Is breast feeding middle class?

[Charingcrossbun]

A few comments I have received recently have started me thinking, not that it matters at all but, is breast feeding like having humous as a staple of your weekly shop?

Was breast feeding in pub yesterday and DS was crying as I winded him. A women came over to me with a 6/7month old and told me that was why she bottle fed and it was much easier. She made me feel like I was being a bit of a martyr. Obviously she was trying to be helpful so I just smiled and thanked her. I overheard another comment from mums waiting outside the sure start centre "you can tell it's the breast feeding group by all the posh prams".
Just wondered if other mumsnetters had noticed
this?

Im an older mum and due to career left having a dc very late. I chose not to bf and didn't want to try.

I wonder where I'd slot myself in with all these stats and trends....

Coming from a mc background and all.

Threads like these are likely to produce a lot of anecdotes rather than be able to show any correlations (apart from the links to studies of course).

I'm not sure what class I am (probably middle class although not sure I fit the criteria so well now) but in my case my mum breast fed so I presumed I would. I also wasn't worried about my small breast size as my mum has smaller ones and they fed my sister and me fine :) I was determined to breast feed I suppose but don't know what that could be attributed to.

There was a link further up which said only 1% of babies at 6 months were exclusively breast fed - was that no other milk, or no solid food either I wonder?

Basically there is one rule - feed your baby! Everyone has their own views, to which they are entitled. My point is that quite a few comments on this thread make generalisations about people and that there are many people who do not fit into these 'trends'. This is a sensitive topic for many women.

But it's only through understanding trends that policy makers can come up with answers re the woefully low breastfeeding rates in the UK.

This thread is about trends though. The OPs question was "is breastfeeding middle class?" and the answer is, broadly, yes, so far as class can be defined.

But who is determining these classes and by what factors? What determines someone as working or middle class? Because I'm not so sure it's possible to make such a distinction between classes anymore which makes all the statistics rather void.

Um, no fairy, it doesn't make "all the statistics rather void". It's all clearly laid out for you in the infant feeing survey, it's been linked to upthread.

In my experience yes, I moved house when 8 months pregnant from a deprived section of the city I live in to one of the most affluent parts of the same city and I've noticed that the vast majority of women are still or used to breast feed while the country itself (Wales) has one of the lowest bf rates going. Frankly if I thought I'd have to go back to work before the baby was 6 months I'd have switched to formula too.

Harder I have read the survey. The highest rates of breastfeeding were amongst ethnic minorities. That to me suggests cultural influences rather than class because culture and background are not class indicators.

I think it is very dangerous and near sighted to suggest that groups of women do not breastfeed simply because they were working class (whatever that is nowadays). Most women regardless of class see the same midwives and the same health professionals (unless you are extremely wealthy and gp private). Most women have the same access to breastfeeding posters, services and information that is provided at these clinics and via the health professionals. That they choose to formula feed from birth in spite of this shows it is not education so much as culture and personal experiences / choice.

Not in many other countries (eg India) it isn't. The wealthier mothers are far less likely to bf as its often perceived as something poorer mothers do, who can't afford formula.

What about upper class mothers? Do they hand baby over to nanny/boarding school and commence parenting when child is, say, age 18 :)

What is 'dangerous' about identifying a trend? And no-one is saying that it is 'simply because they were working class' - obviously it is more complex than that. But the milieu that one finds oneself in when one is a mother - what one's peers and family think about breastfeeding, how much practical support there is (eg as one pp said being able to hire a lactation counsellor and/or a cleaner) - all of these can influence the decision to breastfeed, and many of them are to do with socio-economic status. Class affects all sorts of decisions that people make, and I don't think it surprising that it affects breastfeeding also.

Just to clarify, when I said at the very start of this thread about a link between education and bf, I did certainly not mean that people who ff are uneducated buffoons, simply that I'd seen reports which said there was a correlation (not a causal link) between levels of education and bf rates.

Also, exclusive bf at 6 months does indeed mean no solids or formula at all. So we don't count, despite DD only having been tube fed formula for a few days in hosp, having about 4 bottles at home, and commencing blw on her insistence at 21 weeks. She's still bf at 7 months but we don't count.

I ff my first. I hold no judgement about how anyone feeds their baby, but I do hate the way we cannot discuss infant feeding on here without it becoming an ff vs bf debate of some sort.

I did certainly not mean that people who ff are uneducated buffoons

Similarly, working-class does not = thick/bad, which I think some people are reading into it. It just means working-class.

Absolutely Rommel. Level of education is what the studies show (ie degree educated). Doesn't equate to level of intelligence, more like availability/accessibility of opportunities.

All these pigeon holes are a little out of date these days.

Surely the important thing here is that you are feeding your baby,regardless of the method

Of course it's important that babies get fed. It's also worthwhile to point out that formula feeding comes with associated risks and no benefits for the baby. It's not possible for parents to make an informed choice otherwise.

I breast fed my son as an unemployed, never worked before 18 year old until he was 2, and my daughter for around 6 months when i was 21. I am definitely not middle class, and I did find that some people were shocked to find out I was/was planning on breast feeding.

I don't know what I would have done without formula. The benefit to my baby was that it was getting fed.

I personally think It was marvellous bloody stuff.

All the information is out there. It's up to mums to make an informed decision....regardless of background.

I'm probably seen as mc but was on jsa when I had my first. Got free milk vouchers but bf for a year and spent the vouchers on fruit and veg. Much higher income when dd2 came along 18 months later, still bf at 9 months.

I'm lucky that I have found it easy but I'm far too lazy to bottle feed anyway. My sister gave up after a day and my cousin after 10 days. We're all the same class with the same influences. I don't give it much thought but just did what was easiest for me. Obviously I knew it was best for baby but never even occurred to me I wouldn't or couldn't bf.

I do live in a poorer area and am aware I am in the minority around here although obviously don't know anyone else's circumstances!

I can't say I took any notice of what anyone else was doing at the time. I was far too consumed by my failing to manage BF.

Formula is a brilliant thing, and we are fortunate to live in an era where we can use it either through choice or through necessity. No one would want to return to a pre-formula world.

However, I don't know if new parents do have effective access to the information about the risks of using infant formula in comparison to breastfeeding. I'm talking about parents who choose to formula feed from birth who have no particular problem with breastfeeding.

The Infant Feeding Survey 2010 has the stat that only 55% of those who ff from birth could name a benefit of breastfeeding, compared with 80% of those who initiated breastfeeding. That would seem to point to a lack of awareness of the risks of using formula versus the benefits of breastfeeding. No idea what the cause or solution is though.

I am really out of date, having last BF (or tried to) in 2002. I assume ante-natal classes still exist where the pros and cons of both feeding methods are explored?

Not everyone will go to ante natal classes, though. Plus I wonder about how effectively information is got across at classes like this. It seems to me that the line about breast being "best" is wheeled out a lot, but without much exploration of what that actually means.

In 1999 both methods were discussed at my ante natal classes. There was zero mention of BF being anything other than a breeze which I found a bit in hindsight.

I didn't bother with the classes for DS2 two years later.