Breastfeeding, women's bodies and feminism

[Polynerd]

A male friend just posted a link on FB about breastfeeding reducing a woman's risk of stroke. I was surprised to see that he got a furious response from his (largely middle-class, middle-aged) female friends. We're fed up of being told what we should do with our bodies.
I fed all of my children and frankly I wish I had gone with the bottle. How are we supposed to get to a position where men and women have equal responsibility for children if women are harangued into being the sole provider during a child's early life?
If as much scientific effort was put into reproductive health research as is put into designing cars and phones, we would have better milks and measures to offset any risks to women's health arising from not feeding.

Lass, older than 59, more like 70-80. Formula may well have been the right method but it wasn't much of a choice if they were told inaccurate things about breastfeeding.

I'm in that age group. When I had my first baby they kept you in hospital for a week+. You had to breast feed. I had a very long and difficult birth (4 days) and my baby was very sleepy and totally disinterested in feeding.

They wouldn't let me out of hospital because the baby wasn't feeding well and wouldn't consider a bottle under any circumstances.
I was actually told (I've never forgotten it). "Mother, if you don't get on with it (breast feeding) your baby is going to die." Nice. That's the sort of attitude that really helps - not. I persisted for weeks with a howling baby losing weight because bottle feeding was "wicked". I was actually told that by the HV. I finally gave up and thank God I did - my howling, starving baby finally thrived.

Bloody hospital, bloody nurses. That was 1969.

Should add I had my next baby at home, even though I was high risk because of the previous birth. The idea that formula was the way in the 70s/80s is just not accurate.

I'm guessing it must have varied but it seems like neither are cases where the women made an informed choice that was respected.

I 'chose' to formula feed after struggling with breast feeding in the first 24 hours. I recently read a FB post by a blogger I follow which I wholeheartedly agree with. She basically stated that the whole ff/bf debate is essentially a red herring that causes women to feel guilty about their choices and distracts from the lack of support available to women who want to continue breast feeding after their time in hospital. Ie it's not a real choice if the support isn't available.

I also agree that by downplaying the downsides you're essentially infantilising women. I went to a bfing class when I was pregnant with my first and the main message was that it won't hurt if you're doing it right. Out of all of the people in my circle who have had babies, myself included, all of us have wanted to give it a go, 2 of my friends took to it really easily, the rest of us have all encountered difficulties. Out of my friends who persevered many mentioned the effect it has on your mental health and how draining it can be.

In my opinion we need to see a huge shift in society's mentality starting with removing shame/guilt from the equation- I loved the pp's comparison with living in the city; a choice which is not perhaps best for your child's health but may be best for your family over all. Also, more honesty about the difficulties we might encounter during breast feeding. Finally and imo most importantly investment in support for new mothers. But hey that all seems like hard work, far easier to just keep it as another tool to keep women in their place.

We have low rates of breastfeeding in this country, but it's very often not because mothers didn't want to BF, it's because when they ran into issues, the support they needed wasn't there, or they were given bad advice by HCPs with crap training on BFing.

Indeed. I was desperate to BF my daughter but the hospital staff scared the shit out of me by telling me that she was going to starve, as my supply was really low (obviously, had just given birth) and she was having issues latching. This was only like 12 hours after having her...

I have since found out that they need next to no colostrum, its not like they need ounces and ounces of it. But when the staff keep telling you that you are basically damaging your baby, you listen to them. My mum said it was probably because they wanted my bed, and they have to keep you in for longer if BFing as they need to make sure you can latch baby correctly and that too.

I'd guess that different areas promoted or demonised FF in the 70s and 80s, just like now. My mum says she was seen as some sort of hippy for insisting on BF in the 70s, because FF was seen as some kind of wonderful, better than BM invention (and my mum is about as far away from being a hippy as you can possibly imagine!)

Bloody hospital, bloody nurses. That was 1969.

Meanwhile in 2005 I was sneered at by nurses on high dependency for asking for a pump so I could keep my supply up while my baby was desperately ill and unable to feed. I had SO much help from the local support group but the so-called baby friendly hospital could barely work the machine. This is what enrages me about the whole thing - it's a total lottery as to whether you get the help and information you need. Years later, I found I had a couple of IBCLCs amongst my friends and with their advice was able to signpost three women to private tongue tie services in totally different parts of the country. They'd all been told to either wait months or switch to formula.

I did manage to donate with the second baby. It took me months of 20ml a day sessions to crank out a litre, but I'm proud of it nevertheless. To those of you considering pumping, don't buy the hype from the manufacturers and don't plan your life around it. You don't know how it's going to work for you; try it but don't rely on it. You may get loads, you may not be suited to it. I pretty much had to donate anyway as neither of my two would go near a bottle!

I breastfed my first three. First one went very well. Second one I had a breast cancer scare so weaned onto formula earlier than I would have liked, but thems the breaks. Third one, my goodness it was awful. Baby wouldn't stay longer than a minute, failed to thrive, I'm ashamed to say by the end of months and months I was profoundly depressed and I utterly resented my baby. Because I had at least one successful feeding experience, I think it was assumed I wouldn't have any problems and the support just didn't exist. By the time baby four came along, I had already 'decided' to formula feed from the start, because I just couldn't face that awful, guilt inducing feeling of being unable to do something supposedly so basic, so vital for the well being of my child and ending up actually disliking the baby because of it.

So my 'choice' for formula wasn't really a positive thing, and it would have a hell of a lot more feminist had I been properly supported during baby number three's feeding.

None of this is simple to solve, unfortunately for the motivational poster makers of the policy world. Investing in education and support seems to me to be expensive and unlikely, so I guess we'll just have another twenty years of wagging fingers and stats.

To those complaining about my comment that we can transcend biology with science - I would love to know what you think antibiotics do. If we put that much scientific effort into baby nutrition we could move away from biological imperatives in that area as well.
A lot of this is just people discussing their breastfeeding experiences. Step back. At the point at which educated, middle-class women began being a serious threat to men taking all the plum jobs, an ideology sprang up that ties us back to the nursery - and the main cheerleaders for it are women.

That argument doesn’t stack up given low bf rates.

agree that your friend deserved a ticking off for mansplaining!

Well, I'll leave the educated middle classes to work out a way to circumvent biology so they can pursue the plum jobs and get back to trying to help the uneducated working class women feed their babies with support and advice then. FFS.

Floral so you're fine with men taking all the important jobs in society then? If we set middle class women against working class women then the only winners will be men.

So because we have some success with antibiotics, we should be pressing research companies into creating breast milk alternatives that are as good as / better than breast milk so that women can all become C Suite execs, judges and politicians? Is that what you are saying?

What a load of bullshit - women are biologically designed to breastfeed and men aren't. Men & women can have equal responsibility for a child but don't have to have the same role.

What next, we shouldn't be pregnant either as that's not equal?

What next, we shouldn't be pregnant either as that's not equal?

Oh, I think you might be onto something.

Surely we should be encouraging science to hurry up with synthetic wombs, so babies can be grown in tanks and fed superior new I-can't-believe-its-not-breast-milk™ and then we'll be able to do with the troublesome, category of woman all together, make everybody male.

Equality at last, hurrah!!

FFS.

OutComeTheWolves

Exactly. That's exactly my experience and the conclusion I came to. My 'failure' to BF my first made me depressed. It blighted the first weeks of his life

In all honesty, I'm a bit at the 'important' jobs thing. How about changing the system so that 'plum' jobs and being able to feed human beings exclusively from our bodies aren't mutually exclusive? How about seeing the unique biological role that women have in the rearing of children as something that should be accommodated by notions of 'important'?

The feminist solution is to orient society around the biological reality of motherhood and infancy, not to pretend women are men and outsource as much as possible to corporations.

I actually think it’s deeply anti feminist to say formula is equal to the milk our own bodies produce specifically for our baby’s needs. No it’s not, but because society doesn’t value the work of breastfeeding, then you have opportunity cost vs a fixed few £ on a tin of formula.

I also would love to see data on nighttime feeding splits for formula families. Anecdotally none of my friends who used formula had a partner who consistently did overnights. A few started with good intentions and then made excuses within a few weeks.

Couldn't agree more with @FloralBunting .

Yes, it’s society that’s the problem. Keeping the human race alive should be given more credit really. Polynerd I understand your argument but you could argue the same for pregnancy. I suppose it’s possible that one day we could grow all babies in test tubes but it will never be as good as growing them in a human womb and would most women chose that? This is a funny thread really given most of the feminist board is taken up with posters proclaiming the importance of recognising the physical differences between men and women and making sure society provides for them.

Antibiotics aren’t created from scratch by chemists. They are extracted from biological organisms and then replicated.

In no way do antibiotics ‘transcend biology’ don’t be bloody ridiculous.

In all honesty, I'm a bit hmm at the 'important' jobs thing. How about changing the system so that 'plum' jobs and being able to feed human beings exclusively from our bodies aren't mutually exclusive?

Great. And who exactly is going to effect this systemic change? The men who currently run things? I highly doubt it. It is only when women are in positions of power that other women begin to be properly considered. Here is a recent example:
blogs.spectator.co.uk/2018/08/its-easy-for-mps-to-miss-the-humiliating-treatment-of-their-own-constituents/

Batteries that's just semantics. Scientists harnessed something natural to allow us to defeat common illnesses. Electricity and oil are natural and harnessing them allowed us to escape lives of drudgery. The Pill utilises hormones which are also produced by our bodies to allow us to not be constantly pregnant. My view is that science can keep going to free us yet more.

If you look at all your adult friends, can you tell which ones were breast fed as infants? No?
Of course you can’t, because in the long term in the U.K. it makes bugger all difference!
I do wish women would stop fighting each other over breast v bottle and just accept that it’s up to each woman to choose whatever is easiest for her own circumstances.
You don’t get a medal for breast feeding, and it doesn’t come with bragging or criticising rights over formula feeders.
Maybe you could unite against the patriarchy instead of attacking each other?

Oh god, another one trotting out the crap about not being able to tell by looking at someone whether they were breastfed. Of course not, because you can't see someone's immune system, or their microbiome, or their propensity to asthma by looking at them. Nor can you tell how many ear infections and gastro issues they had as a baby etc etc

OP I agree with many other posters on this thread. It's a shame that more research hasn't been done into what breast milk is and does. At the moment, there is so much we don't know about it and therefore no formula can replicate everything it does. It would be great if formula could be improved to make it closer to breast milk for all those women who don't want or can't breast feed, or who mix feed. But it is profoundly anti feminist to suggest that breastfeeding is anti feminist - the opposite is true. Anything that suppresses and downplays women and women's biology is anti feminist. Instead of looking for ways to outsource care of a baby we should be supporting women who want and are able to do this because it will ultimately benefit everyone in society. Time off on maternity leave is a tiny fraction of a woman's working life and there is no reason why this should preclude her from "important jobs".

In my sector (city law), people go on secondments to clients and sabbaticals all the time for 6-9 months and it has no impact on their careers whatsoever, yet somehow maternity leave seems to have a very different effect.

I planned to go back at 6 months but have to extend my maternity leave because my baby won't take a bottle and I realised that for this very short time in his life when he needs me and only me, it means more to me to be able to be there for him than immediate career progression and the luxury of savings. Of course I'm lucky to be able to make that choice but it's still a shame it has to be made.