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In some cases, the pressure to breastfeed can do more harm than good. If the parent is feeling stressed, as it can be an extremely intense and also painful expe

by jwdunne 12y ago

In some cases, the pressure to breastfeed can do more harm than good. If the parent is feeling stressed, as it can be an extremely intense and also painful experience, the bonding process can suffer. More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk. The father of my adopted son forced my wife to breastfeed. Over a 3 month period, the poor boy lost a dangerous amount of weight and needed a stay in hospital, where he had strict, formula-based feeding schedule. If my wife was asleep, the nurses wouldn't even bother waking her up, they'd just feed him. The result, and not to say this is a cause but a potential contributing factor, is that this unfortunate boy has major developmental delays, is unable to speak properly and what he can say he often doesn't understand. I personally have had my past investigated by social services to ensure I won't have a negative impact on his development (I suffered from psychosis in my teenage years, likely due to stress from attention deficit disorder and a traumatic event). Teachers and myself have noticed, for example, he regularly speaks well out of context, which is notably worse than his peers. There's a tough road ahead. With articles like this, we are looking at individual, specific factors when the reality is much more complicated and results from an interplay of thousands of microscopic to large and obvious factors. With children and their development, it is just not simple. We are, whether we like it or not, complex systems. Parents of healthy body and mind want the best for their children. The pressure of this alone is fantastically great. The results of additional, external, pressure could do more harm than good.

dagw 12y ago
The results of additional, external, pressure could do more harm than good. Yup. My wife, for reasons no one could really explain, hardly produced any milk. Fortunately it only took us a few days or so to realize this and start bottle feeding, but a lot of the nurses and midwives we met along the way felt no compunction in making my wife feel like a failure as a mother and human being because of this.
- jwdunne 12y ago
  Same experience. We noticed that things were not going well for our daughter, Maggie, too. I told her many times "Look, if you don't feel right about this, we can go on bottles". 6 days she endured, Maggie needing to be latched pretty much every minute. The midwives encouraged her to continue, despite clear signs recent history was repeating itself. Regardless of anything else,6 days without sleep in any form is dangerous and encouraging that behaviour could really tear families apart. Even though it's disgraceful, with this type of pressure, it's no wonder we see shaken-baby syndrome. It's been said that the NHS is wrongly focused on curative medicine as opposed to preventative medicine. If there was ever a case for it, I'm sure this would be one.
- codebeaker 12y ago
  Came here to write the same thing, my son was born 6 weeks early, hormonally my wife was not ready to breast feed at all, and we had a hugely painful, and for my wife embarrassing experience sitting hour after hour in the hospital with breast pumps and formula bottles trying to get enough, and the right balance of breast milk and formula into my son. The hospital were adamant that we kept at it, and now some four months in, I think my son has only had to be fed with ~20 bottles, total. Mostly when we're travelling or my wife and I are exhausted, I think it's a natural and important part of raising a child, but not everyone can do it, we were lucky, and we need more tolerance of personal choice or circumstance without being judgemental. Of course until becoming a parent, I had my strong and largely invalid opinions (i.e breast feeding in public is inappropriate, etc) I'm happy to say I've got past those short sighted and ill conceived views and won't judge anyone for anything they do for their child, probably there's a damned good reason why they're doing it, lack of sleep, exhaustion, and a baby crying are pretty powerful motivators to step outside of one's own personal comfort zone. Other hot topics (especially as a Brit living in Germany, seeing the cultural differences) are sharing a bed with an infant, bathing with them, skin-on-skin contact, etc, etc.
  - jwdunne 12y ago
    Yes, having a child changes you fundamentally. The difference in me has been dramatic. Despite all the stress, I am overall far more emotionally stable. I'm more industrious. There's no stress like having next to no sleep and having a screaming baby who needs you. Most things that work throw at you are nothing. The most important thing is that it teaches you what is and isn't important in life, or at least it did for me. I used to panic when a server or website died at work. For me, now, it's nothing. Of course, it's still urgent and I fix but it actually gets done faster as I'm not stressing about it. The most important thing for me is having healthy and happy children. Work is now a means to that end. I consider myself successful at this moment in time because my baby is happy, nothing else. Even doctors, whilst she was unwell, noted how happy she was. Her nursery notes how incredibly fast she is developmentally, both mentally and physically. That's all in spite of being bottle fed the majority of her life. Skin on skin is beautiful. If you want to feel less stressed and find an unexpected inner peace, do skin-on-skin. It's known oxytocin is realised with skin contact, regardless. Doing so with your baby, knowing he or she is so totally dependent on you to live, makes for a profound experience.
- up_and_up 12y ago
  > but a lot of the nurses and midwives we met along the way felt no compunction in making my wife feel like a failure as a mother and human being because of this That is absolutely horrible, sorry you had that experience. My wife was in the same situation with our first, basically she anatomically did not have enough tissue to generate the volume of milk required. Luckily we were able to get donor milk and rely on this technology: http://www.lact-aid.com/ http://www.lact-aid.com/. Amazingly she was able to build enough tissue so that by our 3rd kid we have not used any donor milk at all.
gadders 12y ago
>> In some cases, the pressure to breastfeed can do more harm than good. If the parent is feeling stressed, as it can be an extremely intense and also painful experience, the bonding process can suffer. More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk. This mirrors what happened to us in an NHS hospital in the UK. As a result, my daughter's blood sugar dropped dangerously low as we were encourage to persist in breast feeding for far longer than we should have. She's also on the gifted and talented programme at her school now, so I don't think Formula did her any harm.
- jtheory 12y ago
  These issues are complicated to navigate for the midwives as well -- it's hard for them to know exactly who's hoping for more support, and who's really in need of an alternative option. > More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk. I'd guess this would be vanishingly rare, just due to evolutionary pressures over a long period of time, and there are other factors that just make nursing really difficult for many mothers. But I don't know for sure, and nowadays babies that would have simply died, or have killed the mother as well as died, can survive as a matter of course; so that changes the equation as well. Breastfeeding (the first time around, especially) is quite a bit harder than most people realize -- it's partly a process of teaching the newborn what to do. They may be eager but default to a bad latch, they may be convinced their hand also needs to be in their mouth while they feed, or they may quickly pick up the habit of feeding for 20 seconds then taking a 2 minute nap, or they may decide they can only sleep while latched on. And those are just the problems we saw with our own two daughters! But it is worth some serious effort (even if just for convenience, once it's working, among other benefits) -- it's just not worth destructive effort, and if it doesn't work out it's not worth remorse. > She's also on the gifted and talented programme at her school now, so I don't think Formula did her any harm. Right -- it's just so hard to predict. She might have been breastfed and yet be having difficulty in school as well; there are so very many factors involved, but many parents fix on a few (and torment themselves with guilt, or pride themselves on a choice well-made...). But there are so many paths to a happy & healthy child who grows up to be a happy & healthy adult, and so many that go elsewhere, and many factors are totally out of our control.
deepGem 12y ago
"More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk" - Is there any anecdotal evidence to prove this. One lactation consultant told us that this claim is totally false. According to her, all women who give birth can and will produce enough breast milk and she had the evidence to prove that.
- jwdunne 12y ago
  My wife's mother was unable to leave hospital until my wife put on weight. My adopted son lost tonnes of weight and only gained after bottle feeding. My daughter simply could not be taken away from the breast. That was enough for me to make a decision that breastfeeding my second daughter was impractical. EDIT: I do say "produce" but it may not be as simple as that, again it's complicated. Production may not be impaired, but perhaps the ability to dispense might be. There may be some matrilineal genetic factor present that prevents a baby from latching properly or taking enough milk. I'm not an expert but there are a few stages in the process where things can and do go wrong.
  - deepGem 12y ago
    This is precisely what the lactation consultant said. So, my wife couldn't breast feed for the first couple of months and we assumed that she couldn't produce enough milk. We went to this consultant and all she did was to change the feeding position by a small degree. After that our daughter fed happily. The problem was not with production but with the latching technique and I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case with many women. I do have a bias against bottle feeding because of our personal experience stated above.
- EliRivers 12y ago
  According to her, all women who give birth can and will produce enough breast milk and she had the evidence to prove that. Bullshit (not you; her). The only way to prove that, given that humans are messy biologicals and not a mathematical equation, is to line up every woman who ever gave birth and demonstrate that each of them produces enough milk to feed said child. A single counter-example (of which there are many) demonstrates that she's talking rot.

by jwdunne 12y ago

dagw 12y ago

The results of additional, external, pressure could do more harm than good. Yup. My wife, for reasons no one could really explain, hardly produced any milk. Fortunately it only took us a few days or so to realize this and start bottle feeding, but a lot of the nurses and midwives we met along the way felt no compunction in making my wife feel like a failure as a mother and human being because of this.

jwdunne 12y ago
Same experience. We noticed that things were not going well for our daughter, Maggie, too. I told her many times "Look, if you don't feel right about this, we can go on bottles". 6 days she endured, Maggie needing to be latched pretty much every minute. The midwives encouraged her to continue, despite clear signs recent history was repeating itself. Regardless of anything else,6 days without sleep in any form is dangerous and encouraging that behaviour could really tear families apart. Even though it's disgraceful, with this type of pressure, it's no wonder we see shaken-baby syndrome. It's been said that the NHS is wrongly focused on curative medicine as opposed to preventative medicine. If there was ever a case for it, I'm sure this would be one.
codebeaker 12y ago
Came here to write the same thing, my son was born 6 weeks early, hormonally my wife was not ready to breast feed at all, and we had a hugely painful, and for my wife embarrassing experience sitting hour after hour in the hospital with breast pumps and formula bottles trying to get enough, and the right balance of breast milk and formula into my son. The hospital were adamant that we kept at it, and now some four months in, I think my son has only had to be fed with ~20 bottles, total. Mostly when we're travelling or my wife and I are exhausted, I think it's a natural and important part of raising a child, but not everyone can do it, we were lucky, and we need more tolerance of personal choice or circumstance without being judgemental. Of course until becoming a parent, I had my strong and largely invalid opinions (i.e breast feeding in public is inappropriate, etc) I'm happy to say I've got past those short sighted and ill conceived views and won't judge anyone for anything they do for their child, probably there's a damned good reason why they're doing it, lack of sleep, exhaustion, and a baby crying are pretty powerful motivators to step outside of one's own personal comfort zone. Other hot topics (especially as a Brit living in Germany, seeing the cultural differences) are sharing a bed with an infant, bathing with them, skin-on-skin contact, etc, etc.
- jwdunne 12y ago
  Yes, having a child changes you fundamentally. The difference in me has been dramatic. Despite all the stress, I am overall far more emotionally stable. I'm more industrious. There's no stress like having next to no sleep and having a screaming baby who needs you. Most things that work throw at you are nothing. The most important thing is that it teaches you what is and isn't important in life, or at least it did for me. I used to panic when a server or website died at work. For me, now, it's nothing. Of course, it's still urgent and I fix but it actually gets done faster as I'm not stressing about it. The most important thing for me is having healthy and happy children. Work is now a means to that end. I consider myself successful at this moment in time because my baby is happy, nothing else. Even doctors, whilst she was unwell, noted how happy she was. Her nursery notes how incredibly fast she is developmentally, both mentally and physically. That's all in spite of being bottle fed the majority of her life. Skin on skin is beautiful. If you want to feel less stressed and find an unexpected inner peace, do skin-on-skin. It's known oxytocin is realised with skin contact, regardless. Doing so with your baby, knowing he or she is so totally dependent on you to live, makes for a profound experience.
up_and_up 12y ago
> but a lot of the nurses and midwives we met along the way felt no compunction in making my wife feel like a failure as a mother and human being because of this That is absolutely horrible, sorry you had that experience. My wife was in the same situation with our first, basically she anatomically did not have enough tissue to generate the volume of milk required. Luckily we were able to get donor milk and rely on this technology: http://www.lact-aid.com/ http://www.lact-aid.com/. Amazingly she was able to build enough tissue so that by our 3rd kid we have not used any donor milk at all.

gadders 12y ago

>> In some cases, the pressure to breastfeed can do more harm than good. If the parent is feeling stressed, as it can be an extremely intense and also painful experience, the bonding process can suffer. More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk. This mirrors what happened to us in an NHS hospital in the UK. As a result, my daughter's blood sugar dropped dangerously low as we were encourage to persist in breast feeding for far longer than we should have. She's also on the gifted and talented programme at her school now, so I don't think Formula did her any harm.

jtheory 12y ago
These issues are complicated to navigate for the midwives as well -- it's hard for them to know exactly who's hoping for more support, and who's really in need of an alternative option. > More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk. I'd guess this would be vanishingly rare, just due to evolutionary pressures over a long period of time, and there are other factors that just make nursing really difficult for many mothers. But I don't know for sure, and nowadays babies that would have simply died, or have killed the mother as well as died, can survive as a matter of course; so that changes the equation as well. Breastfeeding (the first time around, especially) is quite a bit harder than most people realize -- it's partly a process of teaching the newborn what to do. They may be eager but default to a bad latch, they may be convinced their hand also needs to be in their mouth while they feed, or they may quickly pick up the habit of feeding for 20 seconds then taking a 2 minute nap, or they may decide they can only sleep while latched on. And those are just the problems we saw with our own two daughters! But it is worth some serious effort (even if just for convenience, once it's working, among other benefits) -- it's just not worth destructive effort, and if it doesn't work out it's not worth remorse. > She's also on the gifted and talented programme at her school now, so I don't think Formula did her any harm. Right -- it's just so hard to predict. She might have been breastfed and yet be having difficulty in school as well; there are so very many factors involved, but many parents fix on a few (and torment themselves with guilt, or pride themselves on a choice well-made...). But there are so many paths to a happy & healthy child who grows up to be a happy & healthy adult, and so many that go elsewhere, and many factors are totally out of our control.

deepGem 12y ago

"More importantly, some mothers just cannot produce enough milk" - Is there any anecdotal evidence to prove this. One lactation consultant told us that this claim is totally false. According to her, all women who give birth can and will produce enough breast milk and she had the evidence to prove that.

jwdunne 12y ago
My wife's mother was unable to leave hospital until my wife put on weight. My adopted son lost tonnes of weight and only gained after bottle feeding. My daughter simply could not be taken away from the breast. That was enough for me to make a decision that breastfeeding my second daughter was impractical. EDIT: I do say "produce" but it may not be as simple as that, again it's complicated. Production may not be impaired, but perhaps the ability to dispense might be. There may be some matrilineal genetic factor present that prevents a baby from latching properly or taking enough milk. I'm not an expert but there are a few stages in the process where things can and do go wrong.
- deepGem 12y ago
  This is precisely what the lactation consultant said. So, my wife couldn't breast feed for the first couple of months and we assumed that she couldn't produce enough milk. We went to this consultant and all she did was to change the feeding position by a small degree. After that our daughter fed happily. The problem was not with production but with the latching technique and I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case with many women. I do have a bias against bottle feeding because of our personal experience stated above.
EliRivers 12y ago
According to her, all women who give birth can and will produce enough breast milk and she had the evidence to prove that. Bullshit (not you; her). The only way to prove that, given that humans are messy biologicals and not a mathematical equation, is to line up every woman who ever gave birth and demonstrate that each of them produces enough milk to feed said child. A single counter-example (of which there are many) demonstrates that she's talking rot.