Bottle feeding mothers

Criticising mothers who do not breast feed for whatever reason is, in my opinion, a form of bullying and reflects poorly on the critic.

Ill-informed and smug comes to mind.

It is absolutely up to the individual and not for anyone else to interfere.

not everyone can do the 'perfect right thing' all the time and nobody should be made to feel guilty about their choices
when my daughter was born in 1974 she was 5 weeks premature and less than 5 lbs and was duly whisked off to the children's hospital as she was severely jaundiced as well as ABO blood incompatibility (necessitating a blood exchange)
so I was in one hospital and she was in another - no breastfeeding and no facility to enable this even when she was back in the normal hospital - I could only visit as and when I was allowed. it would have been much more mother/child friendly now.
she was fed on formula, I had loads of milk but unable to give it to her.
do I regret it - yes, yes, yes but I have to live with the guilt which is bad enough without ill-informed criticism from those who were LUCKY enough to be able to breast feed. BTW she is fit and healthy

Although I take the point you're making, apricot, bottle-fed babies are fed formula milk, not cow's.

Britain has shockingly low numbers of mothers breastfeding. As everyone knows the advantages I think a lot of mothers give up early because they get no help or support in the difficult first days. They leave hospital immediately after the birth and midwives' or health visitors' support is totally inadequate for a vulnerable mother whose baby won't feed.
I had my babies in the 70s when breastfeeding was very unfashionable. I got no help with breastfeeding, the hospital staff being ignorant and disapproving. I was determined and all my children and grandchildren were breastfed for a year.
I take the view that all babies should be given the best, which is human milk, not cow's.

I've read that the current trend for 'brelfies' on social media sites - i.e. photos of mothers breastfeeding posted by themselves make some bottle-feeding mothers feel inadequate and 'got-at'.

Yet another example of how sites such as FB and Twitter can cause people to lose all sense of proportion!

As I said before I did BF my babies and they all had/have eczema , maybe I should have gone the bottle route

I'm beginning to think that some people just don't like mothers feeding babies visibly be it by bottle or breast. It seems to freak somebody out whatever they do. This says nothing about the mothers and a lot about the screwed up people who object to seeing one or the other of bottle feeding or breast feeding.

Totally up to the mother. No one else's business and no one should have the right to criticise

In the 1970's when I was a midwife breastfeeding was the no brainer. I hate to think how many new mums were made to feel utterly inadequate and poor mothers because of the ridiculous pressure put on them.

Baby milk manufacturing is so well researched nowadays that there is minimal difference.

DDIL breastfed DGS but has said she'd think twice before doing it beyond a few weeks. Out of the ten mums in her private antenatal class (because she couldn't get to the NHS one), only she continued beyond 6 weeks-and all of them were intelligent and professional women.

Neither my sister or I were breast fed and we haven't done badly!

I chose not to breastfeed DC. They were perfectly healthy, very rarely had D&V, never had chest infections and DD is 46 and size 6 so definitely not obese. I have been told that DC would probably be of lower intelligence as a result of my choices, hogwash, DD has an IQ in the top 1%
I accept that there is a percentage of the population who are better off being encouraged to BF but it should be up to the individual.

'less chance of diarrhoea and vomiting' I would have thought that was caused by bad hygeine and insufficient sterilising, more than Breast versus Bottle......NHS ?

I'd be interested to know if there have been any serious academic studies on say, 21 year-olds, to see if there is any difference in their health and general well-being depending on whether they've been breast or bottle-fed.

Also, if there's any difference as to whether a person's mother went out to work or stayed at home.

I'd guess there'd be no difference!

Quite frankly, I think the NHS promotes whatever suits them and I don't have much faith in their conclusions.

You post is a perfect example Tegan

There*

How you feed your baby is entirely up to the mother. As with many health/ diet opinions their has been many opinions over the years.

My mother could not BF me, as she was extremely ill. I was bottle fed from the word go, with the old fashioned milk powder. I have lived 63 years with no major illness and I take no medication. I am the ideal weight for my height. I have degree an post degree qualifications. So I don't think my health or intelligence was affected. x

Totally up to the Mother.

The argument that convinced me to breastfeed was that the mother passes on immunity to some illnesses through her milk. For the first few years anyway.

And having to work is one of the most common reasons given for choosing to bottle-feed these days. Not many workplaces have creches and allow time off for breast feeding!

Wasn't bottle feeding encouraged during the war so that mothers could go and work in the munitions factories?

From the NHS website:

Breastfeeding is good for babies. Breastfed babies have:

less chance of diarrhoea and vomiting and having to go to hospital as a result
fewer chest and ear infections and fewer visits to hospital as a result
less chance of being constipated
less likelihood of becoming obese and therefore developing type 2 diabetes and other obesity-related illnesses later in life
less chance of developing eczema

Good reasons not to bottle feed if the mother can breastfeed.

That's not to say that "negative reactions" should be displayed to the mothers. The only other person it concerns is the child.

I do feel that a mother should breast feed if possible but there is an awful lot of pressure these days on young mothers to breast feed and I'm sure it can be one of the causes of PND in mothers who want to breast feed but can't. I often wonder if I was breast fed; I was premature so I guess the chances are that I wasn't but I've really no idea...not something I ever asked my mum. What does upset me is seeing young mothers out and about with babies/toddlers either walking or in push chairs that have got their eyes glued to their mobiles and aren't talking to their child .My little grandchild has been given a dummy and mum and dad are quite embarrassed about it...I pointed out that I certainly tried a dummy with both of mine at various times and would have carried on doing so if they'd've taken to them. Too much pressure on young mums all round these days [including having to get their figures back withing two weeks].

I think it is a personal decision. I do support breat is best and great if Mums can give it a try but if it's not working out maybe a less stressed mum bottle feeding is preferable to a stressed one struggling with feeding the baby herself. I was a National Dried milk baby as I think a lot of post war babies were and I have been in relatively good health all my life ( up to now, probably get everything going now !) .

The Sunday Times article last week suggested that the trend for choosing cesarian births and bottle feeding could lead to the evolution of women losing the ability to give birth "normally", or breastfeed.
No proof yet, but evidently a possibility.
That's how I read it anyway.

Perhaps the cigarette smoke scenario is a bit extreme, but according to the latest research into the benefits of breastfeeding, not a lot.

Absolutely agree Ana
So long as mother and baby are relaxed and the baby's doing well it doesn't matter one jot that it's not breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding isn't the be all and end all, if it goes well that's fine, if it isn't working out then far better to happily bottle feed without judgement from anyone.

I BF DD for 9 months, DS for 3 weeks because it was stressing us both out.

Comparing with a smoke-filled room is ludicrous! One's a matter of mother and baby both doing well, the other's a health hazard for anyone!

Bottle feeding isn't depriving the baby, total tosh!