We weren't taught about BF in Sex Ed (although we got very minimal Sex Ed anyway, Catholic school
), but I did learn about it in Home Economics where we looked at various reasons as to why a woman would make her choice.
Having read over the whole thread, I do think more should be done to normalise and support BF - although this I say ready to duck for cover, as some of you may know that I've not had my own baby yet and therefore have no personal experience to draw upon. At the same time no woman should be made to feel bad for how they choose to feed their baby, but I suppose it'll depend on where you stay as to which woman will get picked on - where I stay, it's the breastfeeding lady who gets looked at like she's nuts.
NHS Fife have plastered their Antenatal clinics, GP waiting rooms and the Maternity unit at the main hospital with posters advocating breastfeeding, yet I don't know a single person who has successfully breastfed their baby here for longer than a couple of days. I am determined to breastfeed my boy baby when he arrives, however I am already nervous about how other people will take it - will my friends and family think I'm trying to 'hog the baby'? It's kind of expected around here that if you're visiting someone with a newborn and they need a feed that you'll get to do it (something that's always annoyed me anyway, it's not your baby dammit! But that's an aside lol). Will I be supported properly if things get difficult? My OH laughed when I said that I plan to nurse our son until he's at least 6m, because he genuinely didn't know that that's the recommendation.
I have 2 particular cases that have caused me particular worry with feeding my son both as a newborn and beyond, because I know the women/babies involved. My ex's sister tried to breastfeed her first, and pumped colustrum for the first couple of days, but after her mum told her - quoted word for word because I was there when this was said, "oh you must just have no milk, give her a bottle" (2 days after birth), she made the switch to formula, and then had to use various versions of hungry baby and comfort formula to figure out what worked best. While I don't know exactly what issues she had with BF, if she'd been more supported would she have had more luck and been happier with her choice? She wasn't happy at all when she first had to give a bottle of formula.
The second example is OH's son, who while I don't have first hand experience of what happened at the time (probably for obvious reasons lol), I do know what OH has told me about it and I know the effect that has been had on his son. His ex had to have an EMCS because of fetal destress (down to shoddy care at the mat unit), and as a result of this, she was totally spaced out after he was born, the midwife tried to syringe colostrum out of her (while, OH says, she was still out cold), and while she wanted to BF, she was so exhausted by the procedure initially that she couldn't really try like she wanted to and the midwives gave him a bottle, and from there he wouldn't take to the breast when she was more able to try to BF. FF itself has done him no harm at all, what has, however done him harm is that on advice from relatives, OH's ex decided to wean him onto solids at 4 months old, not in addition to the formula he was getting but rather to replace his lunch and tea time bottles. This has caused him to have problems with his digestive system to the point where his GP reckons he'll now have to regularly take Lactulose until he's at least 5 years old. In short - the midwives at the hospital (where I'll be giving birth myself in 4 months) are so hot and cold about breastfeeding and whether it should be pushed on a woman or not, there wasn't enough education about what comes next, and for first time mums that can be quite dangerous in itself.
Feeding our LO's shouldn't be such a minefield!
and the GP said he'd develop quite a shiner that would take weeks to go fully back to normal, it is only 5 days later now and his eye is almost completely better with a faint yellowish bruise that is quickly fading. When the nurse saw him two days after he hurt his eye she was very surprised. My other boys when they got injured and were no longer breastfed their wounds wouldn't heal as quick. There are also protective qualities of breastfeeding for the mother that are often completely disregarded, no-one is saying BF is a magical panacea but if it reduces my risk of developing certain cancers then all the more reason for me to do it if possible.
