Something to terrify the parents..

[vilenspotens]

I have a bugbear at the moment. Something that winds me up an incredible amount. It makes me very glad that this is the current thing in my life that winds me up the most* as it means that the rest of my life is going incredibly well.

Comments

[madwitch]

I realise that my personal experience with this is nil, but I do tend to agree with you on this. I've seen strict breastfeeding advocates lay into an expectant mother who had made the decision to formula feed, after discussions with her husband and her oncologist. She needed to start treatment for cancer as soon as possible after birth, or run the risk of her child not having a mother, and I can't see how that's a terrible choice. But she was ripped into, called a bad mother, told she was an awful person and accused of lying about the cancer treatment so as to have an excuse to not try and breastfeed. I've seen the same people lay into women who change the way they feed their children on the advice of doctors, because apparently you shouldn't take such advice, you should check Google and see what the internet and the breastfeeding sites say. Formula is poison, and doctors are paid to push it. Believe the internet

Yup.

[vilenspotens]

And we had a Health Visitor insist that we needed a breast feeding counselor when we decided to change to formula (bear in mind it was a 6 month waiting list for a depression counselor) and accused me of dominating and abusing Izzy, refusing to give her support because I was not awake through the night feeds and I had forced her to bottle feed. Nothing to do with working 12 hour shifts, of course...

Re: Yup.

[madwitch]

No, of course not. Neither of you need sleep, what are you on about?

Of course, the experience of others can be helpful sometimes, but in the end it's about you and your child, yes? Some people are just batshit.

Re: Yup.

[vilenspotens]

I think it's a good thing that parents can turn to people for advice, but I think having health professionals deliberately advocating one method of feeding while denigrating another is not only unprofessional, but definitely harmful.
And yes, I think the breast-feed only people are definitely batshit.

[kostika]

Stress can also affect the breast milk as badly as what the mother eats or drugs she takes (legal or otherwise). All the more reason for the option of both feeding methods.

You're preaching to the choir here dear.

[vilenspotens]

Worse in many cases, as drugs can be flushed. Stress antibodies sent from the hypothalaumus stay in the system a lot longer.

And I suspect preaching to anyone that is actually a reasonable human being is the case.

[kostika]

Not to say any of your friends are nutjobs, but I've seen perfectly reasonable people have very unreasonable views on this very subject.

When I'm stressed I make myself ill. I'd hate to carry that on to another living creature. People seriously need to be educated on this kind of thing.

[vilenspotens]

We all do it. Stress leads to high blood pressure, lack of concentration, increased tension, lack of patience, all sorts of things.
I will admit to some unreasonable views on things, but a viewpoint that deliberatly and knowingly harms a new-born child is just sick, IMO.

[nickys]

> Due to the current paranoia over breast feeding, proper information on formula feeding is not given by medical health professionals in any way, which results in babies being put at risk. We were never informed that we had to sterilise bottles, for example.

Eek.

Mind you, so long as the bottles are adequately clean the baby should be fine. Nobody sterilises their breasts prior to feeding, after all.

[vilenspotens]

True, but then breasts aren't usually dunked in the dishwater after the frying pan either.

[kostika]

That all depends on what you're doing at the sink.

[vilenspotens]

I'll have you know our sink is always clean at such times. This is me, I clean :-)

[lanfykins]

As someone who would have starved to death without the existence of formula, how can I argue?

(No, really. I spent the week immediately after I was born shut up in a dark room for being a 'naughty baby' and crying all the time. Because my mother wasn't producing any milk and nobody had noticed!)

*nods*

[vilenspotens]

Agree with you completely.

My mother had tremendous problems producing milk (I suspect it may have had something to do with working 14 hour days and having to go back to work 4 weeks after giving birth) but then again I ate my first solid food at 10 days old.
As a baby I screamed constantly unless I had food or a bottle in my gob. If I had been stuck to breast-milk only I suspect I wouldn't be here.
And it's the breast nazi's that would agree locking you up in a dark room was a good thing. Nutjobs.

Re: *nods*

[taimatsu]

And it's the breast nazi's that would agree locking you up in a dark room was a good thing. Nutjobs.

Come on, surely that's unfair? My experience of people who are extremely dedicated to the cause of breastfeeding is that they are also advocates of attachment parenting, or being around the child much of the time, and certainly not leaving it by itself to scream.

Apologies if I'm expressing myself badly, I really ought to go to bed.

Re: *nods*

[vilenspotens]

No, I've heard it said that if a child refuses to go to the breast then it should be left alone until it is hungry enough to actually do it.
I'm not saying breast-feeders are bad parents, what I'm saying that those who decry anyone that uses formula as being unfit parents are worrying

[windzswept]

I can't really comment on whether breast-feeding exclusively is a good thing or not as I don't currently (and will not for at least a year) have a child

[vilenspotens]

Absolutely. It works differently for everyone and I have no doubt every baby is different. For every story there is an antithesis. As long as people realise there are alternatives, and that varying methods can work, I am good with that. It's the ones that accept no alternatives that annoy me.

On the sterilising thing, we were lucky I have so much experience with kids and laumiere did so much research on children it was unbelievable.