Welcome to Fearless Formula Feeder Fridays, a weekly guest post feature that strives to build a supportive community of parents united through our common experiences, open minds, and frustration with the breast-vs-bottle bullying and bullcrap.
Please note, these stories are for the most part unedited, and do not necessarily represent the FFF’s opinions. They also are not political statements – this is an arena for people to share their thoughts, and I hope we can all give them the space to do so.
Here in the States, you see a lot of bumper stickers and signs on the highway reading, “I am the 99%”. This is alluding to the idea that only the top-earning 1% of our population is living the American Dream; the rest of us are in deep doo-doo.
Sometimes, I feel like we should have FFF bumper stickers made up that say “I am the 2-5% (or by some more conservative estimates, the 1%)”. These are the percentages given for the number of women who are physically incapable of producing enough milk. Considering the lack of quality research that proves these statistics are accurate, I suspect the percentage is significantly bigger… but even if it isn’t, that 2-5% is made up of real, flesh-and-blood women, who deserve to be heard.
FFF Jo is one of those women, and her story unravels below. I hope Jo will be heard, and that this guest post will serve the same purpose as bright red graffiti on a highway underpass. These are the 2-5%, and they matter.
Happy Friday, fearless ones…
The FFF
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At no point during my pregnancy did I ever consider formula feeding. It wasn’t that I was against it, or even particularly passionate about breastfeeding, it was just that it seemed the most natural and straightforward thing to do, all you need are boobs and a baby right?
I live in the UK. From what I understand from reading this blog, things are a bit different here from the US. Formula is not allowed to be advertised or promoted. During my antenatal classes formula was never mentioned, and it is not ever offered in hospital unless medically necessary (or requested by the mother).
I had a very easy pregnancy. At about 30 weeks I was told that my son was lying breech and if he didn’t turn head down it would be safer for me to have a c-section. Despite a number of attempts to turn him he stubbornly remained where he was! So one Monday morning, 3 days before my due date, I went into hospital. My beautiful son was born at about lunchtime in what was a very stress free way. Straight after birth he was placed on my chest and breastfed very soon after.
All that night and the next day I continued to breastfeed. My son latched on beautifully straight away and seemed to feed well. I was slightly concerned that my breasts didn’t seem to be very full or hard, but I was told that this was perfectly normal and that ‘In a few days I’d be looking like Dolly Parton’!
When my son was 2 days old we were discharged and my husband and I took him home, ready to live happily ever after … that was when things started to fall apart.
The midwife came to visit me at home the day after I was discharged. As part of her routine check she weighed my son and told me that he had lost 11% of his birth weight. I was obviously worried, that sounded like a lot! She told me to breastfeed as much as I could over the next 24 hours, but that if he lost any more we would have to be readmitted to hospital. My son spent much of the next 24 hours on my breast, but the next day I was told that he had lost nearly 20% of his birth weight and we needed to go back to hospital immediately. I was very frightened – why hadn’t I been able to care for my son?
Upon our return to the maternity ward the midwives checked my son. He was jaundiced and dehydrated one of the midwife asked if I would consent to her giving my son some formula. Of course I said yes. It broke my heart to see the gusto with which he guzzled every drop of formula he was given – the poor thing must have been starving.
Over the next week I breastfed for as long as my son would stay at the breast, then pumped, then supplemented with formula. I repeated this process every three hours day and night. We had to give the formula using a cup as the midwives said that using a teat would make breastfeeding harder – It is a real skill giving a newborn formula from a cup!
During our stay in hospital the change in my son was amazing – he began to put on weight and fill out. He seemed so much happier and relaxed. I kept waiting for my milk to come in, but it never did. I was prescribed medication to increase my milk supply which it did, to a point (It took me 40 minutes to pump 1/3 of an ounce). After a while I couldn’t see the purpose of staying in hospital – Both my son and I were healthy and on a ward with babies with severe feeding difficulties. I asked the midwife if we could try feeding my son formula from a bottle. She agreed and he took to it well. We were discharged and agreed to continue breast, pumping and supplementing for as long as it took.
One month later, and we were in the same position. My milk supply had not increased. I was struggling to bond with my son as feeding him was such a trial. I was emotional, stressed and physically exhausted. My nipples were cracked, I had developed mastitis and was still producing so little. After watching me go through this for a few days, crying my way through every feed, my mum said to me ‘Why are you doing this? It might be time to stop’. I agreed, and over the next week my son became a fully formula fed baby. I was prepared for the pain as my milk dried up, but the pain never came, and I never leaked a drop (nothing to dry up I guess!)
My son is now a healthy, happy 3 month old baby, who I love with all my heart. I feel so blessed to be his mum. My heart still hurts, knowing that he didn’t get the best start in life. But in my head I know that I made the right decision. Without formula my son would have starved.
There does seem to be a common assumption that mum’s who give their babies formula (along with those who don’t co-sleep, baby-wear, etc.) are lazy, uninformed women who are looking for an easy option, but I know better than that. I did what I had to do to ensure my son was healthy and grew well – I believe that anyone else would do the same. The vitriol which some people direct towards formula feeding mothers astounds me. Just this week I have read articles saying things like ‘Formula is a starvation diet’, ‘Formula kills babies’, ‘If you couldn’t feed your child yourself then they were meant to die’. Reading such things brings me to tears, even though I know that my son is thriving.
I felt, and still do feel, incredibly guilty about my decision to formula feed, but my health visitor said something that made a lot of sense. I am a primary school teacher, and she asked me this question: ‘Can you tell which children in your class were formula fed? Can you tell which come from happy, stress-free households?’
I believe that I have given my son the best start in life that I could. He is loved by two happy, relaxed parents, and has a mother who is determined to do her level best for her son. This goes way beyond the way that he is fed.
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Whether you’re in the 1%, the 99%, or don’t even know what the fruck that means, you are welcome to be part of the FFF Friday contributor “club”. Simply send your story to formulafeeders@gmail.com, and help support other parents dealing with confusion, fear or conflict over their feeding method.
About the Author:
Suzanne Barston is a blogger and author of BOTTLED UP. Fearless Formula Feeder is a blog – and community – dedicated to infant feeding choice, and committed to providing non-judgmental support for all new parents. It exists to protect women from misleading or misrepresented “facts”; essentialist ideals about what mothers should think, feel, or do; government and health authorities who form policy statements based on ambivalent research; and the insidious beast known as Internetus Trolliamus, Mommy Blog Varietal.
Suzanne Barston – who has written 429 posts on Fearless Formula Feeder.
Hey Jo – I am American but have had 3 babies here in the UK (my youngest is 3.5 months old) and I see myself in your post. The radical lactavists who are in the US need to understand that there are many of us who come to formula feeding not through coersive advertising or corporate hyginks, but through real need. Thank God we live in an age when we have alternatives to letting our children starve! Stay strong and best wishes to you and yours.
I totally agree about the 2-5% of us mattering, and I wish that there were more research into low milk production, etc., rather than what seems like blanket ignorance among many lactation professionals to its existence. Great submission!
Thank you for your story. You are brave and honest. You are a great momma. Wrapping you up in affection and admiration.
I hate when formula is seen as the easy option. I tried so hard to breastfeed because I knew it would be easier first thing in the morning to offer a breast instead of a bottle. I knew it would be easier at night. There would be nothing to clean or sterilize and no parts to assemble or powders to mix. It's very frustrating that it's assumed we didn't try. Most moms I know tried very, very hard as you did.
I would think the percentage is much higher than 2-5% frankly. I think I'm actually one of the lucky ones who knows why I didn't make enough milk. (It was due in part to retained placenta I know now.)
Like Jo, I waited and braced myself for the drying up to be uncomfortable, but nothing.
Jo, you could have written my story (which is languishing, in draft, on my laptop). We did all the things you did, including the horrifying jaundice-induced hospital stay with lots of properly tiny and sick babies, and my great big but simply hungry one. In the UK too, I got all the support, midwives who were pragmatic but would not entertain mixed feeding unless I mentioned it, and increasingly guilt making visits to a BF support group where my son would latch, suck, nod off and then scream all the way home as actually he was hungry despite all the encouraging words, breast compressions and oat-and-banana-muffins.
This blog kept me sane during those dark, pointlessly guilty days. My son is now 13 months old and all this seems so long ago – enjoy your tiny new person.
This is so similar to my story and I stand by the last point you made. Something that this blog actually brought to my attention for the first time. You can't look around at a group of babies and point out which ones are FF or BF but you CAN tell which ones are given a good, stress free living environment (usually).
This is so similar to my story, we even have the same name and job! Thanks for posting, it's really comforting to see other people have had the jaundice/weight loss hospital “thing” too, some days I feel like I'm the only person who has!
As a breastfeeder, i have NO IDEA why people claim formula feeders are lazy or take the “easy” way out.
I'd rather pooper scoop my back yard than do dishes. The thought of 10+ bottles a day to wash? *shudder*. You guys have it hard. You guys have to get UP in the middle of the night and heat up bottles. I just rolled over in bed and pulled my boob out of my top. Who is the lazy one? uh, I'd think its me.
This BS about “if you can't feed your baby yourself its meant to die” is awful. Even in the days before formula was invented (in 1869!!!) there were wet nurses! Mothers I'm sure concocted something similar to the “homemade” formula recipes that some (crazy) people use today. Considering the fact that formula was “invented” by nestlè over 150 years ago, I think women have been having trouble nursing for a long long time.
Thinking seriously about how many friends of mine who have had epic struggles, I think the 2-5% figure is low. Because I'm not kidding, these women? there's nothing more they could have done. A lot of them have gone beyond what most people consider “reasonable” in their attempts to breastfeed and ended up making the choice to formula feed before they lost their minds.
Thanks for your story Jo. I can also relate to many of the things you said. It's hard when you have every desire to feed your little, but your body just doesn't cooperate. And, your son got the best start in life: A mom who loves him enough to give him what he needs, even if it means sacrificing something she wanted/planned on. Best wishes for your little family.
Jo, here's something else I can promise you: Your son will never care how you fed him when he was a baby. He'll no doubt have found a long list of other flaws in your motherhood to complain about by the time he's a teenager (and I say this NOT because I think you're in any way a bad mother, but because having our children complain about our imperfections is par for the course!) but the way you fed him won't be among them.
Re: the 2 – 5% – My understanding is that this is the estimated percentage of cases of milk insufficiency which are purely due to the breasts not producing enough, with no underlying cause. Once you add in other causes – PCOS, former breast surgery, complicated births, baby with poor suck, and whatever else I haven't thought of – you get a higher figure. Also, of course, it's pretty random what percentage of people in your immediate social group end up with these problems, so individual people may well know more or fewer mothers who have supply problems.