Several years ago my first child was born. It's a stressful time and a significant life change. You're given all sorts of guidance and information about how to

Several years ago my first child was born. It's a stressful time and a significant life change. You're given all sorts of guidance and information about how to raise your kid. There was so much pressure to breastfeed. It wasn't necessarily institutional pressure (I'm in Canada). Maybe a couple of your friends were hard liners and would say stupid things like "it'll work, it's evolution, just keep trying" or you'd encounter a hard line nurse who wouldn't suggest trying formula. Breast feeding was going well for us, until about the 3 month mark when my daughter suddenly became grumpy and irritable all the time. She stopped sleeping well. We were so spun up by the 'breast is best' crowd that it was a major discussion point if trying formula was the right thing to do vs letting our daughter starve. I still remember the night I felt like a terrible father for breaking out the free formula sample at the back of our pantry to feed to our starving kid. So, long story short, even at a private level external opinions can highly influence your private decisions. In fact, there was a women in BC that committed suicide because of postpartum depression. The general consensus was the pressure to breastfeed exacerbated her PPD. (https://www.self.com/story/postpartum-depression-florence-leung https://www.self.com/story/postpartum-depression-florence-le...)