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

[kezzza4]

I think there's a definite lack of education of breastfeeding & how to do it!!!!!! Yes, I did attend antenatal classes but the one on breastfeeding was deferred & I'd given birth by then!!!!
I was extremely naive thinking that it was natural & that there was nothing to it at all. Raised on a farm watching calves & lambs & kittens & puppies..............I mean, no one shows them how to do it!!!!! It's completely 100% natural!!!!!
I had the birth from hell................I had PPH [post partum haemorrhage] losing at least 2.5 litres of blood immediately after delivery. I was in no physical condition whatsoever to breastfeed. I was literally unable to even lift my own finger!!!
36 hours later I was given 2 units of blood ie. blood transfusion however I believe I could have done with twice that amount.
Because of everything that had happened I was induced, dd was born 15 days early etc she was also jaundiced & I think around day 4 or 5 had to go into an isolette. I also moved from the birthing hospital back to my 'home' hospital [bad mistake that was].
The midwives at the first hospital gave conflicting advice as to what to do. I had huge probs with dd latching properly. Please also remember I was battling to even hold my own newborn baby!!!!!!
As previously mentioned, moving back to my 'home' hospital was something we really lived to regret. DD wasn't gaining weight & we were having ongoing issues with her latching pretty much refusing my left breast altogether. One '*****' of a midwife kept on giving her water!!!!!!!!!! As if that was helping us!!!!! Later on I told her to stop giving her water & she went off at me saying that as far as she was concerned I was starving my child!!!!!!!!!! And yet she was the ***** giving her water all the time!!!!!
Pretty much everything had gone wrong it really had. For those of you who don't know, aren't aware, after having PPH there IS genuine difficulty re breastfeeding for obvious reasons. Your body has been through hell literally!!!
For us there was lack of sleep, lack of support, lack of care............honestly the midwives/nurses were pretty much no use at all. I loved one of the night nurses though with midwife experience. She was honest & down to earth & said to me during the early hours one morning when I was having probs yet again with Krystalee feeding from the left breast...............that she'd had the same thing with her own son & actually continued to feed from the one breast only. And, it wasn't a problem at all!!! She also said the sooner I could get home to my own routine the better.
I was in 'jail' for 10 days!!!!!!!!! I was that stressed out about my ability to breastfeed at home, alone...........that I even bought gear to express etc. The funny thing was, the minute we were home dd fed from my left breast!!!!!!!!!!
I had midwives grabbing at my nipples...........telling me to do this...........hold dd like that etc etc etc. 99% of them didn't 'consider' what I'd been through & why I was having so many problems & combined with a jaundiced baby [they like to sleep all the time] we of course were having many many issues to deal with. The 1 night nurse whom I did like even said to me, in years gone by, I would have been 1 of those women who actually died from childbirth!!!
I wish 'all' midwives not just some of them, had compassion & understanding. I don't really care that they do this day in & day out. It's their job. I don't care that some women have absolutely no problems breastfeeding & therefore supposedly all women should be the same.........'cos we're not!!!! We're all individuals & we're all unique. We shouldn't be made to feel guilty, like failues, like there's something wrong with us etc if we are experiencing probs with breastfeeding.
BTW, I went on to breastfeed for 18 months!!!! For the first 3 months I felt like quitting every single day. It was painful. It was hard. It was time consuming. I was extremely drained & in poor physical condition. Extremely sleep deprived, in the first few weeks, having to breastfeed 24/7 every single 3 hours 'cos of dd's jaundice.
Without my husband's support, he was actually my carer in hospital I would never have made it!!! He was my rock & my only rock!!!! DD made the decision to wean at 18 months. After everything that I'd been through I would have kept going for much longer if she had wanted it!!!!
I also miss it now!!!! Once she stopped breastfeeding so often & for so long, probably once solids started at 6 months, it was definitely a lot more enjoyable. There is a distinct lack of support & respect towards breastfeeding mothers in society!!!
OK enough from me!!!!!!! I've probably gone off-track a bit here & there, but I suppose the main thing is more education, more 'consistency' with what midwives say & do, more support & more compassion & empathy!!!
Kerry

[Bathsheba]

Yep, night nurses weren't as helpful in my experience either.... that applies to when I was in hospital for other reasons (knee surgery) as well. That was probably a bit off topic but I also just wanted to say that I agree with uniformity of advice as well... I know every mum is different but there should at least be an agreed-upon set of successful strategies to use with mums who are having difficulty with feeding... at the moment it seems like this just doesn't exist.

I'm also really starting to feel curious as to what a full-on BFing education campaign could achieve... you know, with schools/ TV commercials/ popular magazine notices etc... not just the current posters and booklets but a more mass media presence. Would people simply get defensive? Could it really make a difference? Think about other community education campaigns: smoking/drink driving/domestic violence... how effective have they been? I'm not saying they have or have not been effective but how long would it take to make a difference? A generation? I guess incorporating BFing education into the school curriculum would have the greatest chance of success in changing the current trends... (just thinking aloud at this point). What I would love to see also is the de-sexualisation of breasts for the BFing mum... but how on earth can we dismantle generations of voyerism of breasts for a "bit of a thrill".... but I guess I'm just sick of sex being thrust (excuse the pun) at us all the time... it's so damaging for us as a society on so many levels.

[maz]

My gf's and I had this discussion not long ago. We thought that the reason a lot of 'mummys' dont bf is due to the shortened length of stay in hospital (12 hours in some cases).
eg
When I had NIkolaus I was out within 3 days after having an emergancy c/s after a long 23hour labour. I was confussed, lacked the support of so called health professions and felt very depressed about what had happened. I also had no milk and dint realise that it came in around day 3 -4. Hench, I didnt BF and choice to FF instead.
Wilhelm,...hm I thought, IM not going down the same road again, had loads of milk and yet the nurses failed to help me bf. another ff baby.
Vyolett, I demanded that I got Vy in recovery and put her straight on my boob. I had the best midwife possible. I voiced my concerns about not being able to bf my 2 boys and she helped me all the way. She sat with me for hours and helped me with gentle words and motivating praise. I stayed in hospital for 5 days and the whole time my midwife pushed for me to stay until I could bf Vy correctly and felt comfortable within myself.
I managed to bf Vy for one month when I got mastites in both bb's and decided through lack of community MCHN support that i could no longer do 'this'.
Does that mean im going to not try for my fourth? NO WAY! my goloshies will be hauled out and made to do what the great man invented them to do.
Do you know who has supportived me the whole way through my bf experience with Vy???? All the wonderful girls on Belly belly, thats who.
Mauw

[Tobily]

Does that mean im going to not try for my fourth? NO WAY! my goloshies will be hauled out and made to do what the great man invented them to do.

LOL Maz that made me laugh out loud

But your story shows what a difference a committed, supportive midwife providing consistent one-on-one care can make. Kudos to her (and you )

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Oh and the grabbing of my boobs !

And then the "do you mind?" well, bit late for that one now, darling!

I think all new mums should have a woman who has successfully BFed and knows how to stand up to those evil midwives who seem to want us to all get PND on hand all day! Or maybe a team of us LOL. That would have helped me a lot.

[tinablueyes]

I would have to say lack of education. I always wanted to breast feed because I know that it is the best option for baby. However I was also lucky enough to be aware in advance that not everyone can. At our ante-natal class a whole 2 hour session was dedicated to breastfeeding. This entailed during a breast on an inflated condom complete with milkducts etc. It was emphasised that it was natural and the best thing to do. However at no point was it mentionned that lots of mothers have problems, not every baby gets it straight away, it was just implied that it was easy. When my darling son was born he couldn't attach properly and we had real problems. It turned out that I had flat nipples. I was very lucky that I had some good midwives in hospital but they all had their own ways of doing things. We persevered and I was kept in for 4 days to try and resolve the situation. We were sent home and he still wasn't really getting the hang of it. I had 2 EMS visits from midwives who both helped me with the breast feeding and took the time to help. However from that point on I was on my own, we went backwards because he forgot how to attach and couldn't feed. At this point I phoned my community health centre who told me they could fit me in for an appointment in 8 days. I phoned the maternity ward and explained the situation and was lucky to speak to a lactation consultant who brought me back in and spent 1.5 hours with me showing me and emphasising that the fact that I was still trying to breastfeed after mastitis, cracked and bleeding nipples, flat nipples and no support from the clinic was a real credit to me. Thanks to her help we persevered and have now mastered it - though only by using a nipple sheild. My DS is gaining weight and is happy. We need more lactation consultants in the system and way more support once you get home. It is too easy to quit and switch to formula - which incidentally is exactly what my doctor told me to do after 5 minute consultation. There also needs to be a lot more information about how it is not easy, it doesn't happen overnight and you are not a failure if it doesn't happen immediately. That was how I felt but thankfully I did find good supportive midwives, but they are overworked and underappreciated. More are needed.
Sorry that's me saying my piece!
Joanne

[Claire]

Lack of education all round.

My experience of starting out in breastfeeding was difficult. My daughter was whisked away to NICU and then special care. No one told me I could breastfeed her (a lady made a comment along the lines of you weren't here so we gave her formula). I was devastated and knew I had to do something. So I initialised breastfeeding and comp fed until day 3 when she was discharged to ante-natal and I weaned her off the bottle, unto the cup, onto the breast using a nipple shield (told I had flat nipples) and then off breast shields. The whole time refusing to be discharged until I felt ready. Amazed when I think back, that we actually acheived a breastfeeding relationship and maintained it until recently.

My experience of the midwifery staff was like most I think; some made sense to me and others gave random advice and didn't look like they even wanted to be there. My head midwife commented on my breastfeeding without having read my file and left me feeling very deflated and lacking in confidence. But she was the only one really, everyone else did their best to help even though it was conflicting advice at times.

[Danni]

im sorry i dont have time to read back through the posts....but has anyone mentioned the lack of public acceptance in regards to breast feeding?

[karenmc]

This is a hard decision. Definitely think lack of education, lack of continuity of care and conflicting advice after birth are the main ones and they definitely overlap. The continutity of care got my vote - though I would add that the continuity should be with a known midwife/LC who is educated & skilled at breastfeeding support....not someone who didn't have the training! As a naturopath, I have definitely seen the benefits of women who I have referred to private LCs....providing that wonderful ongoing care and advice over the first few difficult weeks with feeding. I have also seen too many who have stopped breastfeeding due to all sorts of reasons (not enough milk, poor weight gain, pain etc) that I firmly believe more came down to poor education and lack of support from both family/friends and health professionals. The ones who perservere despite enormous difficulties (I can include myself here) are the ones who are educated and passionate about the benefits of breastfeeding for their baby. We need more women in the antenatal setting to get the education because in the postnatal setting it is often too late.
Good luck with the government inquiry! Karen x

[MantaRay]

Reading some of the other experiences makes me really sad. When I was having the problems with Jack attaching due to his tongue-tie, I was asked if I was ready to go home after 4 nights. At that stage he wouldn't attach (but I was told my nipples were the problem not the tongue-tie) so I was expressing. Then at each feed, with a mw or lc helping, I would try to attach a starving, screaming baby causing him to become more and more distressed. Then I would feed him the EBM in a bottle and express again. I was exhausted and I told them I wanted to stay an extra night to try and get the feeding working. I was obviously very lucky as I was told I could stay, and at midnight on that last night, the mw that delivered Jack finally got him to attach with nipple shields. So at least by the time I went home I was able to bf. As I mentioned in my pp, it was 3 weeks later that I discovered that the tongue-tie was the real problem, got it snipped and went on to successfully feed without nipple shields for 14 months (then he self weaned ). The point of this post is that I can't imagine how I could have managed if I'd been sent home before the feeding with nipple shields was established. I can only imagine that despite my determination to bf, I too would quite likely have ended up ffing. It's so easy to see how it happens.

[Liz]

I think all new mums should have a woman who has successfully BFed and knows how to stand up to those evil midwives who seem to want us to all get PND on hand all day! Or maybe a team of us LOL. That would have helped me a lot.

Do you know who has supportived me the whole way through my bf experience with Vy???? All the wonderful girls on Belly belly, thats who.

Maybe we need BB visiting rosters LOL. A few b/f mums go and visit the new BB mums at hossy and help sort through all the nonsense from the midwives, and LC's for that matter too.. they all gave me different advice too.

I agree with the uniformity of advice too. Chopping and changing feeding positions each feed etc coz of different advice doesn't help anyone. At least give one method a good try before trying the next iykwim. Everything needs practice. There's not usually some magic position that will suddenly work.

[BellyBelly]

I loOoooove your ticker pic Liz... I get all warm and fluffy every time I see it. Waaaah I am going to be past that soon!!!!

[Liz]

Aww thanks Kelly! I was pretty thrilled myself when I found it on the camera LOL. I totally forgot DH had taken it.

[Carly54]

Definately the accessibility of artificial milk!!! it wouldn't matter how uneducated people were if artificial milk wasn't accessible then bf would be the first port of call for feeding options.

My first baby wouldn't go on the breast from day one - even after every midwife in the place came and had a go... by day three he needed to eat so I had to give him expressed breastmilk, then of course I had to keep giving him a bottle as he very quickly got used to the teat instead of my breast... it was AWFUL!

Even going to the daystay on day 6 was a nightmare, the midwife couldn't get him on and at the end of the day sent me home saying offer breast every 3 - 4 hours... knowing he wasn't going on AT ALL... let me tell you, I should have put him on formula right then and there - I feel that midwife should have informed me about formula!!

After 2 weeks of expressing every single feed for him, I chose to go and buy one of those ugly tins... however lack of education meant that I didn't know which tin to choose! I have never seen an ad for formula and seeing all of the different types was way too much to bear, if I saw that it said ARTIFICIAL MILK, it would have been even more upsetting to me than it already was! I thought I would NEVER give a child milk in a tin.

Please remember that some mothers do want to breastfeed but simply cannot.

[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.

[~Saram~]

Kelly, I can't believe the number of mums I meet these days that are bottle feeding and tell me there milk dried up at 6wks, esp younger mums (17-25) I think the ABA needs to give out a pamphet that addresses this and put it in the bounty bag or something. In my experience it is usually the mothers and gradmothers who tell these mums that their milk dried up at the same time, don't wory dear not everyone can breastfeed, and now I can give the baby a bottle!

[Renee Elizabeth]

I voted for lack of support from family, friends etc. I was lucky in that I educated myself about breastfeeding and had a supportive husband. I also had two close friends (who unfortunately lived many hours away!) but were breastfeeding when I started to feed Marnie. I was often told that I didn't have enough milk or How did I know how much she was getting with each feed? I was also told that I wouldn't be able to continue if I returned to work - I did and introduced my work place to breastfeeding mother's rights.
Mothers of the past have a lot of influence on new mums and perhaps they are the ones who need the education? I currently have a friend now who breastfeeds but is too embaressed to breastfeed in public and expresses for each feed?????? This alarms me - where is the stigma coming from?

[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