Infant Feeding - Massive Straw Men with Ambivalence & Gaslights

[Ineedacupofteadesperately]

I've felt for a long time that something is 'off' about the discussion in the media around infant feeding. Apart from anything else the fact that the alternative to a mother breastfeeding is automatically accepted to be formula rather than donor milk, and no-one seems to ever question this. Why? Throughout history the alternative was wet nursing, not feeding cows milk. We have successful blood donation - why have all the milk banks been destroyed, we used to have more? Why is no money put into this in a supposedly rich country?

Anyway, someone sent me this link and I found it thought provoking. I think the comparison of adult feeding habits very pertinent at the end, but I do think part of the problem is that there are vested interests very focused on this remaining seen as individual choice rather than individual decisions in a very stacked environment without proper investment to support women, which often means there is no real choice at all.

www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2019/02/infant-feeding-massive-straw-men-with.html

Snuggy that's a good question, I don't know what the criteria are. It's possible they change hospital to hospital. I'm sorry you were not offered that option.

To be fair she wasn't premature or tube fed and we did manage to establish breastfeeding eventually but I remember feeling really gutted thinking I'd missed my chance to breastfeed.

Snuggy I'm really glad it worked out for you in the end (no doubt with lots of hard work on your part) - but I'm really sorry you were let down and not given enough support at a critical moment when you were ill and vulnerable (as was your baby). And I'm angry about the fact you were so let down too.

It seems to be fashionable to demonise formula milk

Way to derail the thread. No one said any such thing, there was an interesting discussion about human milk banking, but instead you had to go and repeat the same points that we can read in any other thread about BF/FF. Like, can we get past this for some real discussion?

This is interesting. I joined the human milk for human babies fb group to donate my unused freezer stash, a woman travelled about 50 miles to collect it and was so grateful. She had to take my word for it that I'd kept it frozen properly and sterilised what needed sterilising, as it was unregulated.

Pineapple completely agree with your comment but it does highlight exactly what the article is saying, it's a straw man.

that was a lovely thing for you to do, LaPufalina but that woman was taking a real risk- it's one thing for you to hand over your screaming baby to your best friend when you need a break, quite another to collect frozen milk from a atranger

Oh I know, newt!

LaPufalina it was a lovely thing to do and it's really a scandal IMO that women aren't supported by the NHS to do this. It underlines how desperate some people are for human milk that they're willing to accept milk that hasn't been screened but I expect also that the woman met you and was reassured. I'm not sure I agree it's a 'real risk', and I know lots of people do it. I need to think some more about this.....

The thing that blew my mind recently was that bm has stem cells in it that are able to cross the blood/ brain barrier

It maybe that the NICU you were at snuggy didn't have a milk bank near enough. I know our local NICU doesn't. As the op alluded to, there are surprisingly few milk banks around (I think it's in the teens) and I think most of them are located at hospitals with fairly high level or big NICUs which take the most serious cases (I hadn't appreciated until we were in one that babies will sometimes be transferred to the more specialist units, there are dedicated retrieval units to do).

Our closest milk bank is 50miles away and won't accept milk from my town apparently.

not read all TFT but my observation around this sort of comment from an org

"Mothers want to help other mothers. All that is needed to increase the amount of donor milk available is the resources and will to make the logistics possible. "

It's a LOT of free labour from women isn't it.
Womens free labour props up society in so many ways and is devalued.

The assumption that women will be keen to give time effort and their actual body fluids out of altruism is nice

But to me it feels a bit like we are always just expected to give and give and give

I find ot crazy that mums want to take unregulated or screened BM from other mums.
Its exactly the same as any other bodily fluid!!!

The milk which is donated is screened, and pasteurized. The babies who receive it are tube fed.

Scotland has one milk bank, which collects from all over the country.

The NHS is stretched enough without trying to facilitate milk banks for babies who don't desperately need it.

I'd be curious to know what the true market value of a 5oz bottle of expressed milk would be.
Blood tests for mum, 1 hour of mums time to express £10
Collection, pasturising, redistribution.

I love the idea that evolution has produced a result where human females make food for their babies that is substandard.

Does this apply across the animal kingdom? Should we been frantically supplementing baby giraffes and marmosets and badgers with vitamins? Or is it just human females that produce milk that is not fit for purpose?

Am proper lol at this.

Women are just shit aren't they. Male led science is much better

Despite the fact that more things that BM does keep being discovered all the time and presumably we are not done.

It's the same sort of thinking that belives growing babies in artificial wombs (bags) will be just as good as a woman doing it, and related, that women who gestate and birth babies that are not genetically related to them, have no connection whatsoever.

These ideas are all based in misogyny.

To me donated milk would be like donated blood a precious resource for emergencies. I don't mind that but the ethics of producing enough to replace formula are troubling.

Littlebelina, without wanting to out my location it was a specialist maternity hospital that I just happened to give birth at because it was local. I even looked into milk donation there later but didn't think I could commit to the minimum volume.

I'm not dwelling on it, DD was one of the more fortunate babies in the NICU and only needed monitoring luckily so I get that it's a limited resource and there must have been more needy babies there.

SmallFastPenguin I agree, the numbers don't work at all

yeah, it's a quantity issue really
however, some women find expressing very easy (I didn't) and I wonder if it could be set up so you did it for half an hour a day while you watched TV or something...
but really what is needed is for the simplest solution to be one that society is organised around, ie that women feed their own babies

SardineQueen - i love your sarcasm!

Penguin - that's it exactly donated milk is a very precious resource. It may well make the difference between life and death for babies.

Hospitals don't like doing blood transfusions unless absoultely necessary. I remember signing agreements to the risks before they did it for me. Things like cjd they can't screen for.
I'm guessing BM is similar.

My friend couldn't get BFing established. A midwife friend of hers who'd experienced third world countries said if you want to do it you can. There's places in the world where if you don't BF your baby it won't survive 99% of mums can do it if they try.

Ed, that's what I don't get, why are we so bad at it in the UK when we are not anatomically different to women in other countries? I think we need to try and replicate what is working elsewhere as best we can.

I also wish I'd known you can express colostrum and store it before birth, though I don't know where you would store it in a hospital to be fair.

I'll not lie, I found it blooming hard for the first 5.5 mo with ds1, and actually my second still chokes a lot or gets wind, I think it settled well with him at 8 mo. Second no tongue tie at all; he's just got a rubbish nibbling latch.

First had a posterior tongue tie. I also get over supply and strong let down which I have had to manage through careful positioning both times but very differently with both due to very different sizes.

I had a lot of constant online support via a local Facebook group, saw a lactation consultant and googled a lot of videos eg jack Newman etc. Found the book food of love great too.

I was bf till well into toddler hood though (I have a faint memory of it) so I wonder if I had a deeper feeling around it. I wasn't too fussed before birth; I just felt this tiger take over post birth.

In a way though, having problems, seeking and searching for help, then learning more and peer supporting others sort of solidified things for me. First fed till 3.5. I did night wean around 2 and I did nudge him to finish at 3.5 as I had appalling aversion. Second - who knows.

Snuggybuggy Lots of understanding of BF has been lost in the UK. See my earlier post.

The bottom line is establishig BFing is hard work. Baby needs to learn how to do it. Mum needs tons of rest and time to dedicate to it.
Not be expected to be trying establish BFing, while carrying on with a dozen other things.

The nocturnal night feeding baby caught me by surprise even the second time round. I'd forgotten how hard that is and throw in trying to the the oldest to school on time. OMG that was a killer.

The nocturnal night feeding baby caught me by surprise even the second time round. I'd forgotten how hard that is and throw in trying to the the oldest to school on time. OMG that was a killer.

Yup, I had this this time.

Must say, I absolutely did a hell of a lot of slouching on the sofa for a loooong time with number 2, resting, recovering from csection (did lots of gentle walks too) etc. I actually didn't really start doing 'classes' or bigger visits out than local shops with number two till he was sitting up and interested. I'm so much happier and healthier as a result. I must say I was grateful for the big age gap despite worrying about it initially.

Husband was so extremely supportive too. Enforced rest of csection I think also actually helped a bit.

What gets lost in this debate is the HUGE difference between what’s good on a population level and what’s best for the individual mum and baby.

On a population level, breast is best. And so it’s right that governments support Bf. But what’s best for the individual can vary, and can be breast, formula, donor or a mix.

Where almost all campaigns go wrong I think is missing this point. You can and should promote breastfeeding in general. But at the individual level you support the individual mum in what SHE wants to do. If that’s breast, you provide help and support. If it’s bottle, you educate how to do so safely. If it’s mix, you talk about the practicalities. You dont judge the individual, you support.

FWIW, donor can never be widespread enough to be a major source because of the logistics of collection and screening and the fact that there isn’t enpigh spare capacity - donor milk is usually up to 3m pp only and I doubt of many women hqve enough spare milk. I know several who tried and only two who managed to feed their own babies and have surplus. So donor remains quite niche and mainly for premature and newborns in a hospital setting.

I would strongly oppose any paid or pressured milk donation. As soon as money enters the equation there is coercion.

And Bf can be hard - mine fed constantly at all hours and I found it challenging for the first months. After that it was much easier, and while I am glad I Bfd both, the first exclusively and the second with a. Few bottles too, I totally understand why women find it difficult.