"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 can I ask you a question:

"itsalwaysthequietones - yours is a classic case.
"...DD was prescribed formula top-ups from a few days old because her blood sugar dropped dangerously low despite me having her sucking away almost continuously up until that point."

It really is no good at all promoting breastfeeding if the maternity services cannot prevent this easily preventable condition happening angry (ask me if you want more details in how staff could have prevented it - easily, as I say)."

would you mind telling me what the correct procedure should be in these cases? I came under considerable pressure in hospital to use formula due to DS2 being a big baby (10lb 5.5oz) and would like to know how they should have handled it.

Sorry, should have said - because they were concerned about DS2's blood sugar.

I think breastfeeding is learned behaviour and the problem in the UK is that you never see women breastfeeding. So we´re on a bit of a downward spiral really as so few women breastfeed and are SEEN to breastfeed. In less developed countries where breastfeeding is the norm, women rarely claim to have problems with it.

Anecdotally, there was a case of a great ape in a zoo who had bever seen another ape breastfeed before. Her first baby died as she didn´t feed it. During her second pregnancy, breastfeeding women were asked to feed in front of her cage. The ape went on to successfully feed her second baby.

WhatFreshHell: babies whose blood sugar drops need to feed, that's for sure.

They can have breastmilk.

If breastfeeding is not working all that well - baby refusing to latch, fighting at the breast, sorta thing - then the mum needs to hand express (usu. better than the pump in early days) and the expressed breastmilk can get into the baby by bottle, syringe or cup.

It's also important to ensure the blood sugar level has been checked accurately (this does not always happen - some hospitals are still using dextro-sticks, which is very bad practice). If the level is deemed low, then the mum can simply feed, and have the baby tested again afterwards.

You can check all of this on the web - look for WHO Hypoglycaemia Guidelines. Some maternity units have their own.

Low blood sugar does need to be taken seriously, but this does not mean 'baby must have formula'.

What happened with you?

That's interesting tiktok - DS2 was a c-section after long labour and we were both exhausted. I couldn't move to pick him up in recovery and the midwife didn't come to help me put him to the breast until about 5 hours after the birth - DP and I had tried but DS2 was too sleepy to feed properly. Midwife helped me hand express 12 ml of colostrum which he had with a syringe before being sent to Special Care (only because he was big - no other problems)

Special Care tested his blood sugar and said it was too low (they used the sticks but double checked with heel prick bloods sent to SCBU) and explained that unless he could stay above a certain level, he would have to be topped up with formula. I wasn't happy about this and asked to try to feed him again, which I did but he couldn't latch on. I expressed more colostrum for him but they were very insistent that he needed more than that despite getting LOADS. I was exhausted and agreed to one top up which they insisted had to be given thru a nasogastric tube (they said it was more accurate in terms of how much he'd had?). To be fair, the tube did clear lots of mucus out of his tummy but I hated it.

He threw up all the formula

Then they tested him every 3 hrs (no sleep for anyone!) and I point blank refused any more top ups even tho he was just below their cutoff level for two tests. I expressed like mad and by morning he was alert enough to latch on by himself.

So a good result, but I felt under huge amounts of pressure to give more topups, and noone seemed to think colostrum could possibly be enough for him. If I wasn't a stubborn old mare I would have just gone with ff, as much to get some feckin sleep as anything else! I think I slept for 20mins that first night....

Tiktok that happened to me- when my ds 5weeks prem wouldn't latch i was told to express colostrum + give 20 ml topups with formula every 3 hours to keep blood sugar up- was this necessary? This lasted 2 days as milk came in. Btw we have stopped all expressing + ebm topups and he is fully bf and thriving- 5 or 6 oz gained a week, thanks to all the amazing support i got

Tiktok that happened to me- when my ds 5weeks prem wouldn't latch i was told to express colostrum + give 20 ml topups with formula every 3 hours to keep blood sugar up- was this necessary? This lasted 2 days as milk came in. Btw we have stopped all expressing + ebm topups and he is fully bf and thriving- 5 or 6 oz gained a week, thanks to all the amazing support i got

Tiktok that happened to me- when my ds 5weeks prem wouldn't latch i was told to express colostrum + give 20 ml topups with formula every 3 hours to keep blood sugar up- was this necessary? This lasted 2 days as milk came in. Btw we have stopped all expressing + ebm topups and he is fully bf and thriving- 5 or 6 oz gained a week, thanks to all the amazing support i got

sorry forgot to add, they would test him before I expressed for him and base their recommendation for top up on that reading - they didn't test him straight after.

he was born at 5.30pm, first colostrum abut 10pm ish, then every 3 hrs in the night.

Same here re ds's low blood sugar levels and formula top-ups in the early days before my milk came in (4 days later). They told me he wasn't getting enough colostrum as well.

sorry for mulitpost, am posting from a phone.

I really wish I had had help. I feel so guilty for not insisting on it. Am trying to write the letter, but it is making me realise that I have not yet come to terms with what happened. I don't think I can face a fight.

WHatFreshHell - I wasn't there, I'm not a doctor, etc etc, but that sounds poor, from what you say. Obv leaving you and the baby 5 hours without help to bf is actually a disgrace - but hand expressing colostrum is a reasonable 'catch up' if they make this error. 12 mls is very respectable

I don't understand why tube feeding is more accurate than simply knowing how much the baby is offered and how much he takes, but someone with expertise in this area might know.

I'm assuming you were not diabetic - hospitals not following good guidance think all large babies are at risk of low blood sugar but this is only the case if the mother is diabetic.

If you go to www.babyfriendly.org they have some hypoglycaemia and the newborn guidelines which are evidence based and you can compare your care with what they say.

chibi - can't really comment, sorry.

In general, most babies will not need formula even if their blood sugar levels appear low, because they can be 'treated' with bf or ebm. There are bound to be a tiny no. of some babies at special risk, who may need a small amount of formula for a short time, and these mothers need to be supported to fully bf once the crisis is over.

Should say - donated ebm would be better than formula, of course

Thanks tiktok - no, I'm not diabetic, so no reason for this large boy that I seem to have made!

I was rather at the NG tube as well - I wonder if it was because Special Care was almost all tiny babies, not whoppers like mine, and they were almost all being fed through tubes so it was the norm for the ward, iyswim? Anyhow, he accidentally pulled it out within half an hour (have no idea how that happened ) and I refused all further top ups, so that was that.

Once I had made a stand they sent a healthcare assistant (amusingly called Sucki, considering her specialism in bf) to help me get the colostrum into him at each feed, so it was all ok in the end.

Thanks for the info and the links

A little off topic... I listened to Dr Martin Ward-Platt (Newcastle Uni I think) at the UNICEF babyfriendly conference talk about neonatal hypoglycemia. My brain is a little fuzzy these days but the gist of it was that newborns have various coping mechanisms, not just blood sugar. They can burn fat and protein if necessary. Their blood sugar may register as very low but they aren't in crisis. His view was to look at the baby before taking that blood sample - if they're lively and have good tone then they're not hypoglycemic. He did say that this only applied to healthy, term, chubby babies though. As I said I can't remember it all! But if you're interested in hypoglycemia in newborns it's probably worth reading some of his stuff.

That is interesting - DS2 was certainly a healthy, chubby, term baby, and was always pink and showed no signs of crisis to me!

Whatfreshhell, just reread your post and I recall Dr Martin Ward-Platt saying that there is naturally a huge dip in blood sugar post birth too (which picks up 12 hours later or something) during which time extreme caution should be taken if taking bloods as they may only be temporarily low.

What's so ironic is that WhatFreshHell and I were in the same hospital. DS had low glucose (is that the same as blood sugar) and was encouraged skin to skin, keeping him warm and just feed.

Total variation even in same hospital

That is ironic! DS1 was the same - just skin to skin and feed - but they never actually tested his blood sugar. Because DS2 was over 10lbs, suddenly it's blood tests a go go.

~@librasbiscuitsoffortune..

may i say : well done.Many people don't think perseverance in something you fnd difficult/ troubling isn't worth it : you did and deserve respect for that.

i think half the problem is health staff who either didn't have kids/ didn't bF/ didn't have trouble BF just think it happens naturally and you don't need support. This is one of the attitudes that causes most disillusionment and trouble for first time mums.

after all, if everything to do with parenting was something we should know naturally, we woudn't be jabbering about it on here...

I have all the sympathy for everyone who didn't get good bf support. I too couldn't come to terms with the 'service' in the maternity to make a complaint as one of the sisters requested.

Regarding bf I was determined to as my mother hadn't bothered and told me I was too small to feed at 2.5lbs (born at 32 weeks in the 50's). Only later learned that I was 5 1/2 lbs and could have easily been bf, but was allowed to lose weight to be just over 4 lbs.

I, personally, think a lot of the blame should be placed on that bloody awful book 'emma's diary' that describes the let down reflex as a 'gentle tingling' - no mention of the feeling that your nipples feel as if they've been sandpapered with salt and lemon juice at the same time, nor of the toe-curling that goes on. By ignoring the early difficulties it causes completely unrealistic expectations and makes new mothers feel totally inadequate. It also manages to avoid mentioning that bf is something that both mothers and babies need to learn.

Living in a very pc area I had a male HV who told me that he would rather be a dog than a bf woman! I persevered for 11 weeks through sheer pigheadedness and colicky crying every night until about 1am. Suddenly it was if a magic wand had been waved and it all became easy. Even though I had supplemented with formula occasionly I'd managed to continue. When dd started solids at 16 weeks I was buggered if I was going to give up when I'd only just got it sussed. So, I carried on after going back to work, first with 3 feeds a day, then 2 then 1. It was a bit of a tie, but as we didn't have any family around us/masses of willing babysitters it didn't really matter about not going out.

At 5'4" and nearly 12 my dd can still just about remember being bf - she stopped at about 20m and has said she will bf her own children in the future.

Glad it worked out well in the end for you, tb

But let down is rarely painful - it is a tingling for the vast majority of women. If your nipples feel like they have been sandpapered' then this is nothing to do with let down, but almost certainly a difficulty with the way the baby is attached to the breast, which can sometimes be tricky to get right.

I'd hate anyone to think if they were in that much pain they should just put it down to 'let down'

Yet again women can't do right from wrong. I breastfeed my little boy who turns 6 months next week exclusively but I would not rule out bottle feeding formula. I had a really hard time breastfeeding in the beginning and through helpful support I found that in time we both enjoyed the experience but thats mainly due to the fact that my son refused to take a bottle and left me no choice. If feeding your child from a bottle using formula is easier and better for the mother then surely in turn it is better for the child which is what counts. If the mother is not enjoying the experience and doesn't feel that she is bonding with her baby by breastfeeding then she shouldn't be made to feel guilty about alternatives. Yes breast is best but it has to be best for both concerned, a happy mummy is a happy baby.
Back off frowning on women breastfeeding in public and back off frowning on women bottlefeeding, our main aim is to feed our growing baby.