate person at all to comment on breastfeeding.

Sorry, I had a late night and early morning and this has wound me up so much, I am not thinking very straight so I am not at my most rational and balanced.

i definitely spent more time on the buggy than on bfing. i couldn't bear to jinx the labour by reading anything beyond the baby being born safely.

Your sentence which I quoted above shows how thin the line is between saying breastfeeding is the problem and saying the problem is poor breastfeeding technique.

this sort of article serves to discourage new mums from even initiating breastfeeding or to give up at the first hurdle many times because of and on the advice of poorly trained staff.

Foxy, it has clearly got your goat! And with the awful experience you had, understanably so. I agree its poor BF that leads to this problem. And I think we both agree that better support, training and the like will help. The article struck a chord with me too as DS probably only just avoided being readmitted at a week old for this very problem. I just didn't read it as an attack on BF as a whole, thats all. Just as a problem area that can arise with women who haven't had the right help with BF from the outset.

I am expecting baby no 2 in 10 weeks time and this article has NOT put me off giving BF another go. It will, together with my experience from last time, mean that I search out the help from minute one if I struggle again - even though the ideal should be that the support is there without me having to search for it. Isn't that what we are saying here???

It is not all poor breastfeeding though is it. I mean, a baby can have a good latch, a mum can have the right technique........and yet still, the baby may not get adequate supply because of problems such as the one I highlighted.

I didn't breastfeed 'poorly'. The idea that getting a good latch/correct positioning is all it takes to get bf-ing established is total bollocks.

Sorry Lady lush, hadn't read your post. Obviously it can therefore go beyond poor BF then. Maybe, with more training, your difficulties would have been identified? I don't know. Do you think you would have done anything differently had you known about your diagnosis at the time?

This bring back dubious memories for me too. I was 100% committed to bf my baby (she's 5 months now)and it seems my hospital was very aware of this problem (ie dehydration etc) and the danger to babies - a bit too aware though. I was brought back to recovery room after cs and attempted to get DD to latch on, which she would not. Despite being only minutes after her birth, as she did not latch straight away (and I was in post-op daze), mw hand expressed colostrum from me and gave to DD via syringe.
She just kept stressing that DD had to have something immediately but did not explain why. I later learnt they have had problems with babies not feeding and becoming ill.

Whilst understand that babies need milk, think perhaps we would have been OK waiting a few hrs to try again at latching once I had recovered from op. i believe that giving my DD colustrum via a syringe contributed to her refusing to latch on. They then fed her donated bm via cup (but would not let me do it) and kept handing her back full/asleep or both and just kept telling me to pump.
Looking back, I would have done things v differently. i also did not know epidurals can affect supply as my milk never ever came in.
Eventually, when they threatened that I could not take DD home unless she was feeding one way or the other, i gave in after a week in hospital and gave her ff.

Just realising how off thread I've gone - it's obviously still an issue for me - sorry!

While I think that in the majority of cases a woman might experience problems bf due to poor latch/lack of support etc and this in turn might lead to dehydration of a newborn, I think it's also important to acknowledge that for a small proportion of women, breastfeeding is simply not possible due to any number of physiological factors, and that for those women, lack of acknowledgement of this fact could lead to unnecessary suffering and potentially even deaths of newborns.

That minority should not be overlooked just because for the majority the answer is support, iyswim. Even breastfeeding will not work 100% of the time, and that does need to be acknowledged also.

I was unable to breastfeed because I didn't produce milk. I produced collostrum, but once that went the milk never came in, none. And I was given absolute shedloads of support in hospital to establish bf, even told I could sta in longer if I felt the need.
Now for me, I made the conscious decision to ff before it came to the point of having a severely dehydrated baby. But had I not made that decision, I would have ended up with a severely dehydrated baby because there was no milk to feed him.
I'm told that the number of women who don't produce any milk is very rare, but does that make them less valid just because they're in the minority?

We need to be careful not to have this attitude that bf should never be questioned. Because for some women it really isn't possible. And for those babies, the consequences can be devostating. So IMO all aspects need to be looked at. From the amount of support given to women to help them to establish bf, to the real physiological problems that women can experience that will prevent some women from being able to bf.

can i say it is not the article that has got my goat but that idiot neonatologist?

He works where I gave birth to dd1 and got my antenatal care for dd2.

With opinions like his no wonder we remain screwed in my area.

I know, my PCT had the second from bottom for initiation rates in the whole of England. Sunderland PCT fares little better I believe. The stats that went into the survey as few years ago was cited as being too conflicting to be reliable.

I haven't been able to have a cogent read of the whole article due to him winding me up and being sleepy and looking after a dd1 who is cutting up paper making confetti and dd2 who is getting bored with mummy typing on the laptop.

Interesting point Wannabe. For me support would include being advised to use formula where necessary (as EBM isn't always a possiblity).

But if the support is there and problems identified by the properly trained staff, beit poor techinique or a medical reason like yours Wannabe and Ladylush, then the risks to babies will be reduced, surely?

I agree with Wannabe about attitudes about BF, and I think thats the point the neonatologist was making in the article about it being "like a religion" and people not wanting to discuss anything negative about BF. If problems aren't discussed or made known, then women will be continue to be made to feel like failures if they can't BF for whatever reason.

With decently trained mw's, wannabe, the minority will also be addressed. We know that it is not just fixing a bad latch or express colostrum that will help a new mum.

There are non invasive and physiological signs in a baby that will show that something is still wrong with breastfeeding if the latch is correct or the baby is receiving expressed milk or colostrum. The mw's etc still need to be able to confidently recognise a good latch and have the time to observe a full feed before saying 'hmm, there is something else going on here and we need to look beyond the majority causes and see what minority issue can be causing problems.' And at least have someone sufficiently versed in the minority issues to contact in order to take these minority cases a step further.

no one is saying don't question breastfeeding. is there something on here that has given you that idea?

Liath, I was back in Aus just before Chirstmas and there was quite a lot of media about how public hospitals were letting women and babies down by only keeping them in for 4 days after birth which is clearly not enough to safely and effectivly ensure that breastfeeding was well established. Made me laugh.

imoscarsmum - after reading wannabe's post & mine, are you still feeling regret? I would love to have access to donated EBM. Giving my DD colostrum by syringe when she failed to latch on could have prevented her from crashing.

In the absence of any real support for breastfeeding, I should have been encouraged to give formula from the beginning. I will always feel guilty that I did not.

you know what. i have better things to do.

who has said or implied that the negatives of breastfeeding shouldn't be discussed?

I am happy to discuss the negatives of breastfeeding. for me one of the big big negatives is that midwives, HVs, paeds, SCBU nurses et al are woefully ignorant of how to assist women with establishing breastfeeding and are unable to identify when something is going wrong and to fix it before it goes clinically wrong.

I just happen to think that most of the time the 'negatives' of breastfeeding are manmade and the men blame breastfeeding instead of their piss poor knowledge.

Ladyhelen - I think I'd have still tried to bf as long as possible, but with the right diagnosis, knowledge and information from medical personnel I'd have felt more supported, less anxious and more in control of the situation......rather than being left with the continual feeling that something was very wrong and being missed by the so-called experts.

There are many factors that influence milk production and I feel that breastfeeding advisors should have a questioning, analytical approach to bfeeding problems so that they can help identify the cause of the problem. For some women, this may mean that they allow themselves to stop trying and go with ff (those who don't get any supply or minimal supply) but at least will feel less guilty. Others may benefit from intervention.

You have hit the nail on the head, Lady lush! Thats exactly what the health professionals should be aiming for. Lets hope it will happen. Perhaps the study the article talks about will help ( although they do seem to know what will help already - better training!!).

wannabe i think if people wer given proper bf support then people such as yourself (definintely rare, definitely existing) would get better support and advice also.

I've been fortunate enough to meet some of the unicef bf teachers and they will say yes some people cant BF and then that can be supported with as much dignity as BF continuers

the problem (just IMO) is the misinformation that gets peddled by MIL's / parents / etc who are told they can't BF becuase which then leads other people to doubt all cases which is unfair

Sadly if someone posts they cant bf the chances are they've been sold crap because it is unlikely: if peoplewere helped properl;y in the first palce then if you had posted I could have said 'Sadly that does happen and you mustn't feel at all bad',whereas now it would be my duty to say'thats possible but unlikely (iyswim)- have you tried X Y and X'

I think better support and training would support all mums, personally.

DS1 was one of those babies who didnt thrive btw- weight dropped by one pound (he was already iugr). we knew bf was best because of eczma risk for him etc- finding anyone prepared to say 'sweetie, he has had colustrum, you've tried everything- feel proud to ff' might have saved my guilt complex (and i am now panicking his dehydration caused his sn as a result of that article!)

The rise of the 'the relugious bf'rs' has been a direct response to the crap bf'ers are fed and has been needed.......... its now time to focus on getting all the info through- including that for some bf isnt possible and thats OK.

I am so glad to have been able to bf ds4 this long but thats been 100% down to doing the bfi course and the education I received through that. Much more useful than one or two hours in an antenatal club imo.

Upwind and wannabe totally see your points - of course every baby & new mum is different. i feel regret because now that i know DD better, I do believe that if we'd been given a little more time to get bf established (not talking days here, just a few hours - just once I'd got over initial trauma of surgery etc) I think we could have given bf a better go. As it was, I felt totally out of control and felt mw just took over.
I'll always be grateful for donated bm but if I had time again, I would have asked them to give DD a little, just to get her over initial hunger, and then passed to me to try to bf. As it was she got screaming hungry so they just took her from me, gave her a full feed and told me to pump. I am still amazed that a mw sat there and told me that I was not allowed to feed my own daughter using a cup or syringe as it "was not hospital policy". This all afected my bonding and I did not really grow to love DD until she was about 8 or 9 weeks old. As i now ADORE her, it makes me feel very guilty and I feel I've missed out on some of the wonderful newborn stage.

I guess what I'm saying is, for me, it wasn't only a case of not feeding her but it affected lots of other areas too.
Hope that makes sense.

Oh, and my milk definately did not come in, ever. whether was because dd did not latch on, i'll never know.

I think the quote about breastfeeding being a 'religion' is crass, but it it certainly true that mothers get to hear that bf is wonderful and important from the same people who are totally clueless when it comes to resolving difficulties with it....which is desperately unfair.

It is vital we get some decent data on the incidence and causes of dehydration - data exists, but it is not yet linked to levels of support for bf, and precise signs of impending dehydration are not spotted.

NCT has a factsheet that explains to mothers and healthcare professionals what to look for in the early days to check milk is being effectively transferred. There is a separate referenced cover sheet that explains about weight loss and the importance of early weighing (there is good evidence that all babies should be weighed on day 3-4) and monitoring of poos and wees. These are simple, non-invasive assessments which pick up babies before a crisis happens.