If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Should formula milk be prescription-only to encourage breastfeeding?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
.
0
Comments
We are already in a position where the national policy borders on bullying, this would just tip the scale a little further. Just as there should be no stigma attached to breastfeeding, neither should there be to using formula milk.
Did anyone else hear about this story?
Thoughts?
If that's true then it is absolutely shocking behaviour from the NHS. However, I can't imagine that they would really send letters to parents who had already breastfed for 4 months, celebrity or not, bullying them into carrying on. Surely they have more important things to spend their time, energy and money on?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6719696.ece
Was it you who sent the lettter MoK :d ?
Reading the story I'm not sure if she was personally targetted (ie someone saw her feeding from the bottle and sent her a letter) - which would be wrong or more likely she was part of a targetted mailshot aimed at all mothers, in which case its another way of subsidising Royal Mail
This.
The way to encourage mothers to breastfeed is to promote breastfeeding as normal and natural, not to make out like formula is the antichrist. So no, I don't think it should be prescription only.
Have to disagree with this though, at least in my experience.
In this area, bottlefeeding is the norm. My baby was prescribed some medicine in powder form, and when I asked the doctor how I should give it to her, he said, 'you just mix it in the milk'. When I said, 'but the milk is in my boobs!' he looked at me like I had three heads. Similarly, one of my friends went to her 6 week check, and he asked her how many bottles the baby had a day. When she said she was breastfeeding, he replied, 'what, STILL?!'.
The support here for breastfeeding is excellent (despite the lack of people actually doing it!), but they always make a point of saying that if you feel like you want to switch to formula, you should contact the breastfeeding link worker and she'll help you through the transition. There are even a couple of formula feeding mums who come to our surestart breastfeeding support group.
I think what you see there is the difference between "national policy" and GPs.
National Policy is to push up the rate of breastfeeding. When I say push, I mean it's done to the point that women are starting to complain about not feeling like they actually do have a choice.
TBH I'm not sure it was done as an attempt to bully, given that she stated she gave up because of the stigma when she fed in public.
It would seem that National Policy has not reached my shady little corner of Yorkshire
What happens when you run out of formula at 3 in the morning?
I think women (and babies) should have a choice of whether they want to breastfeed or formula feed.