Fed is Best!!!!!!

[HotDawg123]

If you choose to breast feed - good for you
If you choose to bottle feed - good for you
But if you choose to be a breast feeding warrior and look at those who choose to bottle feed as scum then I hope you slip in dog shit tomorrow.

The amount of horrible women I've come across who are like this is too many now. And as I am heavily pregnant and have hormone rage it is really pissing me off.

Thank you for listening.

I'm one of the 1% who cannot breast feed with a medical reason behind it I was told by lactation consultant to give up after trying.
This fed is best campaign flipped up on my Facebook page yesterday, according to a bunch of the posters I should have been made to go to my GP for a licence (!) to be able to buy formula.
This is the attitude which sucks.
The guilt I was made to feel first time round was ridiculous one of the leaders of the bf group suggested to me that i had better try hard otherwise I would end up with an overweight, thick child. All the while my Son was losing weight at a ridiculous rate and was always distressed.

skerrywind

Yes I am ignorant of the mechanics of breastfeeding, because I chose never to do it. This is second hand from my friend, whose doctor told her she was producing too much foremilk and her baby, though feeding constantly, was hungry. We don't live in the U.K. and the support here for breastfeeding mothers is woeful (although bf is pushed aggressively in the local hospitals) so perhaps with the right support she could have done what she desperately wanted to do, and breastfed her baby exclusively. As it is, in her context, a context that includes no support from either counsellors or family and no paternity leave for the father, and which also included a traumatic birth experience with followup issues, she made a rational choice. My ignorance is irrelevant, but well done you for spotting it.

But breast is best obviously, in absolutely every situation and for absolutely every person

I'm often on the same threads as minifingerz, and usually disabpgreeing with her.

But I agree totally with what she is posting on this thread.

And would like to add that in all my years on MN, I have only seen one thread with a 'breastfeeding warrior' (they're normally seen off pretty sharpish). So although, OP, you may have encountered them elsewhere, I doubt very much it has happened here.

Breast is best is still a very important message. Even in countries such as UK with a safe water supply, access to kit to sterilise and high levels of literacy.

I think in RL nobody gives a toss really how anyone feeds their baby. Everyone has personal reasons for their choices and others should butt out.

I did BF and FF and all turned out fine.

whose doctor told her she was producing too much foremilk

Often GPs- even in the UK are fairly ignorant about the mechanics of breasteeding.

Grumpbum

according to a bunch of the posters I should have been made to go to my GP for a licence (!)

And maybe if you ever want an abortion you should have to prove you were raped, get permission from the father, and/or listen to an ultrasound of the baby's heartbeat before the procedure. Why not? Baby comes first; mother is just a 'vessel' (according to a US politician the other day). This is women's fundamental right to make their own reproductive choices that's being questioned. Can these people actually hear themselves?!

"this natural biological function end up being so bad mouthed?"

I don't think people are 'bad mouthing' breastfeeding, they're acknowledging its challenges, and it's important that people do this.

Unfortunately, while we can talk about the difficulties of breastfeeding, anyone who expresses an opinion that formula use sometimes isn't 'fine' is accused of attacking mothers, and that's really problematic.

I absolutely hate the fed is best campaign. It's like something Donald Trump would come up with: we're in a post-truth world now, let's ignore the facts and the complexities and just say whatever makes people feel better.

skerrywind

So I hear, and that kind of ignorance from medical professionals is a form of institutionalised sexism that should be addressed as a matter of urgency.

I signed the recent petition for the NHS to diagnose tongue tie in newborns for that reason.

Sparklingbrook my DM and MIL both cared greatly that I BF my DD. They hated it and actively discouraged me at every step. My DGM also hated it, though in fairness kept her mouth shut. So I don't think it's right to say that people don't care how babies are fed (in either direction).

FartnissEverbeans it reads to me that in your friends case, she had no support and no real choice at all. She wanted to bf, she ended up ff against her desires - it sounds like in her case you're in full agreement with what skerrywind is saying about support, education and intervention. It's a shame your friend was forced by circumstances into feeding her child in a way she didn't want every bit as much as it would be a shame if no formula was readily available and you had been forced to attempt breastfeeding against your personal wishes. Forced choice is no choice at all.

Having formula available only on available from GPS would take some of the massive profit out of it and hopefully provide real and proper support for both breastfeeding and formula fed mother baby pairs.

The formula industry worldwide is about 41 billion a year. that's big money and big profits on the backs baby's needs. That's not ok.

That level of profit isn't ok. Not when quality timely qualified support could help. When we could run lmilk banks and Save lives like they do in Brazil.

We as a society can do better than hiding breastfeeding away as something on "special, lucky" women do if got on with educator health professionals, created milk banks and took out the profits of formula manufacturers.

Fed is not best, fed is the absolute minimum...I hate this phrase!

I bf - well pumped and tube fed then fed through shields my ds as he was prem. I pumped easily and had no issues (except for the issue that I hated it, didn't want to do it and was massively pressured by the hospital staff to do it)... until my baby became seriously ill due to meds I was on. Do I fit into that 1% or should I have applied for a licence from the bf 'supporter' who told me that breastfeed is best and to continue after the consultant told me to stop?

I teach breastfeeding support tutorials to undergraduate medical students.
Of their intensive 5 year curriculum a total of 6 hours is devoted to breastfeeding support.
It's no wonder GPs are so ill informed of the basics when it comes to breastfeeding support.

There will be a percentage of women who can't breastfeed. There is the option of pumping or using doner milk or formula.
There will be a percentage of women who can feed a baby thier own milk. There is the option of doner milk or formula.
There is also a huge percentage of women that can't breastfeed because have been given crappy advice, and live in a society that doesn't value breastfeeding.

I formula fed my first 2 babies and breastfed my 3rd. The only negative comments I got was when I was breastfeeding. No one ever commented when they saw me bottle feeding. Bottle feeding mums always feel they get a hard time but I experienced that breastfeeding mums get a hard time too. I'm planning to breastfeed my 4th so I'm preparing myself for everyone's 'opinions' again luckily I'm thick skinned but I know a lot of people who get very upset by comments on the way they choose to feed their children x

Donor milk was never offered and tbh I wouldn't have wanted it

When I first of doner milk
I thought it was weird and gross and dangerous.

But seeing the results come out of Brazil in term of neonatal mortality reduction plus seeing friend of mines babies benefit from milk sharing of changed my mind.

I'd except blood from a blood bank if I needed it.

I don't really know why it has to be such a big deal. If people don't BF they tend to have some elaborate reason why they can't, and then 'the pro beast feeders gave me PND'.. Bit dramatic!

I BF my first until 4 months when I switched to FF partly for my own convenience and partly because I started combination feeding and DD seemed to prefer bottles.

I'm BFing my second now, only a week and a half in. I'm aiming for 6 weeks, will see how it goes.

I don't really know why people give a shit what other people think so much? Only really the mum knows her and her babies circumstances so I think people need to just make the best decision for them and stick with it. Guilt free!

I don't know if my experience has been unusual but there seems to be ample support available? Especially with my first.

Breast not beast!

I always think this topic actually boils down to personality, some people will be weirdly smug and aggressive about their choices, whether it's bottle feeding or breast feeding, or angrily defensive, or whatever. Most people actually just get on with it. I think you tend to get people on the smug and aggressive ends of the spectrum posting on forums .

pelican I'm sick of seeing the same posters turning up and bitch plopping on these threads. It's old hat now. The last time they did it it was a thread about a woman who had had a double mastectomy. Absolutely vile.

I agree that fed is best op. I read that sad story on their page about the woman whose child died for want of milk; that could easily have been my DS, as I had absolutely nothing and he was jaundiced, lethargic, passing urates etc. If I'd held out for breastfeeding he might well have died.

I still feel like I didn't do enough, 5 years on. Reading that poor woman's story made me feel very very grateful to have my healthy, strapping DS.

Having said that, I think breastfeeding support in this country is shit and that it needs to be disseminated around the midwives and doctors, not solely in keen practitioners. If you don't view yourself as a Breastfeeder then you won't seek out the women who seem scarily obsessed with it (I know, 'cos I didn't - those women unnerved me); then you don't get access to all the tips that can help. A well-informed doctor, nurse or HV would have been very well received though.

Do people not normally get support from community MW/HV? Also got an offer for a breastfeeding support worker (or something) to come round. I'm thinking that is not the norm?

I have always said fed is best even before I had DS, I have had friends who have formula fed or breastfed or a mixture of both, it's whatever works best for you.. A happy mum = a happy babe!
I did breastfeed my DS for a year as it worked for us although it took awhile to get the hang off.
I will say that I have felt judged for breastfeeding, for example a friend (not close) asked me if I was BF I said yes, she then rolled her eyes and said I'm not I'm bottled, I said well it's whatever works best for you.she then continued to tell me how could I BF it's disgusting, baby will never have feeding routine etc...I walked away!
Another few times when people I know who are pregnant or have ha babies ask me did I BF and I say yes and then rather proudly for a year! ( now I am proud of this as at first I didn't even think I would last 3 weeks! And why can't I be proud !) I get eyes rolled and they normally turn to the other mum and say well I formula fed much easier, meant I could go out drinking, get a bit of my life and body back.
I have always felt like I can't be Vocal or proud of the fact that I BF , my close friends know how supportive I am of how they choose to feed.
Sorry for the ramble..just a different point of view