"Breastfeeding is oppressing women" (from The Guardian)

[morningpaper]

Let the breastfeeding rebellion begin

"In the 70s, many women protested that they were shackled to domesticity by the unreasonably high bar set for housework. Now, some say, it's not the vacuum cleaner that's oppressing women, but another sucking sound ..."

But but but but

This is a depressing article.

A British academic wouldn't give her name "because she is concerned about attacks from the pro-breastfeeding lobby"

I also fidn it really annoying when people say "I really tried to breastfeed for six days and it didn't work" - By six days lots of women will be in agony. The message that if you haven't got it cracked by six days then it hasn't worked - is just wrong.

And if there is such enormous pressure to exclusively breastfeed then why are only 3% of mothers still doing it at 5 months?

Yes women will feel guilty if they don't breastfeed. Women have the chance to feel guilty if they don't do a million things that are 'optimal' for their children's health and wellbeing. We can all agree that women need more support in the transition to motherhood, by setting up this monster of a pro-breastfeeding lobby is utterly unhelpful.

Having children BLOWS for women - your fanjo is shot to pieces, your career goes down the shitter, you piss yourself every time you sneeze, you lose your pension rights, your brain turns to mush, you have no social standing, boys stop grinning at your in the street - but BREASTFEEDING IS STILL THE OPTIMAL WAY TO FEED YOUR BABIES. You can't un-do that boring fact. And handing women a bottle isn't going to make everything better.

the body

"Enjoy your baby and do whats right for you, not what suited your friend or sister.."
Do you want to add to that advice line ".... or any ill informed health worker".

There is so much fascinating research about baby bonding out there, as someone who is pregnant I am very thankful that I can seek out information and can question people, even when they point to their experience of being a nursing sister that might offer a different perspective.

As for the tears of sorrow - I'm sure if I was in prenna's position I might have some tears of sorrow 30 odd years later about bf or not.

"Health care professionals have a role to SUPPORT women whether they choose to bf or bottle feed, it isnt up to them to make value judgments on anybody, infact that goes against your whole ethos and trainig.. and actually tictok I was a nursing sister and I have lots of empathy with a good deal of commen sense mixed in with this."

Health care professionals have a role to SUPPORT women whether they choose to bf or bottle feed,
I add: Health care professionals have a role to SUPPORT women when they choose to breastfeed. The breastfeeding support from the vast majority of HCPs is flimsy at best, and their misinformation dangerous at worst that is this where the anger of the excuse-for-an-article ought really be aimed.

As for guilt: It is lazy health professionals and lazy jounalists, ill-advised and irresponsible NHS managers and government policy makers who should be feeling guilty.

Guilt is for when you do something wrong despite knowing to the contrary and choosing to do it anyway. It is not for post natal managers who are swimming against the tide of irresponsibility in a child and baby unfriendly culture where new mothers are isolated from genuine support and help in a multitude of ways.

We set mums up for failure and then a nasty little article like this comes along and tell they they should rebel.

Hell yes! Rebel. But define who the bastards you are that you are rebelling against is first. Don't just listen to the first ignoramus who jumps on a soapbox and tell you to do so.

Do just go yeh! yeh! yeh {nodding dog stylee]. as if it is that 1% of women who had the grace or good luck or been through sheer hell to establish breast feeding and continue past 6 months - as that shitty little article claims it is.

It is not for post natal managers mothers who accept that their babies must drink something when support is not forthcoming from those who have been paid to offer support.

sorry, screamy baby and toddler also in the room.

i have not yet the whole thread, only the article- and it strikes me as the usual bit of inconclusive and not very articulated rant against... well i am not sure what exactly.

i am not really aware of anyone, outside MN, referring to formula as poison. i have never seen anyone being discriminated for formula feeding. or for breastfeeding. i may have been lucky but i don't really believe there is such a deep divide in the sisterhood between lactivists or whatever the new term is and formula feeders. the reality is much greyer than that. for example, i bfed both my daughters, exclusively until 4 and 5 months respectively, then mix fed until 8-9 months. i regard myself as a breastfeeder, yet i have given formula and would do exactly the same was i to have other babies.

also, crucially, the article really doesn't distinguish between women who want to breastfeed (at least for a while) and don't succeed, and those who don't even try because they don't want. i am a very non-judgemental person but i find it really hard not to judge the latter group a tiny bit- i just don't understand the reasons behind a complete refusal of bfing. i don't buy the "bfing chains you' thing, purely because i don't understand how anyone would WANT to be out and about and away from their newborn baby within days and weeks of giving birth. i appreciate many HAVE to, but that's not what we are talking about here. so, frankly, it isn't breastfeeding that chains you, it's the fact that you are now a mother and, oops, life has changed completely.

one of my friends gave up after a couple of days because "i can't sit here all day breasfeeding", and i just didn't understand what else she had to/wanted to do- it was her first baby, she didn't have to work or anything...

sorry, i am ranting and being v unfocused but i think we've all collectively gotten a bit confused about what motherhood is.

oh and incidentally (last one i promise) anyone who thinks the way you feed your baby determines whether you are a good or a bad mother clearly doesn't have any children older than 6 months and is therefore not awake to the endless possibilities of screwing them up in much, much more fundamental ways...

So I am 'guilt tripping' mothers by suggesting that they shouldnt let any one else make tham feel guilty about how they feed and care for their baby..?

I am not empathetic to suggest this?

Pinkfizz,there is some facinating stuff out there about bonding but as a mum who struggled to 'bond' with my first child, even when fully breastfeeding him, I politely suggest that there is also a hell of a lot of CRAP out there as well.( My ds is now 20 and I adore him.)

And now its 'NOT ENOUGH' to feed and love your baby. Jesus are you for real some of you women....

Mystic everyone's different and some people are willing to leave their babies earlier than others. To assume everyone is the same is actually judgemental in the extreme.

Yes, Aitch I think you're right about the weaning. Not quite there yet though, dd is 3 months.

AGAIN'FEEDING AND LOVING YOUR BABY IS NOT ENOUGH' and I am guilt tripping mums..

AitchTwoOh I respectfully refer you to your own words 'I was shit at bf'.. who told you that, noone I presume.. just your own guilt fuelled by who exactly?? other women?

I never said that thinking about bf was self indulgent at all, I simply said that its a very very small part of your childs life and it really really doesnt matter if you bf or bottle feed imo as long as you follow your own feelings and obviously get all the support you need..

ffs thats not being a bitch is it?and on your last point if my daughter has a baby I will weep tears of joy for her because actually it will be all about her and not me.

Lolol at Aitch's drawer for life's disappointments (or was it a cupboard..?) Can I put my flappy fanny in there too? On second thoughts, I'd better get my own drawer; God knows, I need one... brilliant Aitch, thanks for reminding us that a lot of our guilt as mothers is internal, and that we need to learn to deal with it, for our own sanity.

However I think the UK is full of women who feel very little internal pressure to bf. Why? Because they don't know anyone who bfs and their family would think it weird if they did it anyway. So no internal or external pressure. A lot of women do what their sisters/friends/mum do/did and don't even open a baby book or listen to a MW. I think that is one of the big reasons why we have such low bf statistics in the UK.

I think however if you are a middle class woman in an area where everyone bfs and you actually listen to your MW/HV and read loads of baby books written by Dr Sears or whoever and read mumsnet, then yes, you are likely to put yourself under pressure. And you are being put under external pressure too, especially by HCPs. But that's certainly not a large % of the population, so the Guardian article is showing a totally warped view IMO, as if all of the women in the UK who ff feel marginalised - I think not!

But IMO HCPs have to stop preaching and start supporting. Fewer preachy leaflets and posters and more visits to new mums' homes to help them with their latch. If I could have, I would have paid someone to sit with me during my dd's ENTIRE first week and helped me latch my screaming wriggling newborn onto my cracked bleeding nipples. I SO needed someone to be there to help me do it. But I had no-one. My dp had to go back to work after the first week, I live abroad so no family, and no-one visits you at all here after you leave the hospital.

I loved morningpaper's advice to "Do whatever doesn't you making you fucking miserable", lol! So true for me, and the happy mother happy baby cliche for me meant either actually go nuts and run out of the house screaming never to return/jump off a cliff or get out the formula and actually cope with being a new mum.

FWIW I certainly do not think bf is oppressive. I think being a new mum in today's society is what can be so oppressive, I don't understand why Hanna Rosins thinks that ff instead of bf her son is going to free up loads of her time! I did PSML (slightly bitterly) at her comment: "The root of the problem is not the sudden realization that your ideal of an equal marriage, with two parents happily taking turns working and raising children, now seems like a farce." SOOOO true! God I had no idea before I became a mother. But I don't know why she thinks ff would make that any different? Does she think that ff your dc will mean your dp will jump eagerly out of bed every night at 3am to feed the baby while you snooze happily? Or that there'll be a queue of people at your door dying to feed your baby a bottle while you go to the hairdressers? Or that your employer will suddenly think you're a great catch and promote you?? I don't think so!!!!

Her mother and baby groups sound so snooty, IMO. She's better off without those horrible women. I am one of the only ones in my group who ff and everyone's been lovely to me. I do think the women in these articles and I've seen on mn who say they feel everyone's staring judgementally at them when they FF in public are more than a little paranoid ffs. DEFINITELY internal pressure there. And I say this as someone who ff in a society where most do bf.

OMG this is a bloody novel, sorry!

I'll definitely cry too Aitch. I'll get it out of the drawer, unfold it and blow my nose in it. But then I am a weepy one.

"By thebody on Sat 18-Jul-09 19:52:47
Hunkermunker. 'grief and helplessness' ABOUT BF. sorry thats just ridiculous and totally self indulgent.. "

right, so we're allowed to think about it, but not grieve over the loss of it. or to have felt helpless while it was slipping out of our reach due to a lack of support?

and lolol at the idea that the only way i can express that i was shit at bfing is in relation to what other women told me. i don't feel the desire to blame other people for my negative feelings about my inability to bf.

'women' never told me i was shit at bfing. i got that message loud and clear because my babies were super-skinny and needed supplementing despite being bf. it's a biological thing, probably i don't have enough tissue or something, maybe it was because of my high bp drugs, maybe my pcos, who knows? i certainly don't blame other women for 'guilt-tripping' me, any more than i blame kate moss for being thinner than me.

but it was a source of sadness, most definitely, and something i had to work through that still on occasion causes me a pang. that's okay, isn't it? i should be able to feel sad about something without having to listen to you scoff about it, i think.

and i'm not sure who you're calling a bitch. is it me?

lol at you blowing your nose, piris. i'll dab my eyes in a ladylike fashion. [prim]

pispirispis "But IMO HCPs have to stop preaching and start supporting. Fewer preachy leaflets and posters and more visits to new mums' homes to help them with their latch. "

I think that you make a very good point there. I'm convinced that the reason I was able to bf was down to my community m/w. Without any fuss she helped me with learning to bf my first baby. I never felt pressured to continue and had the right mix of humour and gravity for me to see the funny side of some of the things we did and also to take seriously what she was saying. As the only person I knew with any experience of bf-ing and the only one encouraging me when I lacking confidence I would say she was the person who made it possible for me. I then went on to confidently feed 8 more.

She came every day that first week and if I had problems she told me to note them down for the next day. I couldn't call her at any time - as she said she was busy with other things but she did address any problems I had.

The only thing she didn't say was about feeding on demand. She told me to aim for 3-4 hourly feeds. Fortunately that worked well for my baby. With subsequent babies I aimed for the same gaps but didn't fret if the baby needed to feed earlier or if I needed the baby to feed sooner (if I/we were going
out and a top-up would extend the time to the next feed.)

Having someone help with no fuss, no preaching, no pressure definitely helped me.

re me being shit at bfing... dd2's doctor did say, 'hhhhmmm, look aitch you are a woman of many accomplishments but being great at bfing is not one of them.'

my norwegian pals checked into a baby hotel after the delivery. run by the govt, you have staff on hand but otherwise it's you and your new family, check out when you're recovered and comfortable with the bfing. now THAT is civilised.

"Does she think that ff your dc will mean your dp will jump eagerly out of bed every night at 3am to feed the baby while you snooze happily? Or that there'll be a queue of people at your door dying to feed your baby a bottle while you go to the hairdressers?"

Well actually that was my experience, yes!

You're definitely more ladylike than me Aitch! The Norwegian baby hotel sounds great. Here in Spain bf is the norm, but you get zero post-natal help. So women must get help from their mums/sisters and so on, because you certainly don't get any from anyone else.

juuule that sounds great, I would have loved to have someone like that helping me. If only all new mums got that kind of support.

brettgirl2 lucky you! My dp works 6 days a week and comes home at 9.30pm and none of us has any family nearby. A lot of women are in a similar situation these days, and ff is hardly going to enable you to skip off down the road to the gym. I do realise I shouldn't generalise though!

I mean neither of us...

Breastfeeding can be oppressive. I agree with 100x that we should be more honest about that. But we choose to do it. In the UK, the pressure comes from within.

Thing is life can be oppressive. Being a parent can be oppressive - being a child (especially a teenager) can be oppressive.

I dunno where we seem to have gotten the idea that it's not normal for life to be hard sometimes.

as now baby is asleep and dh has left the cricket and taken the toddler out on a bike ride at my insistence blackmailing.

"Health care professionals have a role to SUPPORT women whether they choose to bf or bottle feed, it isnt up to them to make value judgments on anybody, infact that goes against your whole ethos and trainig.. and actually tictok I was a nursing sister and I have lots of empathy with a good deal of commen sense mixed in with this."

Health care professionals have a role to SUPPORT women whether they choose to bf or bottle feed,
I add: Health care professionals have a role to SUPPORT women when they choose to breastfeed and over 70% of women put their babies to the breast at least once after giving birth. The breastfeeding support from the vast majority of HCPs is flimsy at best, and their misinformation dangerous at worst leading to a catastrophic fall off rate within the first 2 weeks post natally. It is at this piss poor support, coming after the prenatal propaganda of 'breast is best' that the anger of the excuse-for-an-article ought really be aimed.

As for guilt: It is lazy health professionals and lazy journalists, ill-advised and irresponsible NHS managers and government policy makers, to name some, who should be feeling guilty.

Guilt is for when you do follow one course of action despite knowing that you ought to be doing something different but choosing not to do it anyway. It is not for post natal mothers who accept that their babies must drink something when support is not forthcoming from those who have been paid to offer support and who are swimming against this tide of irresponsibility in a culture that is already child and baby unfriendly, where new mothers are isolated from genuine support and help in a multitude of ways.

The prevailing culture and the health system set mums up for breastfeeding failure and then a nasty little article like this comes along and tell they they should rebel.

Hell yes! Rebel. But first define who the bastards are that you are staging this rebellion against before you grab pitchfork and torch. Don't just listen to the first ignoramus who jumps on a soapbox and tells you to rebel.

"Do just go yeh! yeh! yeh [nodding dog stylee]. We will rebel against them!" "They make us guilty!" As if it is that 1% of women who had the grace or good luck or been through sheer hell to establish breast feeding and continue past 6 months, or the volunteers from the breastfeeding charities who manage fit training and then support mothers around paid jobs, children and/or housework engineered an end to your breastfeeding relationship. After all, we know that these people are the nebulous lactofanatics (new pejorative for me) that this shitty little article claims mothers should be rebelling against.

For as long as you can be angry at that disembodied enemy that 'made you feel guilty', you will be too busy to be angry at those who did not support you. And that will spare them from feeling guilty about not doing their job properly.

Exactly Monkeytrousers. Just because it sucks, doesn't mean it is not worthwhile. And just because it is the optimal choice, does not mean BF is right for an individual mother.

Agree missfitt. The "nebulous lactofanatics" are a much easier target than those who set mothers up to fail at the very begining of their motherhood. That would require a little thought and research, with perhaps some constructive ideas, rather than simple ill-informed polemics.