Women who don’t be believed for their reasons not to BF - a feminist issue?

[Bluedoglead]

Bear with me, I’ve posted this here because I don’t think it’s a feminist issue and I want to unpick my thoughts.

I struggle with my reasons for not BF one of my children.

I was put in a position where the decision was out of my hands.

I do think the comments around “did you try could have tried different should have tried that” are almost victim blaming and they make me very very angry and feel disbelieved.

I attempted suicide due to the horrendous time I had feeding that child. There was eons of support. I did the absolute best I could.

So why am I not just believed?

Please bear with me.My thoughts in this I find distressing and I’m trying to understand and unpick how I feel.

No check I can honestly say I never thought that.

I’m very private and I didn’t discuss feeding with anyone. Until I was unable to at which point everyone wanted to tell me what a crap job I was doing

I think it's about how we talk about infant feeding, which is a feminist issue because it concerns women and many of those women feel judgement, shame and/or lack of support.

If a woman states that she could not breastfeed, what business is it of anyone else? There are many reasons why women can't. It could be down to their body not making milk, it could be because of their physical or mental health, it could be due to the baby having problems. These are all valid reasons why some women can't breastfeed.

While I understand why HCPs wish to go into these reasons in depth with each individual woman, when it comes to questioning strangers on the Internet, what is the purpose? Too often it seems that the purpose is so the questioner can say, "so you could, but you chose not to". And the women who answered honestly feel unlistened to and that they are being judged and called liars.

Interestingly my best friend who decided antenatally (well actually decided as a child) that she wouldn't breastfeed her babies says she was never directly advised or pressured to try. There were obviously cultural pressures and posters on wards etc but midwives just let her be.

That leads me to believe that it really is well-meaning but hitting the wrong note.

I feel a lot of the approach is holistic nor is it conducive to mental health of the mother. I hate the way policy dictates that HVs and HCPs have to be seen to encourage "next steps", it can never be that "all looks fine here well done." So if you are struggling with BF it's focussing on remedying that, if you are ok wih breastfeeding let's work on sleep, if you nail sleep let's talk about weaning and on and on and on.

Bluedog you’ve been questioned on why you didn’t b/feed, ive been questioned why I did b/feed. Surely the ideal would be for no one to question anyone else on something so personal? But that would shut down all debate and discussion about breastfeeding and probably what would happen is that more women who want to wont because it’s more normal to ff in the U.K. I’m not sure what sort of people you circulate with if they literally ask why you didn’t b/f. I would never dream of asking anyone that unless it was a close friend and it came up in convo.

I think it’s really wierd to question someone in a confrontational way.

I will say that when friends and family have said ‘I couldn’t breastfeed’ my response is to say oh dear, how come, how do you feel about that. Follow up questions. Because couldn’t implies wanting to initially, so they might be upset about it. And if you’re upset it’s nice to talk about it and have someone listen.

My problem is when I bf at baby groups and women come over to tell me they couldn’t bf. I never know how to extricate myself from that without causing offence. I don’t get why they take my feeding as judgement, I think because I’m a ‘showy’ feeder (latch issues, tt, high palate means I need whole boob out) people assume I’m making some kind of point? I dunno, the judgement goes both ways often. Probably varies hugely across different parts of the country though.

Batteries yes it varies across the country. When I said I’d been questioned it was by friends, not a stranger (although that did happen once). That’s because breastfeeding is not particularly normal here. I think what we can learn from this thread is that RL reactions vary a lot for both ff and b/f.

I agree that the questioning and dismissing of a woman’s answer are a feminist issue.
However, if you don’t want to discuss the ins and outs of it then I suggest you shut down the conversation. “Why don’t you breastfeed?” “I’d rather not discuss it, can we talk about something else?”

OP this is obviously a very upsetting subject for you and I get the impression you will only be satisfied if everyone agrees with you- I think that is unlikely.

Why is different to abortion and/or sexual assault?

I can see you’ve got some issues,OP, but I don’t think that idea you’re pushing is appropriate or helpful.

I think it's so common to see and know of more examples of bad breastfeeding support than good that it's not altogether surprising that when someone says they couldn't then you wonder if they just didn't get the support they needed.

Unless I thought that someone was asking for help or information I wouldn't comment however.

DS couldn't latch at all, he had a tongue tie that wasn't picked up in hospital and until I went to a lactation consultant I'd no idea. Apparently its inherited and it turns out DH and I both have one. My DM couldn't breastfeed so it makes me wonder if that was the reason. So, while it's true she couldn't, it would be interesting to know whether she'd have been able to if she got the help I got.

I get what your saying bluedog. I started the other thread and dont think i articulated myself well but hey ho im not going to go over it hear.

Know one should be made to feel bad about the way they feed their baby. I know i said choice, i also know that for some women it isnt down to choice.

I personally dont like the breast is best for that reason. Yes it has its benefits but so does formula too. I also think its wrong that hcp are not allowed to give out inpartial information in regards to formula. Part of a hcp job is to give you the information so that you can make an informed choice but thats probably for another thread. Maybe if things like this was more transparent, women who dont bf, for whatever reason dont then feel guilty about it and maybe more people who start, would continue.

Im so sorry for what happened to you. You do not need to explain yourself to anyone for not bf, its not their business.

Miaow I am sorry you went through that.

But y y to the “helpful”suggestions. No I don’t want to eat oats. No it won’t help. And yes, that ship had long sailed. Don’t they think I tried everything? And if they don’t think it, why do they have so little respect for me as to respect my own decisions that I made, in conjunction with the medical people dealing with my child?

There's lots of issues here, I think. Of course it's entirely inappropriate to ask a woman in a socu situation why she is feeding her baby the way she is. I've never been anywhere in my parenting life where bf beyond a couple of weeks at most is anything but a tiny minority- and being a tiny minority anywhere is uncomfortable. And being the only ff woman when you wanted to bf must be awful.

But we need to get to a state where women can make proper, free, informed choices about feeding. And they can't do that if they are being given crap information. A tiny minority can't. Others don't want to. But there seem to be a significant group who want to, but are led to believe they can't. I have a million anecdotes about the crap information women are given. My mil looking wistfully at her bf daughter and saying "I tried to feed my first, I had lots of milk but it just looked watery and the doctor told me it wasn't good enough" My friend who was told that she had no milk because she had none on day 2. And so on and so on. RL and Mumsnet are full of stories like that. (And I am sure the formula companies are at least partly to blame-but that's another conspiracy thread)
So women need proper information, proper support. And to be in a position to make proper choices. If that choice is "I don't want to" or "This is not compatible with my own needs/my family's needs" then great. But if women are forced into a choice they don't want because of some external factor then not great. And no, of course not every woman/baby can bf. But those that can, and want to should not be short changed by the system.

Incidentally, I am very uncomfortable with the analogy with sexual abuse. But if we are using it, then yes, I would believe any woman who told me she had been abused. I would not necessarily believe a woman who told me she hadn't been.

So if a woman says to you “I couldn’t breast feed” do you or don’t you beleive her Bertrand?

I believe that she was told that and believes it herself. And unless she says anything further, I believe that on an individual level, it is none of my business

Define an external factor please Bertrand.

I’m really confused by your stance on this to be honest.

The time in my life where I have experienced the most judgmental, critical, patronising, nasty and bullying opinions and lack of empathy is related to breastfeeding, and 100% of it was from other mothers.
I realise some men have very strong views on breastfeeding, but I didn't encounter any, it was all other women and made me despair.

"external factor"-sorry, probably not the best expression.
I meant like my Mil being told by her doctor that she couldn't feed because her milk looked watery. My friend being told she was not going to produce milk because she had none on day 2. The sort of misinformation that women are given routinely.

I'm sorry I'm not making myself clear.

What age is your Mil?

I totally disagree that women are given misinformation routinely.

The only misinformation I've been given during pregnancy and early motherhood is the anti-formula scaremongering. All ff babies can't help but overeat, you won't properly bond with your baby by bottle feeding, they'll get ill all the time, they'll vomit up half the milk after every feed...and so on. This does not lead to an informed choice either. If I'd been properly informed, I wouldn't have struggled on trying to bf to the point it ruined my early weeks with my baby.

My mil is in her 70s. My friend is 24.

I picked them deliberately because of the spread of ages.

I profoundly disagree when you say that women are not routinely misinformed. Please don't think I am saying you personally were. I am sure you weren't, and anyway you were obviously in a position to find out what you needed for yourself if necessary. Many women aren't.

"If I'd been properly informed, I wouldn't have struggled on trying to bf to the point it ruined my early weeks with my baby."
Absolutely. Out of interest, where did the "extreme breastfeeding" rhetoric come from?

Friends and family who all successfully bf so believed this stuff as I did; and NHS antenatal bf sessions which spent as much time on "why formula is bad" as "why breastfeeding is good".

And then once I finally gave up and said I was going to be formula feeding, no HCP in the hospital was allowed to give me any help with it or advice about it. I actually did receive a lot of support from the NHS with bf attempts (which I'm grateful for) but everything I know about bottle feeding: best way to hold the baby and the bottle to avoid them swallowing too much air, best ways to burp them, how much to give them, how to sterilise stuff, how you know when to use a faster flowing teat, how to keep supply going enough to still give them some expressed breast milk etc. has all been gleaned from the internet.

The extreme bf rhetoric I got came from the drop in weighing clinic HV and other mothers there. I came from the tutting at me and rolligneyes in a soft play as I got a,bottle out. I camefrom the woman on a fucking train who said loudly to her friend that it was a shame to see babies on bottles.

I could carry on. There were loads.

There was tons of good advice and support available to BF - it wasn’t applicable to me. I tried it all. I knew what to do and had successfully fed before. There was peer to peer support and BF advocates and supporters and drop ins and HV and midwives. I had support coming out my arse. And information was routinely available

I find your attitude rather paternalistic and patronising to be honest.

I think misinformation is still being given out, within the last 18 months I've been told I can't continue breastfeeding because I had thrush ( by a health visitor ) when i asked about taking anti depressants due to pnd I was told that id have to stop feeding ( by a gp, I saw a different gp and was prescribed ones that were safe to take whilst feeding ) and then told by a midwife i shouldn't still be breastfeeding while pregnant. All misinformation by health care professionals