Breastfeeding and feminism

[user123098]

Hey
Not trying to be a GF or here to discuss merits of bf or ff but just interested in views - someone said to me tonight that bf is inherently anti feminist as it means men and women can't share domestic and caring load of looking after baby. It's a really interesting point as bf does mean men can't be as involved in feeding, potentially bonding etc
What do you think?

Yes, we can have a go, Bertie

I think infant feeding is a feminist issue when women reach adulthood, hating their breasts because of previous sexual abuse or harrassment, or just because of the general shit attitudes thrown at the female body, and feeling unable to use their breasts as a result. However....breastfeeding can help a woman triumph over these feelings. When it goes well, it can be empowering and therapeutic.

A feminist issue, for sure :)

I knew someone who didn't try to breastfeed because they said breasts were for sex and they would have felt like it was child abuse
I didn't know her well enough to find out the backstory but I thought it was incredibly sad (and odd) to feel that way

There have been judgemental attitudes on this thread.

And what about this What I mean, and I’m sorry I wasn’t clear was, is that you and other woman who don’t breastfeed should have to justify it. I should justify why I stopped bf?

The "derail" was to point out the hypocrisy that smoking and drinking whilst pregnant was treated more sympathetically.

Oh and I love the my experiences don't matter as part of this wider discussion yet the experiences of Queen Victoria's daughter do. So much for listening to women's voices and women's experiences. You want discussions but anything which does not support the generalities posted here is just dismissed.

But I'm disappointed that in the feminist folder, where we could be expected to discuss the social and cultural aspects of the whole experience across time and place, from a feminist POV, we end up being silenced

Oh please- what a load of nonsense. Who is silencing you? Or is this the FWR version of "silencing" which means putting a different view point?

A poster said "it's a myth that ff babies will sleep better". No it is not a myth but you think pointing that out is stifling discussion?

NannyOgg referred to an echo chamber several pages back. She was absolutely right. I'm bowing out now and you can carry on peddling your myths that if it weren't for the terrible patriarchy and those evil formula manufacturers women would and could breast feed to 2 years old.

www.scienceandsensibility.org/blog/exclusively-breastfeeding-mothers-get-more-sleep-another-look-at-nighttime-breastfeeding-and-postpartum-depression

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017092037.htm

It is selling snake oil to desperately tired parents to suggest formula is the answer.
And stop being so rude to everyone lass
No-one is criticizing you for formula feeding, this is your own personal issues coming through and it's really tedious.

Oh look here's some more
www.swansea.ac.uk/humanandhealthsciences/news-and-events/latest-research/sleeplessnightsnewresearchfindsbabiesshouldwakeatnight.php

I'm sorry you feel like it's a personal attack, but it's just scientific fact the breastfeeding is beneficial to the child and the mother and as a result it should be encouraged.

This is obviously a very emotive subject for some posters, so I am hesitant to wade in, but there is a point I would like to raise, which is about the 'naturalness' of breastfeeding. The implication is always that mammals feed their young and if first time mothers struggle that is because they have lost the association with the natural function of their breasts in a sexualising culture.

This narrative misses out that it is in fact common for first born litters to die because young/new mums don't take to feeding immediately. When my mare had a foal, she struggled to feed her and had to be sedated to allow her foal to feed for the first 48 hours or so until was it was established - my vet said this was quite common with first foals, who would just die in the wild.

So it is not unusual or unique to humans for feeding our young to not come 'naturally' and very common to need support to get feeding established. And in my mare's case it had nothing to do with seeing her breasts as sexual!

It is selling snake oil to desperately tired parents to suggest formula is the answer

It was not snake oil. My son slept because he was not waking up from hunger on the hour. It was the answer for me and him. Why do you feel the need to deny what was a verifiable fact in my life?

Lass, my example of Queen Victoria and her daughter was to illustrate that princess Vicky's individual experience revealed nothing about the structural barriers pertaining to women of her time and her class. So if Vicky had come to mumsnet in 1860 and had said 'I managed just fine to BF my little princes so it's not true that there are barriers to BF' I'd have been justified in saying 'yes, Vicky, that is your individual experience but it does not mean that social and other barriers do not exist....now jog on, your royal highness, thank you.'

Hope you understand now.

Tell me Quentin do you think I imagined getting up to do hourly feeds? Do you think I imagined that that stopped when I switched to ff? Or worse am I lying?

Lass honestly start your own thread in infant feeding if you want to talk about your experience. You’re genuinely derailing this discussion which is otherwise really interesting on macro-level views of breastfeeding and feminism.

Oh blimey, Lass. It was not snake oil for you . You loved it. It worked. Happy days. No one denies what happened to you. Please, let other people discuss in a mature and analytical way what takes place socially and culturally outside your own experience.

The fact remains formula is presented as an answer to many BF problems, not always correctly.

Bertie I'm not doing very well here, am I? :)

Lass, this is not about you and your individual experience of breastfeeding though, this is about feeding on a population level. Of course your child slept better because he wasn't hungry, that's obvious and no-ones disputing that, why on earth would anyone think you're lying?

The research works on a population level, not individual.

Again eeane interesting as long as there is no dissent. What good is served by posting links to research but refusing to listen to some one who comments that research is not her experience?

Lass, this is not about you and your individual experience of breastfeeding though, this is about feeding on a population level. Of course your child slept better because he wasn't hungry, that's obvious and no-ones disputing that, why on earth would anyone think you're lying?

Well according to Quentin I was peddled snake oil.

It isn't helpful to examine one person's experiences in such detail in a thread generally addressing the topic of BF as a feminist issue. If you do wish to discuss your own experiences, Lass, why not do it in a support forum such as the Infant Feeding board?

It can be helpful, sometimes, to bring a personal experience into a this kind of thread, especially as a counter to a statement which assumes all women have X experience, or to illustrate a point.

It's not helpful, to keep using your own, singular experience to negate points that other people are making which are not about "all women" and simply about "some women". It's also derailing to keep making a thread all about you.

End rant. Ignore commence TBH - Lass has form for this.

YY Luminaries - evolution only really requires the survival of some children after all, not all of them, sadly.

Your posts aren't dissent though, they are your individual experiences.
There are countless individual stories that counter research, but that still doesn't negate that research.

If you talk to 20 women about their baby feeding experiences, they are likely to be very different. If you talk to 100 or 1000 or 10,000, patterns emerge. Data is never based on individuals, to do so would be ridiculous, but that doesn't mean those individual, unique experiences aren't there.

TheLuminaries, it's always interesting I agree to look at other mammals and what happens to them.

The higher up the chain you go, the less likely it is for mammals to reject their young....think I'm right in saying that though would be great if someone who knows about apes and gorillas could comment.

I think you're understanding the word 'natural' to mean 'nothing ever goes wrong', too. Nature is unreliable. Conception, pregnancy and birth are 'natural' but less than perfect. Same applies to feeding. However, in a patriarchal human society, other hindrances - man made - appear.

Wrt the popular view that ff babies sleep better, it is snake oil though, it's not true. For you it was true, for me with child 1 it wasn't true. On a researched population level it's not true, but it is one of the myths that prevent women from making informed choices about how to feed their babies.
Not making any mention whatsoever on those who cannot feed. This is about millions of women, not each individual.

Because Bertie I am long past the feeding stage.

The ff helps sleep was not presented as applying to some woman but as a myth ie completely untrue. It is not completely untrue so why should saying it is a myth get a free pass?

So far as bf as a feminist issue it seems to me that there is far too much emphasis being put on the fact that the ability to bf is uniquely female and should be celebrated and embraced by all women whilst ignoring the many reasons women can't or don't want to.

You don't know it was formula which made the change - it could have been coincidence. The fact is large scale studies show it doesn't make a difference, therefore one person's experience is irrelevant. It's like when people say "Oh my FF children are the healthiest in the school!" So? It doesn't mean anything in isolation!

It is relevant to feminism that BF is something only women can do.

It's also relevant to feminism that women get the choice and autonomy over whether to BF or not.

I think you're understanding the word 'natural' to mean 'nothing ever goes wrong', too That is true and birth is great example of that. It just interested me that it is in fact quite 'natural' for new mums to struggle to establish feeding and does not necessarily mean there is anything wrong that needs to be fixed. However, in most cases feeding can be established - it is certainly rare (though not unheard of) for a mare to reject a foal to an extent it needs to be hand reared.

I am not sure what my point is, but it is something to do with accepting our own frailties and difficulties and not being so hard on ourselves as women - childbirth and rearing is tough for all mammals.

Luminaries that reminds me of what I said earlier about research showing it’s easier to breastfeed subsequent children.

In some cultures the first born is ‘given’ to the MIL to raise as her own. I wonder if this came about because historically women struggled feeding their first and so wet nursing between family members was common...and then that got co-opted into something more rigid.

It’s frustrating the little knowledge we have about bf, if wet nursing was more common I’d certainly help feed my geographically close nephews and nieces but it’s taken many years of bf for me to come to this point. If someone had suggested it with my firstborn (when I would be most likely to need it) I’d have looked at them like they had two heads

More on 'natural' - I agree, it is common for BF to hit problems, and even in cultural settings where everyone (or virtually everyone) expects to breastfeed and to breastfeed for a long time (by our standards), and where formula either doesn't exist or is difficult to get, women can get pain or other difficulties.

A couple of posters picked up on my comment that formula is an inferior product. I wasn’t saying that to be offensive, it is true and scientifically proven. Women have the right to choose between bf and ff but we need to be able to state facts in order to achieve informed choices.

lass your baby wasn't sleeping because you weren't pròducing enough milk. The formula didn't make your baby sleep, being fed did. It is not correct to say formula fed babies sleep better.
By peddling snake oil, I mean that it is often implied formula in and of itself helps babies sleep and that isn't true. But may be enough to make chronically sleep deprived parents decide to switch to bottles in the hope it will make their baby sleep. Once they've made that switch it's hard to switch back if it doesn't work.