"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.

"Sue Battersby, a researcher and lecturer in midwifery, will argue that we need to start supporting women who use formula. "Mothers who formula-feed are treated like second-class citizens," she says."

How??? Are women told to bottle feed 'discreetly'? Are there 'bottle feeding hiders' to wear so no one sees a flash of your hand holding the bottle? Are women asked to move from restaurants, trains, doctors' waiting rooms (!), their own parents' and in-laws living rooms ('you'll be more comfy in our freezing cold spare bedroom!') because they are bottle feeding?

That's being treated like 'a second-class citizen'.

I do think bottle feeding mothers' feelings need to be taken seriously, but I agree with other posters here - most of the pressure comes from inside.

This article is just a rather overdramatic opinion piece which has no real connection with the reasons women do or don't breastfeed.

I can only comment on my own experience and anecdotal evidence from the mothers I know and have spoken to on the subject. Bit like this journalist really! statistics directly contradict her premise, if women were really 'opressed' by bf they would be doing it against their freewill. The figures show women are not bf after the first few weeks.

I know that I planned to stop bf at 6 months but then thought the prospect of the hassle and expense of bottles far outweighed any inconvenience of bf (once youare established).

I think it is a deliberately inflammatory article and certainly isn't helping to support women in their feeding choices, whatever they may be.

Yes, there is no doubt that the article speaks the truth about the lack of support out there and how many women feel about their failure to succeed at breastfeeding, but this is an internal struggle of individual women and NOT the general view of the public at large. Articles like this only serve to widen the perceived gulf and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

I have never come across anyone being shunned for bottle feeding or made to feel like a second class citizen and think that those mums who think they are are merely externalising their own internal struggle.

And I speak as someone who has both failed to BF and then succeeded before I get jumped on from a high height. I had my internal struggle, but I have the intelligence to realise that it is just that; my struggle and not the world against me for not BFing my child. I'm also getting a little bit fucked off with the idea that because I am successfully BFing my child and that I am very pro BFing that I somehow feel that those who didn't/couldn't/wouldn't are a lesser mother than me. Nothing could be further from the truth

...and I'm sorry Ellie Lee, but it is not just "good for babies"; as MP says it's the optimal food and no amount of "lactofanatic" bashing will change that.

I wish I had time for this, but I have to go out in a sec.

The pressure comes from outside, but many wowen internalise it. Those with new babies are often vulnerable to outside expectations and criticisms; many mothers have low self esteem after experiencing such a life changing experience. Not all can get over themselves - those that do maybe have more self confidence than others. Good for you if you managed to get over it, not everyone has such strong self of worth. Society DOES place a huge value on bf, and women are all to often finding they don't measure up.

To change that we need - acceptance for women's choices, and decent, available, well informed support for women who do want to bf. It should be a service provided to all mothers who want it, staffed by professionals, not just by volunteers.

Will pop back leter to see how this progresses

(btw have just read what i wrote about trauma and depression and realise it sounded rather blunt. i don't mean i'm groovy cos i got help and others aren't, i know it's a lot more complicated than that. but i do think that bfing grief is something that is more possible to get over because you more or less always have the evidence of a child who you love who has been kept alive by that formula so therefore it helps to soften any feelings you may have. it just seems indulgent to me to be whinging and blaming five years later when your two children are okay.)

"The pressure comes from outside"

Where? You keep saying this but you haven't provided an example.

Snails - you're right about some women not managing to get over it. I have spoken to women whose breastfeeding problems were 20 or 30 or more years ago, and they have tears in their eyes as they remember...often pre-empted by seeing the next generation.

Feeding is an experience that unites body, mind and soul - just like childbirth. The effects are long-lasting. Some women manage to overcome the negatives and look forward, putting the unhappiness behind them.

A few find this more difficult to do.

A few of these then start to blame the 'pro-breastfeeding lobby' for putting pressure on them

This is unfair, and is not good for mothers or babies.

canterbury,x-posted there.

i fundamentally disagree with you that society places a huge value on bf. quite the opposite ime, and the stats back me up.

can't argue with you about the need for more support. it's at the heart of all of this. more support = more bfing = less bfing grief. that's what we all want, surely?

i'm surprised, however, that you feel that's the point the article is making.

The only time I have felt 'opressed' is when dd2 was a few weeks old and feeding all the time I went to a bf lounge in a shopping centre to find somewhere comfy to feed her. There were no chairs free and eveyone in there was bottle feeding including a man feeding his child - I rushed off all tearful and hormonal and fed dd on a crowded bench uncomfortable but not bothered about being in public just missing a comfy seat!

I am sorry if some women are feeling guilty about their decisions re feeding but feeling guilty about something or other most of the time characterises modern parenting imo.

It's about trade-offs not oppressions.

Where? Mainstream media - lots of headlines about women 'failing' to hit breastfeeding targets. Antenatal appts. Posters in GP/HV/Sure Start centres. Well-meaning friends and family who have picked up the breast is best message 'are you feeding them yourself, coz you know it is best'.

As a pg woman and new parent, I felt bombarded with the pressure to bfeed. The amount of posts on here saying, 'I want to, but I can't', although some might be more accurate if they said 'I should, but I don't want to/can't'.

Awareness of bf has never been higher. That is good. But because support hasn't been made available in the same measure, women are getting the message without any of the help. They then feel thay are failing, which is shite for them and their relationship with their baby. Plenty of mothers feel guilt about tiny things they did when their babies were little. The feeding thing is huge by comparison.

Well clearly despite the dreadful pressure you felt under canterburysnails, it seems to roll off the back of most women if two thirds of us resist it.

What a silly, silly article. The Guardian has been publishing a load of tosh lately masquerading as sensible journalism. At least the DM doesn't pretend they publish anything other than sensationalist nonsense.

You liar, Lissie! You look fab in your profile pictures.

This article is cretinous, angst-ridden pap and borderline psychotic in the conspiracy theories it touts reality to boot. I feel no affinity whatsoever with people based on their way of feeding their baby. Especially not years after the event! A few people care deeply one way or another about how babies other than their own are fed. Most do not. Women's feelings regarding feeding their own babies are based on their beliefs and self esteem being negatively or positively challenged by reality as they found it, not on being browbeaten by imaginary lobbies, imo.

Society is contradictory about bf. One one hand we get the heavy promotion of bf (and rightly so), on the other, we have the idea of 'feeding rooms', boobs being sexual not functional etc etc. However, that doesn't mean that that the pressure to bf isn't there - it just makes it harder because it IS there, but then made even more difficult to do in practice.

I really have to go now!

You liar, Lissie! You look fab in your profile pictures.

This article is cretinous, angst-ridden pap and borderline psychotic in the conspiracy theories it touts as reality to boot. I feel no affinity whatsoever with people based on their way of feeding their baby. Especially not years after the event! A few people care deeply one way or another about how babies other than their own are fed. Most do not. Women's feelings regarding feeding their own babies are based on their beliefs and self esteem being negatively or positively challenged by reality as they found it, not on being browbeaten by imaginary lobbies, imo.

Also, agree with Aitch/Librasbiscuit. I felt really bad for "failing" at bf with DS1 (ended up mixed feeding) and when he suffered with ear infections at the age of 1-2, used to torture myself with thoughts about how he wouldn't have got them had I bf exclusively etc.

I succeeded with bf DS2 and he's had loads of colds/viruses - in fact, more than DS1!!

I agree that bf is important and it's lovely if you succeed and it's only natural to feel guilty if you have tried and "failed" ; it's not nice to fail at anything in life.

I am reluctant to say it doesn't matter if you don't bf as I do believe in it's health properties generally but looking around at the population as a whole, there isn't this major divide between tall incredibly fit and ultra-healthy people who were bf and stunted, obese and sickly people who weren't.

You know what I mean anyway...

What a pathetic sordid poorly researched little article.
It leaves me feeling grubby.
MP, you are spot on with your comments in OP about children being bad news (in many senses) for women. That;s life. Sometimes it's about putting someone else's needs first.

What a novel suggestion.

I agree with Canterbury. The pressure to breastfeed is only 'internal' insofar as we have internalized the message that 'breast is best' which is circulated not only via the mainstream media, but through health institutions. For example, the WHO website describes "giving any other nourishment but breast milk before complementary feeding is nutritionally required" as faulty feeding (link here). These messages are enormously powerful because they are not just 'opinion' but carry the weight of authoritative scientific knowledge.

Canterbury snails, are you in any way connected to Ellie Lee who works, um, in Canterbury? The same Ellie Lee who published a paper on infant feeding based on pilot research sponsored by the IDFA?

Perhaps you would indicate whether you know who Lee's current research is funded by? And/or whether the previous relationship has in any way influenced her findings in the current work on mothers' feeding choices?

I'm not negating the value of a sociological investigation of mothers' feeding choices and I absolutely agree with you her that the social context is complex. But I'd like to hear Lee being reflexive about her own position in this debate since it has been controversial.

British mothers? experiences of early formula milk use

Journal the Sociology of Health & Illness

"The research was supported by a grant from the Infant Dietetics and Foods Association (IDFA), the body that represents manufacturers of specialist nutrition products in the UK, including infant foods. The author is personally in receipt of no funding or payment from IDFA."

I can't even be bothered to read the article, but I have not once heard anybody refer to formula as poison. I obviously don't move in common circles .

"The pressure to breastfeed is only 'internal' insofar as we have internalized the message that 'breast is best' which is circulated not only via the mainstream media, but through health institutions."

i really do think that's crackers, tbh. my brain and body wanted to feed my children the same as it had nourished them during my pregnancy. it felt completely odd to give them formula, as odd as had i mashed up some banana for them. this really, honestly, 100% had nothing to do with the few posters and scant encouragement i got in the hospital and certainly not by the 'all bfers are nazis' mainstream media approach.

i reject the idea of myself as a victim of successful bfers, because i couldn't bf, and i'm tired of being portrayed as such in the media.

this person, for example, is a twat.

"A British academic who is currently researching breastfeeding and maternal identity says: "It has become a war. 'Did you breastfeed? What kind of person are you?' It has become an index of your capacity as a mother." She would only speak anonymously because she is concerned about attacks from the pro-breastfeeding lobby. "Breastfeeding has become so strongly tied to what it means to be a good mother. There is no space to say, 'It didn't work for me'."

bfing didn't work for me. i was shit at it. [spacious]

Poor wording on my part there Aitch, sorry. I expect there is an element of natural instinct going on there too, but the power of the 'breast is best' message shouldn't be underestimated either.

I would have felt pressure if I'd been on MN at the time, I've got to say.

wot, is that academic gonna publish her papers anonymously as well? rofl

spacious, aitch? or specious?