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Breastfeeding & Peer pressure?!
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Hi all, I'm a student midwife in my final year and have been looking at breastfeeding influences and in particular I'm looking at peer pressure.
I just wanted to ask some people their views/stories about breast feeding & peer pressure really to gauge the impact and the effect of this.
Really appreciate any help
I just wanted to ask some people their views/stories about breast feeding & peer pressure really to gauge the impact and the effect of this.
Really appreciate any help
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However if a woman is uncomfortable with breast feeding, if they or the baby have issues with it, or for whatever reason it just isnt working out then you have to go with bottle fed.
I guess feeding time on a bottle allows a father a little more of a chance to bond with a child (in the fathers mind), however a well looked after child should make little difference to the ability for fathers to bond with.
All in all breast feeding is what is supposed to happen, but I don't think that it is the best if breast feeding does cause problems for mother and/or child.
I think its starting to get better, especially amongst more educated people, but theres still a long way to go
For something that's so normal and so natural, there's a lot of bad feeling, judgement and misinformation in both camps. Best one I've heard lately is that breastfeeding is middle class :chin:
In my experience people tend to follow what their friends and family have done. I was breastfed, most of my family breastfed their babies, and my friends were pretty much half and half, so to me it never occured to me that I wouldn't breastfeed. But if you came from a background where everyone you knew bottlefed, you probably would too. I would think you'd need to be quite strongminded to break out of that, cause you'd get a lot of judgement for doing something different.
I am not a mother but I have been quite shocked at seeing how many women have had problems with this and that problems are a lot more common that I would have imagined - I possibly wouldn't have even considered it to be something troublesome.
I think overall there are lots of conflicting thoughts and opinions about breast feeding and that lots of mums feel like they are useless of they cant do it or have to use bottles.
I have no problem with women breast feeding their child and I think that women should feel comfortable to breast feed in public places.
I though there was something wrong with me until my neighbour came round and said have you broken through the pain threshold yet and gave me some good nipple cream and some shell things.
I think it probably is quite a middle class thing to do though - i'm pretty sure there is a statistic which correlates the amount of education you have to your likelihood to breastfeed - I think your also more likely to do it as an older mum as well as you've often had to sacrifice more to have a child and are therefore more likely to want to make sure that you do everything right.
I think you're right in that middle class people are more likely to do it, but I don't think it's necessarily a middle class thing to actually do. It's not exactly polo
I also agree that it's not always easy to start with. This is where support makes a massive difference. I had the people around me saying 'it'll get better in a couple of weeks, you're doing fine' all the time, so I got over the hump. If they'd been all been saying 'you're obviously doing it wrong, why not just put her on bottles?', tbh I think that in my vulnerable, hormonal, new mum state, there's a fair chance I would have.
I had a breastfeeding councillor say this to me but I just went and found someone else to ask - after getting a recommendatory from the national breastfeeding help line - but I am a very stubborn person.
the reason i ask is that my mum didn't breastfeed any of her children and we've all turned out alright.
i don't have children so cannot really comment too much on this. when i have children though, i'll probably give breastfeeding a go to see how i find it. however, i'll be honest, the thought of it terrifies me because i've been told it hurts lots. i have also been told that after breastfeeding your nipples/boobs look horrible. i'm not sure how true this is as the blokes in work have told me this whose wives have breastfed (lovely of them eh?). of course, i'd put the health of my child before my looks but you know, it is something that concerns me and i know concerns other friends of mine. there is also the fact that by breastfeeding, it means the bloke can never help out with the feeding. it would be very tiring.
You can sleep whilst breastfeeding
It only hurts for a bit to start with once you've got it right its fine
I don't think it particually damages your boobs if anything it is probably better for them as your milk will come in anyway and make them huge and painful and if you don't breastfeed then they will deflate rather rapidly rather than if you do you can manage the deflation - i've not seen any difference in mine now they have stopped except for being slightly bigger - but i know people who've also ended up with smaller.
My friend who bottlefed ended up with wrecked boobs too.
I also know people who breastfed whos boobs were absolutely fine afterwards, and people who bottlefed who were fine, so i think its probably down to genetics and luck.
4 grand soon perked them up again anyway
Breastmilk is the perfect nutrition for babies, which alters on a feed-by-feed basis to give them exactly what they need at that particular time. There are benefits for the baby and there are benefits for the mother. But formula isn't poison! It's a perfectly acceptable, healthy way to feed a child when a mother can't or doesn't want to breastfeed.
Bottlefed babies don't grow up with three heads or anything
:no: i wouldn't be able to sleep whilst breastfeeding.
i'd be terrified of squashing my baby!
the reason i ask is that i've watched some programs where some women still breastfeed their children when they are toddlers?!
As long as you want! A couple of weeks is good (the first milk has loads of really good things in it for the baby), 6 months is great and a year is brilliant. After a year it's personal choice, really, but apparently most babies wean themselves off the breast anyway somewhere between 1 and 2 years. There's no overwhelming evidence that it's particularly beneficial healthwise after a year, but a lot of mums and babies just like the closeness.
I'm still going (Superbaby is 6 months now) but I'll probably stop in the next couple of months because I've got to go back to work soon and tbh I cannot be jiggered with the hassle of expressing every day I'm away from her.
as long as you and baby are happy with it.
i did 4mths, 10mths and 6mths respectively
ha, doubt i'll have that sort of cash spare once i've got kids to look after!!! kids are expensive!!!!!
Ahhh yes the amazingness of being able to eat as much cake as you wan't - i was sooooooooo hungry the whole time it was stupid - back to eating normally now thankfully though