Breastfeeding and attachment parenting - your thoughts

[awfulpersonme]

I've not posted on this board before but have lurked a lot.

I'm interested to see what you think about two things I have thought about a lot in recent weeks - breastfeeding and attachment parenting.

I breastfeed my 5 month old and as such was on a few Facebook groups for support. On these groups I have seen comments stating that women who ff should not have children, that formula should only be available on prescription for babies who need it medically, and asking for tips on how to persuade their female friends and relatives to breastfeed their babies. These groups are largely AP based.

So:

1. Is pressurising women to breastfeed essentially anti feminist? Isn't it just another way of telling us what we should and shouldn't do with our bodies, another way of making female bodies public property?

2. aren't a lot of the attachment parenting principles essentially quite anti-woman? Every AP group I've seen seems to place a mother's need for outside stimulation, sleep, and good mental health as far, far below the needs of her children (at all ages, not just newborns and young babies). The idea that you must be around your baby 24/7 just seems to me to be another way of keeping women firmly "in their place".

What do you all think??

It isn't bollocks, really, before formula everyone breastfed. It's the biological design of the human race. If it was so bloody hard we'd have died out as a species.

We are not designed. I really can't stress that point enough. We aren't designed to give birth, we aren't designed to do anything. We've evolved, and evolution is a pretty haphazard process. It's not directed towards a goal.

The mortality rate for babies through the vast, vast majority of our history has been huge. It still is in places where medical care is non existent. There, women give birth, often in agony, and often suffer serious and untreated birth injuries. This myth of 'happy savages' nobly squatting in the baobab tree and giving birth without fear is utter, utter bollocks.

Before formula, those who could, breastfed. A lot couldn't and those babies died. Wet nursing has a long history and substitutes for milk do too - goat milk and honey was recorded as being used in the twelfth century for example. No idea how efficacious that was. I imagine not that much.

The fact there's seven billion of us on the planet is due to poor contraception, good sanitation and general randiness.

Can we knock this 'it's natural so it's good' thing on the head? Cyanide is natural. Arsenic is natural. Asbestos is natural. Belladonna, curare and dying of cancer are all natural....

Quite. There is evidence of rudimentary bottle feeding as far back as the Ancient Egyptians too.

To point one - no, it's just an ugly quality a judgmental person has.

To the second, I don't think so. The big thing in my mind re: feminism is that it's about choice.

I don't mind being presumed to cook dinner for DH - not a feminist.

I enjoy cooking and DH loves my cooking so I make most of the meals - very much a feminist.

It's all about choice.

If I actively choose to do something because I enjoy it, I am still a feminist as I'm not just accepting my 'role' begrudgingly.

With AP it is just how it felt comfortable. I don't do everything in that style but the things I do is for my own comfort (breastfeeding, co sleeping, gentler discipline) as I feel it's what approach suits my girls.

Evidence of tampons too hyacinth

Nothing new under the sun, etc.

The six month figure matters as that's what the recommendations for exclusive breastfeeding are. Based in evidence of what is best for babies long term health so yes I'd say 15% is low. Why do you think it's high?

Oh for God's sake Elspeth, untwist your knickers.

You honestly think that all women all across Ireland never ever feel even the slightest bit of self-consciousness about breastfeeding and feel absolutely welcomed with open arms by all members of society in every place they go because you had no negative remarks? You've never come across any breastfeeding women who won't breastfeed in front of male members of the family (I can think of about eleven I know personally off the top of my head)? You think if there was a chat on Joe Duffy tomorrow about breastfeeding it would be solely about how wonderful it is and there would be no negativity?

As for the conflating remark.. I am "conflating" having had negative remarks about breastfeeding (and the experiences of others too) with Ireland being a DEEPLY patriarchal society with long-standing known and very public issues around women's bodies? They couldn't POSSIBLY be related, no?

I'm glad you've had good experiences but there's no need for the aggression in the telling me not to "dare to presume" to have an opinion that maybe, just maybe, being in a patriarchal society might have something to do with the chronically low breastfeeding rates?

Would you care to explain why it is you find it offensive and generalising to consider Ireland a deeply patriarchal society? Why are you so fused with defending it as a wondrous breastfeeding heaven?

A reminder that Mumsnet's raison d'être is to make lives easier
thanks

I don't think it's high - just think it's a bit unrealistic - I was breastfeeding Ds at six months but also giving some solids, as was almost every other BF ing mum I knew. Surely a better goal would be 'majority of nutrition from breast milk at six months.'
By six months most babies have had a little taste of other foods, I'd imagine?

fusion Western society is deeply patriarchal. France, Luxembourg, Ireland, UK, Germany, Spain, etc. - all deeply patriarchal. Do you mean that Ireland is different in some way? (And if so, how?)

Fwiw, every thing you've mentioned about negative bf experiences in Ireland - from negative comments in public and on radio phone-in shows to knowing women who are too embarrassed to bf in front of male relatives - I have experience in the UK. I don't think it's representative of the UK as a whole, but negative attitudes are not uncommon. I'm struggling to see what's specific to Ireland.

I spent half my breastfeeding life in Ireland and half in the UK. I find Ireland far less woman friendly in a whole host of ways but it's pointless discussing it on a UK site because along will come a whole raft of defenders to say that there's no difference, and my experience is my experience (and it matches that of anyone I've ever spoken to in real life, but that's how social networks work I suppose).

. I could get into it but to be honest if I have to argue the toss that a country where women have died rather than been given abortions to save their lives, with the second highest childcare costs in Europe and a history that includes things like symphisiotomy and the Magdalene laundries is a bit more patriarchal than some other countries I'm off. The UN has called us on our Women's Rights. I'd say that's evidence enough that it's a bit more entrenched than in other European countries (though in no way suggesting it's not the same there). Life is too short to be playing silly beggars with pretending Ireland is some feminist haven.

With regard to ap being niche or mainstream, I have found that the nhs have encouraged me to bf and to feed on cue and react to baby's needs, pick them up, hold them lots etc.
Then they come back at 6 and especially 12 months and look disapproving when you tell them you're still breastfeeding and haven't sleep-trained. I feel they talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

I agree with fusionconfusion about breastfeeding in Ireland. I'm in NI. Taboo about breasts, influence of the church/churches, being high-producers of formula and many of my parents' contemporaries aiming to have AS MANY CHILDREN AS POSSIBLE means that it is definitely assumed that I'm formula-feeding. I got my first "you're not still feeding yourself" (always avoid using the word "breast" where possible of course!) comment when my baby was 3 weeks old. Further to my comment about the nhs guidelines about baby's cues, versus health visitors subsequently being shocked that you haven't sleep trained, maybe this is because the official guidelines come from mainland UK but the on-the-ground health visitors are local and they feel anything ap is a case of "spoiling" the child, in my experience. I have heard tonnes of comments about spoiling the baby. Obviously that's a generation thing too and not just specific to Ireland.
Anyway, as previous posters have said, labels help you find your tribe which can help you stay sane in what can be a very confusing experience. I don't feel I am an attachment parent but loosely agree with a lot of it. I don't think ap is anti-feminist.

biological design

This pairing of words has no meaning in biology. Biology does not design.

PresidentOliviaMumsnet Do you prefer that we not debate on here? I appreciate that breastfeeding is a massively emotive topic; at the same time I think that the conversation is important. We can go over to Feminist Theory, but feeding is an applied thing, for most mothers, anyway. Plus, it's quieter over there.

biological design This pairing of words has no meaning in biology. Biology does not design.

Hear hear... This needs to be scribed in big flashing neon letters and placed in front of anyone spouting 'but it's natural!'

Seriously though, it's a critical point. We are not designed. Evolution has no 'directed goal.' Hence some of the frankly shit bits of our physiology. Inside out retinas. Lower back pain. The appendix. Male nipples.
Our pelvises/the size of a baby's head.

Evolution works in the present only. There's variation in a population so that some survive better in the immediate environment. Those that do produce more offspring and pass on their genes more often. There's no striving to a higher goal, no working to get somewhere.
We are not designed to do anything.

fusion and formida - fair enough, your experiences sound unpleasant.

My experience of the UK versus Ireland is quite different to yours, though, as I've found sexism much further entrenched in the UK than in Ireland. Apart from the abortion issue - which I hope we cal all agree is a fucking disgrace, repeal the 8th, etc. - I find Ireland more woman-friendly than the UK. Everyday things like women lagging in pay and promotions at work, raised eyebrows if women don't change their name on marriage, snarky comments about women's "careers" if they have children, cat calling in the street, etc... I've experienced these far more commonly in the UK than Ireland, across all the places I've lived in both countries. The patriarchy and misogyny I've seen dominant in parts of Presbyterian Scotland was dat worse than anything in the most rural part of Ireland.

No one is claiming Ireland is some marvellous feminist enclave , and I'm sure we all agree that the abortion situation is fucking disgraceful (though I know no one under the age of 70 who supports the 8th). But the scientist in me recognises that if individual anecdotes of Ireland vs UK vary so wildly then there's probably not a systematic difference between them.

I don't think anyone was suggesting that Ireland is "some kind of feminist haven" when we have huge issues surrounding women and women's rights.

All I was saying was that I personally have never had a stranger comment negatively to me about breastfeeding whilst I breastfed in public. I'm involved in supporting mothers of multiples who breastfeed and through that connection I have found out that 100s of other women in Ireland have also never had a negative comment directed towards them whilst breastfeeding in public.

However, Ireland remains a largely bottle-feeding society. There are a myriad of reasons behind this, some fuelled by the older generation's view of women's bodies. I have had negative comments from family and friends as regards breastfeeding (particularly breastfeeding DTs) - not comments about it being disgusting or shameful - but rather comments which undermined my choice to breastfeed.

As I've said a few times now, I don't think breastfeeding, or any one particular aspect of attachment parenting principles, is anti-feminist. I think undermining a woman's choice to breastfeed/bottle feed/sleep train/use a pram/baby-wear is anti-feminist.

Ultimately it doesn't matter what motivates that need to undermine that woman's choice.

geeka, sadly I know a large number of men and women in their early/mid thirties who don't want the 8th Amendment to be repealed and who remain staunchly anti-abortion in all circumstances.

I agree about the UK being worse than Ireland for everyday sexism, in my experience at least.

But you can't use things that happened decades ago as evidence that somewhere is extra-patriarchal now. Most things in most countries were disgraceful a few decades ago. Nowadays, Ireland is massively more socially liberal than it was even 10 years ago, and I would argue more socially liberal than the UK. It's partly generational (Ireland has a greater proportion of under 40s than the UK) and partly educational (Ireland's under-40s are more highly educated than those in the UK). Social and cultural change is happening very fast in Ireland - not before time - and I think it's moving in a direction that's positive for women.

The people in power - Endy Kenny and his ilk - are now of a minority generation and opinion when it comes to social issues. Now we just wait for the younger generation to fill the Dáil and sort out the abortion situation...

I don't think I have ever had a stranger say anything negative about breastfeeding in England either tbh and I have been breastfeeding on and off for nearly 20 years.

The only places I hear or see negative comments are:
My family who are odd
Mumsnet
Daily Mail - mainly through MN links

Eagle I know they exist alright, sadly, as they keep popping up in opinion polls - i just don't know any personally (or they're keeping their mouths shut around me, which is always a possibility ).

It reinforces what I was saying earlier about how individual experiences can't be representative, though. We all rely on our individual social networks, and they're always skewed towards one demographic or other. What keeps me sane hopeful is the consistent and decent-sized majority across successive polls in favour of repealing the 8th. Now if only the referendum were called...

The only time I've had comments about 'public' breastfeeding (in the UK) is when feeding at a baby group and bottle feeding mums come over to tell me why they couldn't breastfeed. I never knew what to say - saying aww shame seemed to put me in the breastapo everyone should be forced to breastfeed camp, saying oh well things turn out differently for everyone put me in the unsympathetic bitch camp. Of course, there was no right thing to say because they were projecting their issues onto me.

I had to leave one group because of discussions three weeks running about whether it's possible to breastfeed a baby with teeth. Yes it is. Can we talk about something other than my breasts now?

I am convinced lots of bottle feeding mums see shame and judgement where there is none which is where I was going with my public breastfeeding post (because lots of breastfeeding mums think they'll be shamed/judged for feeding in public way more than they actually are).

Agreed, batteries, I think people can feel uncomfortable and imagine they are being judged when really people are only looking at the little baby or whatever.

I think a lot of that feeling of being uncomfortable comes from online attitudes. I often see videos and poems and memes about BFing/bottle-feeding/parenting that seem dramatic but have no root in real life. The problem is, as a pp said above, that some mothers only have the online community for support. Lots of the FB mothering groups "define" themselves in narrow terms so it can be hard to find a middle ground.

Agreed, batteries, I think people can feel uncomfortable and imagine they are being judged when really people are only looking at the little baby or whatever.

It's a real indictment of our society I think, that we find ourselves in a position where everyone is insecure and defensive about their parenting and expects to be on the receiving end of criticism all the time.

TheHubblesWindscreenWipers Do you know Dobzhansky?

There is an essay called Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution by Dobzhansky.

That nothing in biology makes sense does not of itself appear to have been of particular concern to Dobzhansky.

Disclaimer: I am yet to read the essay and am only familiar with the title.

Yeah, he came from the viewpoint that religion itself isn't incompatible with evolution. I'd go further than that and say religion isn't needed at all but anyone whacking creationists over the head with the big Logic Stick is OK by me....