My comments here are based on my own experiences and feelings, and I don't presume to speak for other FF mothers, but I just wanted to say this.

This line in Mia's article jumped out at me:

"And they're not always a fountain of nutritious love for a baby because sometimes the breasts - or the baby - have other ideas."

The core message I heard when BF was this: it's natural. Your body can do it. Your baby can do it. Try, try, try again, because there's no biological, anotomical reason why it cannot work. You can breastfeed. You should breastfeed.

All positive, supportive messages - important messages that I believe need to be communicated to new mothers. When I was pregnant, I knew it all to be true, and I was going to breastfeed for at least a year. I read books, studied diagrams, went to antenatal breastfeeding classes. I was educated, prepared and willing. FF was not an option for me.

But DS wouldn't attach. He wouldn't suck. Midwives rammed his face into my breasts over and over. He reared back. He screamed. He didn't latch. He didn't feed. He cried. I cried. I expressed colostrum. I finger fed him. I syringe fed him. My nipples were shredded with the repeated attempts to attach him over and over. During the following weeks I went to breastfeeding counselling groups, saw my GP, hired a private LC. My mum is a midwife and she sat with me for almost every feed, trying to get it right. It looked good from the outside, he was attached well, and there was no pain. But my nipples were destroyed - some of the worst damage the professionals had ever seen. And DS was hungry. My supply couldn't establish, even though I tried and tried and tried. I used nipple shields, so he could feed, but they also impacted my supply. I tried and tried and tried. Because I "should" be able to do it. There was no real reason why this shouldn't be working. That's what the books say, that's what the experts say, that's what I knew.

The guilt, anxiety and anguish I went through to establish breastfeeding was hard. I comp fed until about 21 weeks, and I still feel sad about it - probably always will. The ABA has an important job to do, educating and supporting new mothers. And I understand that they need to focus on the "breast is best" message. But I felt there was no place for me, and my situation. I didn't choose to FF, and so I didn't feel comfortable with doing it - I didn't "own it", because I didn't want to do it. But that meant I was a failure, because apparently it is so extremely rare for a mother and baby to be physically incapable of establishing a breastfeeding relationship.

Is is possible that somehow we can acknowledge that actually yes, sometimes the boobs or baby have other ideas about what they "should" be able to do, without compromising the pro-breastfeeding message or endorsing FF? Perhaps there could be more education and support on what else mothers can do to get BM for their babies - exclusive expressing or donated EBM. I think that would be more helpful to me, and mothers like me, who feel like they only have one of two options: baby on the breast, or formula.