"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.

Tiktok and Starlight thanks for your posts, somehow it makes me feel less guilty. It certainly seemed at the time that there could not have been any more support provided than there was. Maybe the quality of the support was the problem. I do think that if my mum had breast fed this would have been helpful.

my goodness me.. yes I qualified as a nurse in 1987 and worked as a district nurse and ward sister in accident and emergency units and trauma wards.

I have 3 children and a cat.. is that enough information for you? I am now a childminder and love having little ones around again.. I am certainly not out of date love.

pehaps I do just strive to see the positives..thats my crime..

I have helped one young mum getting her baby to sleep through the night and actually when mine were little i would have loved an experienced mum to reassure me that some things, like feeding and lack of sleep do get better, thats not minimising someones current pain, its showing light at the end of the tunnel.
And back to the real question, does bf oppress women then of course it doesnt..

and I am now sinister morning paper.. how so.. I have said over and over that women should have support and choices in feeding and not be judged for those choices.. sinister....

It wasn't successful breastfeeders who made me feel victimised when I failed completely to bf ds1 and struggled with ds2. They made me feel jealous, sure. It was mostly at the hospital that I was made to feel terrible, not for formula feeding but for wanting to breastfeed and not getting it right, and for letting ds1 get ill, and for letting ds2 lose weight, for not knowing what I was doing.

Particularly with ds1, while I was told this and that would help me, I didn't realise how much very poor advice and practice was going on.

i think in striving to see the positives you're ignoring the fact that not everyone feels the same as you do. actually i really loathe hcps who do this, who respond to you with what they'd like to be happening rather than listen to what you're saying. it's all too common, unfortunately.

and I am now sinister morning paper.. how so.. I have said over and over that women should have support and choices in feeding and not be judged for those choices.. sinister....

Pinkfiz the get a grip comment was NOT intended for a new mum. I am trying AGAIN to say that it can be very reassuring for mums to be told that in the scheme of life bf and bottle feeding really arn't life or death decisions..Of course all mums find some areas of babyhood bloody tough.. we all do.. You seem determined to see me as a hard faced bitch so thats up to you.
Anyway had enough now so thats my last post.

What elkiedee said is right isn't it? When you've just had your first baby you'd have no idea whether the quality of support was good enough. Hell, often the staff in maternity units have no fecking idea what is good enough, how are new parents supposed to know?

So when another hcp comes and 'helpfully' manhandles your breasts or takes the baby off for a litte top up or tells you no problem they'll toughen up in a couple of weeks, or all of these things together and far worse, how are mothers supposed to judge.

It is only when you realise post hoc that it was all nonsense that the penny drops about what they should have done/said.

And not everyone has the benefit of a later experience that helps the penny drop. So they are left to individualise it and blame themselves.

a number of hcps told me that bfing/ffing wasn't that important in the grand scheme of things, i never failed to want to punch them in their smug faces.

it was important at the time, it was massively important TO ME and i was already unhappy enough at being a crap bfer, but to be told that i was also feeling the wrong thing as well was absolutely insensitive and insulting.

so consider this, thebody, for every new mum who was comforted by your 'it's not life or death' speech, there may have been one who wept with frustration and anger the minute she closed the door on you.

I suspect the majority of mothers don't want to be told what it's ok to feel and what not to feel - to be told 'it's not a matter of life and death how you feed' by an HCP or a friend or whoever may help some people, but there is a risk that saying something like this to a distressed and/or tired mother sounds like a trivialisation of her feelings, as if she is making a fuss about nothing.

Given that you can't tell in advance what impact this phrase will have on an individual, and given that most women are too polite to tell you to get stuffed, it's a phrase (and an attitude) best left unexpressed.

Don't you agree, thebody?

As thebody said she worked as a district nurse/in A&E I don't suppose she had that much interactions with new mums on a professional front anyway (district nurses tend to work most with the elderly and housebound). However I have met many nurses who have a somewhat 'robust' attitude that personally I would find rather difficult as a patient, because it can totally dismiss your feelings (and being a patient is incredibly disempowering). From the nurses' point of view the feelings may be foolish, but I do think in general the "get a grip / worse things happen at sea" type of approach is exteremely unhelpful at best, and highly undermining at worst.

For thebody

Or maybe this is more up your street?

"cory - good breastfeeding support includes recognising when a baby is not thriving. It doesn't mean 'continue breastfeeding and all will be well'. You didnt have all the support you needed - support doesn't mean a team of cheer leaders, it means good knowledge, practical skills, and information about the medical conditions which might make bf insufficient. You were let down"

As I keep trying to to explain (clearly badly) I was told that it was not working. It was I who was so totally sold on breastfeeding that I would not listen. And the reason quite frankly was that I had read so many books beforehand that told me that a baby that was breastfed had to be healthier than another baby. And I had possibly also been told once or twice that HVs don't know that much anyway

In my defence, I did not know about dd's medical condition at the time, nor did anyone else. But if I had only been prepared to listen more humbly to the perfectly competent HVs and doctors who kept telling me that dd was losing weight and that this was bad, I would not have been putting her at risk. I am very grateful to the consultant who simply reached for the phone and called up the ward to have us both admitted.

AitchTwoOh Sun 19-Jul-09 19:37:11 Add a message | Report post | Contact poster

"cory, i think it's really interesting that the hcps weren't putting immense pressure on you to top up, was it because you had so much milk do you think? do you reckon they just couldn't get their heads round the anomaly?"

Yup, I reckon this was it. They kept checking she was latched on, my milk was squirting the ceiling and there would clearly have been enough milk there to feed a number of babies. To do them justice, they did nag me. But the consultant just had us admitted; I reckon he would have arranged for dd to be admitted against my will if I had put up a fight. And good on him!

I did have very good support for breastfeeding counsellor and was able to turn dd round exclusively on breastfeed (including pumps and syringes). But looking back I now think the cost was too high in terms of my wellbeing- I would have done better by switching to formula at that stage. And tbh there is nothing that wonderful or natural about syringe-feeding anyway.

your poor wee dd, cory, it's awful when they're skinny. i can't look at some pics of dd2 when she was in the light box thing for jaundice. she looks skin and bone. and i HATED syringe feeding, couldn't bear the waste of what little milk i had.

we never had the jaundice, that must be pretty stressful too

the whole thing was... what i really needed (i see this now) was for someone to tell me not to worry about my skinny child in an incubator and just to 'enjoy it'. arf.

Thebody - We don't need to agree as this is a discussion board and I wish you no ill will at all.

cory, I understand your situation more now, thanks. Your little dd had an underlying condition that made it unlikely that she would be able to bf effectively - this was not recognised. Instead, you were told breastfeeding wasn't working, but you did not listen.

This has happened to me a handful of times as a breastfeeding counsellor - a baby not thriving despite what appears to be good position and attachment and frequent feeding.

On each occasion, the underlying condition has not even been looked for. It's been assumed that 'breastfeeding isn't working' by all of the many HCPs who saw the baby. Mother urged to formula feed, mother very reluctant...no one actually saying 'this is odd - why is this baby not thriving when we can see that the mother is feeding well and often?' and investigating. Instead, the defalt position is 'blame breastfeeding'. In one case, the baby was put onto formula and still failed to thrive and almost died, not because of poor nutrition but because of the undiagnosed serious anomaly (keeping things confidential here).

My baby latched on beautifully after birth but when I started having problems and asked the midwife in the hospital for help she asked me to try another position and after one failed attempt she rolled her eyes and walked off!!! I found this really appauling, I'm a youngishfirst time mum and she could see I was an emotional wreck but because of the more frequent use of formula I think these staff get the impression it is no longer importanant to give the right support!
My sons other grandma didn't breastfeed and would be constantly promoting formula through my pregnancy although I had always told her I wanted to breastfeed she would turn her nose up????
She had no particular probs bit of bleeding and cracking... so did I?! She was completely unsupportive of my choice cz I think it made her feel I was getting one up on her and no someone else who had the same experience with their MIL.
I see nothing wrong with mothers who have a harder time using formula but I think a lot of mothers mistake the normal pains and hard work required to be a mother for something that is impossible for them as a lazy individual, most wanting to get their own life back asap. Some people really do see themselves as just more hard done by than others when most arent! (I know quite a few other mums, only one other bfd)
Luckly after 2weeks of nipple burning pain things went to plan and managed to bf for 8months, I would urge people to be persistant when trying cz once u get over the initial discomfort etc you will feel so proud that u hadn't given up, it is the best feeling in the world!

Lenin, oh god, yes, me too (EMCS under GA). So also grateful while recovering to wake up to find some helpful MW had stuck him on while I was gaga...

...But I didn't appreciate, at 3 in the morning, with a baby who just thrashed his head from side to side, with already sore nipples from a 48 hourly feedathon, the long stream of random (not all MWs) ward assistants grabbing my breast without asking, and forcing the baby on, regardless of how it felt for me. Or him. And when I said it was like broken glass EVERY time and I could see damage, their main response was 'oh it takes 3 weeks for them to harden off'. Or they had no clue, just said 'well it looks OK to me' even though I was in agony.

I just bit my lip after a while and got on with it by myself. For weeks and weeks afterwards. I was too proud to ask for help because I had been told 'it must be right' in hosp. By week 3, I had ravaged bleeding nipples, probably thrush (although I didn't twig about this until baby number 2) and had to scream 'fuck' at every latch on while DH had to let me grab his hand. I think my experiences in hospital contributed a lot to my later reluctance to seek help.

But it was only when I had an hour or two with a patient NCT BF counsellor, who came to my home (couldn't get out of house after EMCS) and sat and quietly showed me things, that I realised I didn't know it all already.

If u have prolonged pain 9\10 times its cz baby is not latching on properly rather than having its mouth round the whole nipple so u can't see any nipple at all, took me over a week to master this and a further week for nipples to toughen. Had to keepflicking his bottom lip down till the correct amount of nipple was being suckled. If they are on properly its shouldn't be painful forever. That was teeth gritting stuff, I would shreek everytime he was on wrong with the pain.

Oh and with nipple cream u do get what u pay for, cheap ones are crap for the cracking dryness and bleeding!

"
...But I didn't appreciate, at 3 in the morning, with a baby who just thrashed his head from side to side, with already sore nipples from a 48 hourly feedathon, the long stream of random (not all MWs) ward assistants grabbing my breast without asking, and forcing the baby on, regardless of how it felt for me."

My lack of support for feeding (any kind of feeding) meant that my baby ended up in SCBU. Last week I had discussions with the lead midwife about our truly dreadful care. She talked at length about the breastfeeding training the midwives have, but seemed oblivious to the fact that most of the actual support is provided by ward assistants, who have no training at all. And in my case, failed to notice that my DD was in trouble.