What do you think is the biggest barrier to breastfeeding In Australia?

[Melly01]

I think lack of education, but honestly all of the choices can be big contributing factors..

It was so sad a few months ago at my young mothers group, a girl was having issues with breast feeding, and instead of trying to listen to her and support her, because she seemed to desperately want to BF, the girls she were talking to were saying things like "I saw a show about breastfeeding that said that formula is actually more nourishing than breast milk, so there is no need for you to even bother with it". I have never really "fitted in" there so I didn't think it was my place to barge in.

I actually used to get stares from them when I was BF DS when he was 12 months old. I almost felt like a leper or something. Also the MCHN who would come to weigh our babies told me DS wasn't gaining enough weight for his age (then 11months) (he had just been ill and had also recently started crawling so I thought that was the reason. I explained it to her, but she didn't seem to think anything I was saying was valid.) and that I should drop his feeds and replace them with formula. I just felt like I as trying to do what I wanted to do for DS and was being discouraged by people.

But on the upside, when DS was a few weeks old and my nipples were cracked, bleeding and bruised, I was crying during every feed and wanting to give it all up. The support of my family and exs family helped me get through it. Plus my determination that no matter how hard it got (I was told it wouldn't be easy, DS & I both had to learn how to BF, after all) I would do what I personally believed to be the best option for both of us.

[Smoke Jaguar]

Carly, it has been mentioned quite a few times here in this thread that we are talking about the people who CAN BF but don't They're the ones whose reasons could give us clues as to where the education needs to start, be directed etc. This thread is not intended to make anyone feel inadequate, it's asking a valid question. We need to be able to talk about so that it becomes less of a mystery for mummies.
I know of a woman who tried BFing for less than a week and went to formula because 'it hurt' to BF... as if it's a walk in the park for the rest of us! She had her second baby and didn't think twice, just put her onto formula and EBM - won't bother with actual breastfeeding because 'it hurts too much'. Everyone dances around her so as not to cause offence, so when I realised one day that I'd turned up to a get together wearing my 'I make milk...what's your superpower?' t-shirt, I felt like a walking criticism. Why? Why can't I be proud of what I do for my son? Why can't I be proud about getting through 4 excruciating weeks of tongue-tie, oversupply, grazed and bleeding nipples, humungous boobs? I DID feel like a superpower. And I refuse to condescend to women who don't BF, for whatever reason (as in, I feel it would be patronising to FFeeders to consciously cut it out of my conversation or talk it down whilst feeding DS, as if they need to be protected from real life!). I'm not going to second-guess their reasons, it's up to them. But at the same time, I'm not going to shrink away from the fact that I've done this magical thing for my boy, out of some misplaced guilt that someone else couldn't. Geez, that's like pretending I don't have a son when I know I'm going to be talking to someone who is dealing with infertility or miscarriage...or someone who has lost a child of any age.
Sorry, that's a bit of a tangent, but it IS related. We seem to feel the need to downplay how great it is to breastfeed in order to be inoffensive. We need to get past that or there are women who will miss out on that anecdotal evidence, they won't have that in the backs of their minds when they are going through that initial attachment period and other people's success stories won't get them through that because they won't have heard many. They'll be hearing an apologetic 'but it's just as fine if you feed formula'. Cos it's not. Formula can be fed instead of BM where it is not possible to feed BM, but it will never be anywhere near LIKE BM, and no amount of apologising is going to erase that fact.
That's what I mean about a rock and a hard place. Exalt Bfing and dump the guilts on FF mummies

[MamaDuke]

I know of a woman who tried BFing for less than a week and went to formula because 'it hurt' to BF... as if it's a walk in the park for the rest of us! She had her second baby and didn't think twice, just put her onto formula and EBM - won't bother with actual breastfeeding because 'it hurts too much'. Everyone dances around her so as not to cause offence

See, I along with this other poor mum didn't know this and not once while I was in hospital did ANY health care professional ever say to me that it is going to hurt.
I remember sitting on the chair, toes curled, neck all tense, nipples bleeding, crying my eyes out...I started to resent my baby and absolutely dread feeds.
Maybe the fact that some people are so judgemental stops people like me and this particular lady from seeking advice/help and persevering with it.

[Smoke Jaguar]

MamaDuke, that is my point exactly - it is unrealistic to say that BFing shouldn't hurt, when in fact it CAN hurt initially! The first time round, for the lady I'm talking about, I can sort of understand where she's coming from. Second time round there isn't much excuse - she is surrounded by BFers and her SIL who had a baby that same year as her the first time continued to BF for 2 and a half years. SIL also had initial attachment issues...for about 6 weeks. There ARE some people who take the 'easy' option (I would only say this if I had heard women say it themselves, which I have), and there are those who believe that they are having undue problems because no-one has told them that it can be hard and it can hurt.
This lady doesn't want help, she does believe that formula is as good as human milk - she has fallen for the spiel from the formula company reps (as she was in the pharmacy industry).
Not wanting to talk about specific people, though - I brought it up because I believe it is symptomatic.