Breast feeding mother try to ruin cinema !

How Strange

Hannibal Smith thats why we need a coherent, consistent breastfeeding strategy in this country with proper training for all healthcare professionals. Without one women like you with premature babies etc who want to breastfeed are left feeling that they can't because the support isn't there.

It makes me angry and sad that you're left feeling like that about breastfeeding. There's absolutely no reason why the mother should feel ashamed or like a failure. The system failed you and your baby.

Hannibal Smith

How Strange wrote: »

Hannibal Smith thats why we need a coherent, consistent breastfeeding strategy in this country with proper training for all healthcare professionals. Without one women like you with premature babies etc who want to breastfeed are left feeling that they can't because the support isn't there.

It makes me angry and sad that you're left feeling like that about breastfeeding. There's absolutely no reason why the mother should feel ashamed or like a failure. The system failed you and your baby.

To be honest How Strange, it was a combination of a whole load of things and I couldn't really blame the hospital. They were trouncing all over me trying to get him to latch on. The midwives have so much to do that I don't blame them at all. They did have a lactation consultant that I met by chance on the corridor and she came in and I managed to breastfeed for a good while and I thought I was off, but the fact of not knowing whether he wasn't drinking or not just knocked my confidence. At least when I expressed it, I could see what was in the bottle and what he was drinking and that's really what it came down to at the end of the day.

There were other women in the hospital and jees they were great...the baby just latched on and away they went But just for some it's not that clear cut

Tayla

taz70 wrote: »

Yeah, it pretty much is. A baby is five times more likely to die when drinking formula, it's linked to SIDS, it's linked to obesity and read pretty much any "new baby" thread on a parenting formula and you'll see SO MANY questions about bottles/formula and constipation. You rarely see similar questions on breastfeeding threads.

5 times more likely to die when drinking formula? I've seen 1 study which said that but as with all breast feeding and formula feeding studies they are never consistent, I saw a study last year which said that the only benefit from breastfeeding supported by recognised evidence is a small IQ advantage.

For the record I believe Colostrum is extremely important and can't really be mimicked but for breast milk itself I think formula is a very very good substitute.

EVERYTHING is linked to SIDS, personally I believe it's mould in baby mattresses that cause it in a lot of cases, this would tie in with why you shouldn't use second hand mattresses and also why babies shouldn't sleep face down on a mattress.

Obesity is a strange one, Irish baby boys always seem to be chubby but most of the girls tend to be petite. I do agree that people can over feed their babies formula but that's the parents fault...not the fault of the formula.

Orion

How Strange wrote: »

The system failed you and your baby.

The system failed nobody in this case. She couldn't breastfeed for a variety of reasons. It happens and there's no way Hannibal should feel ashamed about that. Expressed milk is the same milk and she did that. Fair play for not giving up.

wolfpawnat

Hobbitfeet wrote: »

When I read comments by people saying some women just cant breastfeed I wonder what is so different about Irish women? to say Scandinavian women where breastfeeding rates are one of the highest, that means that some of them just cant??

I tried and failed, several reasons really.

- Baby away from me for the first 12 hours and the nurses fed him formula for that time.

- When trying to breastfeed my MIL was there making comments the whole time making me self concious.

- No nurse had time to help me.

- Emergency C-section so was on meds for a while with infection.

Bagheera

It's good to hear from other people how they also struggled. I had a long and difficult labour which ended with a forceps delivery. My poor little baby screamed his head off every time I tried to get him to latch on as his head was very sore. I expressed for a while, got a lactation consultant to my house, tried nipple shields etc but eventually gave up and switched to formula.

I still have a feeling of guilt every time I pick up a box of formula in the supermarket, even though I have an extremely happy and healthy little boy. I feel like I have to justify myself every time someone asks me if I'm breastfeeding. I've never met anyone who has admitted to finding BFing disgusting; among my peers it is considered the best choice.

aniascor

I think a lot of people in Irish society don't understand breastfeeding, think it's a bit icky, or have misconceptions about it.

When my son was 11 weeks old, I was at a family wedding, and was heading up to the hotel room to breastfeed him - one of my aunts remarked to my mother "Oh God, she's not still at that craic is she?" as though it was some eccentricity of mine. And she was far from alone in her attitude.

Breastfeeding is a physical activity, that you can't really learn from books. And we learn physical activities from seeing as well as from doing. The problem is that most of us are growing up in a society where we rarely or never see a woman breastfeeding, and if we run into difficulties when feeding our own babies, many of the people giving advice have no experience breastfeeding and offer advice based on bottlefeeding, because that's what they know and understand.

Formula feeding is the norm here, and it's what most people seem to be comfortable with. And going back to the original issue of the cinema, I'd imagine that's what issue was taken with - it was one more push at normalising formula. I don't understand why the screening needs a sponsor(much less one who is not technically supposed to advertise their product to babies, but who circumvents that restriction by advertising a product aimed at babies over six months) - our local cinema here runs mother and baby screenings with no sponsor.

Hannibal Smith

Bagheera wrote: »

It's good to hear from other people how they also struggled. I had a long and difficult labour which ended with a forceps delivery. My poor little baby screamed his head off every time I tried to get him to latch on as his head was very sore. I expressed for a while, got a lactation consultant to my house, tried nipple shields etc but eventually gave up and switched to formula.

I still have a feeling of guilt every time I pick up a box of formula in the supermarket, even though I have an extremely happy and healthy little boy. I feel like I have to justify myself every time someone asks me if I'm breastfeeding. I've never met anyone who has admitted to finding BFing disgusting; among my peers it is considered the best choice.

It's annoying when you get people who don't understand that others have difficulty with it. This time around, I'm more prepared for what's to come so I hopefully won't have so many other factors getting in the way and I'll get to do it.

Like you say, I don't know anyone who finds it icky or disgusting, in fact it's the opposite.

implausible

Hannibal Smith wrote: »

It's annoying when you get people who don't understand that others have difficulty with it. This time around, I'm more prepared for what's to come so I hopefully won't have so many other factors getting in the way and I'll get to do it.

That's what's missing in the whole breast/bottle debate - empathy.

Breast may be best, but it isn't always easy. While it is a fact that the vast majority of women can physically breastfeed (we are mammals after all), that doesn't mean that there aren't problems. I was lucky, I had only two eye-watering days and everything went so well for me that I breastfed for 7 months. However, 3 of my colleagues started off breastfeeding, but didn't continue because of bleeding nipples, mastitis and inconvenience (she needed to be able to leave her with her dad). Another friend couldn't face it after an excruciating birth. There are a myriad of problems that can happen and often women expect it to be easy, because it's natural. This is missing from the breastfeeding literature.

To be honest, I couldn't say for certain if I could have continued if I had come across any of those problems. However, when number two comes along, I, like you Hannibal, will be prepared for these problems.

Aniascor is right - there is no culture of it here in Ireland and we are not used to seeing women do it.

How Strange

Orion wrote: »

The system failed nobody in this case. She couldn't breastfeed for a variety of reasons. It happens and there's no way Hannibal should feel ashamed about that. Expressed milk is the same milk and she did that. Fair play for not giving up.

Yes Orion I think we are both in agreement that she shouldn't have felt ashamed. No mother should ever feel ashamed for how she feeds her baby.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones who had great support in hospital but unfortunately that's what it comes down to; luck. Ds latched so I was lucky, the midwives were experienced in breastfeeding so again I was lucky.