OPINION: Breast V Bottle – it’s time to end the great divide

They say if you're having a dinner party some topics to avoid are politics and religion. I think we need to add breastfeeding to this list. Or maybe just baby feeding. And that’s sad.

But why is there such a strong emotional divide on this topic? I think it's fair to say that as parents, we do our very best for our children. We make crucial decisions on a daily basis for our baby, child, for our family, for ourselves. your best. If someone comes along and questions this, or worse, tells you you're doing it wrong, suddenly you begin to doubt yourself. Am I doing this wrong? Therefore, am I NOT doing the best for my child? And then you want to defend yourself by insisting your way is the best, and this is where discussions get heated, no matter what the actual topic happens to be. We all do our best. If someone comes along and questions this, or worse, tells you you're doing it wrong, suddenly you begin to doubt yourself. Am I doing this wrong? Therefore, am I NOT doing the best for my child? And then you want to defend yourself by insisting your way is the best, and this is where discussions get heated, no matter what the actual topic happens to be. If someone comes along and questions this, or worse, tells you you're doing it wrong, suddenly you begin to doubt yourself. Am I doing this wrong? Therefore, am I NOT doing the best for my child? And then you want to defend yourself by insisting your way is the best, and this is where discussions get heated, no matter what the actual topic happens to be. I just wish we could just enjoy our own experience of motherhood without the need to question or judge how anyone else is doing it. I think the topic of Breast vs Bottle will probably always go on, but maybe because I'm sort of stuck in the middle as a bottle feeder who tried to breastfeed, I see it easier from both sides. I would call myself pro breastfeeding. Ok, it didn't go as I had hoped but I'm not sad anymore over the fact it didn't work out for me, I don't feel any less of a bond with my baby or my toddler. So with that in mind and in the interest of trying to close the gap of one versus the other, I want to just highlight that we're all on the same side, and instead of telling each other we're wrong, let's just appreciate how amazing it is just being a mother, however our babies are getting fed. I asked a couple of amazing mothers to write down their own experience of breastfeeding. Why? Because at the end of the day there should be NO sides. Maybe you're pregnant and wondering if you'll try breastfeeding, maybe you're already breastfeeding and will relate to the stories, and maybe you're formula feeding and will still relate to how amazing it is just to be someone's mother. 1. Martina Burke, mother to the beautiful Melissa

"My thoughts about breastfeeding before I had my daughter were: one, I really hoped I could successfully do it and two, that I knew I would need to be determined. I learned at my antenatal class that there would be discomfort at the start but it would ease. I was lucky that my mum had breastfed me (I was born nearly 2 months early) and she was a massive advocate for it. My beautiful daughter was born in September 2016 by Caesarean section and had a good latch (or so I was told). I stayed in hospital for 4 days and we made it through them breastfeeding exclusively. My one regret was not insisting on seeing a lactation consultant. I asked to see one but it wasn't deemed necessary so I didn't force the issue. Hindsight is a great thing but it is such a pity there is not more resources available to breastfeeding mothers in hospital. The downside to us not seeing one was that 3 days after I came home I experienced a lot of pain whilst feeding. Everything I read said that if I was breastfeeding my baby properly that I shouldn't have pain beyond the initial latch... well I did! I didn't know if I was doing something wrong then and my self-confidence started to wane. Thankfully though I was lucky to know a private lactation consultant who helped me and between that and the local breastfeeding support group we managed to stay the course. Subsequently, I met with my local La Leche League and an online group who all were amazing when I had any queries. Having like-minded peers is essential. My little lady was a little slow to gain weight initially but our public health nurse was extremely supportive and advised to keep doing what we were doing and she started to gain weight. From there (about 3 weeks in) things started to get easier. While I didn't quite enjoy breastfeeding at that stage I did feel a huge connection to my girl. Over the next month, breastfeeding became second nature and from then on something I really looked forward to on each occasion. It's empowering and really assists you to get in touch with and trust your natural instincts. Before the big arrival, I was the type of person who would try to fit as much as I could in one day. However breastfeeding our gorgeous girl allowed me to snuggle and cuddle her for long stretches during the day. The bond we have developed is like nothing I could have imagined. It's truly wonderful. I have read that breastfeeding is the first relationship a baby has and how accurate that is. Breastfeeding is far more than feeding, it's a gentle exchange of gestures and words. There is a natural ebb and flow of conservation that only becomes more animated and joyful with time. We have exclusively breastfed now for over 5 months and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon (that still surprises me and is something I am proud of). My daughter has managed to escape getting sick (other than a 2-day head cold) despite being around a lot of people and kids with bugs and viruses over Christmas. Any ailment she has (like dry skin) can be healed with the liquid gold that is breastmilk. The benefits we have seen both physical, practical and emotional cannot be measured. I am so happy that we have had a successful feeding journey.

I broke (and continue to break) many of the traditional 'rules' (according to others) by having our daughter with me most of the time. We cosleep (making our brand new cot a very effective shelf), I baby wear her (and have developed a shopping addiction to slings) and hold her as much as she needs. The result... a very happy Mommy and baby (and Daddy too!!). The best rules to live by are my daughter's. In fact, meeting my daughter's needs is not breaking rules they are in fact respecting time honoured practices. My research (now) has shown me that co-sleeping and baby wearing are more beneficial to her than following the more modern parenting ideals. The 'rules' I break, in my opinion, were adopted to meet the needs of the western world and the proposed needs of parents, they are not baby led. Following my baby's lead in allowing her to develop her own independence at her own pace is enabling her to create secure and strong attachments that will stand to her (I hope) for the rest of her life. I cherish every second with our daughter and am lucky that she seems to enjoy our time together as much as I do. Life has never been as good for me and although it can be challenging sometimes I wouldn't do anything differently other than second guessing myself constantly at the start. I feel that breastfeeding has been central to this and would recommend it hugely to anybody who is having a baby. For me, there wouldn't be another route. It is a pity that breastfeeding is not seen as the norm in our society but hopefully by more and more people sharing their experiences it will. It's a life changing and truly rewarding accomplishment, perseverance at the start pays off a million times over."  

2. Niamh Wynne, mother to the handsome Oisín “I can’t say I ever made the decision to breastfeed. When I found out I was pregnant and as the pregnancy progressed I didn’t really think about how I would feed our baby, I knew I would breastfeed. Breastfeeding, however, was not something I was overly exposed to and although I had friends who had breastfed I had never really talked with them about their experiences.

I instinctively knew that it would be important that I learned as much as could about breastfeeding before baba's arrival. We had done a lot of research on what buggy to buy, this certainly warranted a good chunk of my time. I joined a couple of Facebook groups, where I found really supportive people with amazing advice for new mammy’s. I visited the pages everyday, reading the articles linked to, and googling information referenced in them. I started building up a sense of what breastfeeding involved, what to look out for, where to go for support. As my pregnancy progressed I started to feel prepared and knowledgeable. I knew I’d face into some challenges, I had read lots of accounts from mammies who had, but I felt confident that I had an idea of what to expect and where to turn if I needed it.

When Oisin was born he latched on within a few minutes. The midwives indicated his latch looked good. We fed away and had lots of skin to skin. When we transferred back to the ward I was on such a high. They forgot my tea and toast but I barely noticed! It was hours before I got them (I believe they are the best meal you’ll ever have?). But I was more than happy snuggling away with my beautiful baby as he fed like a champ. Every now and then a midwife would pass by and glance my way, maybe with a passing comment- ‘he’s a pro’. One midwife, when checking something else, indicated she thought he might have a tongue tie. I asked what we should do about it. She suggested we wait and see whether it caused us any issues feeding. It never did.

I had downloaded an app to keep track of feeds. I was supposed to write it all in to the file along with information on his nappies – how many, were they wet, were they soiled? In the haze of happiness and tiredness I kept losing track. But nobody really reviewed it so I decided that I was not going to get overly hung up on it. I knew that as long as he was feeding away and having his wet and dirty nappies we were doing ok. I deleted the app.

We went home the next day. My husband was great. I set up camp on the couch and he looked after us both while I figured out the whole breastfeeding malarkey. On the day my milk came in (I think maybe day 3) my boobs felt so full and quite painful. I couldn’t get the hang of hand expressing to get some comfort so I sent him off in a panic to find me some sort of hand pump so I could express just a small amount for comfort.

Over the next couple of weeks, everything I had read about came to pass. The second night. The sore nipples (lanolin and compresses became my saviours). The cluster feeding at 2 weeks. But I felt equipped for it. I had a sense of what to expect. We fed on demand, I was really enjoying the whole experience and my little boy was doing great.

When he was 2 weeks old we went along to a Friends of Breastfeeding group in a local café. It was lovely to meet other breastfeeding mammy’s. They all had older babies and that was my first encounter in real life with anyone feeding their baby beyond a couple of months. It was all so natural and it was then I realised I was just going to go with the flow and see where it took us. Groups like this are also a great way in the early days to gain confidence feeding in public.

I never experienced any negativity when feeding out and about. In fact quite the opposite. On one occasion a woman approached me in a café and told me it was such a beautiful thing to see. I was beaming after that encounter.

Oisin is 26 months old now. And he still enjoys his milkies. I work full time and prior to returning when he was 8 months I was worried what that would mean for us. So back to the trusty breastfeeding groups (not that I ever left) where I learned it was totally possible to work full time and breastfeed.

Breastfeeding is so convenient. With a baby there a many things that make leaving the house on time a challenge, but preparing for feeding is not one of them. At night you can just roll over and feed baby as you need. When he is sick and off his food I know he is still getting all his nutrients.

Continuing to breastfeed just happened naturally. I briefly contemplated stopping when he turned one, it seemed a natural break. But when the time came there didn’t really seem to be any reason to, he certainly was not ready and I felt it was important to wait until he was. I don’t see any reason to stop something that works so well for our family.

Breastfeeding has been the most amazing thing I have ever done. I look at our beautiful little boy and know that my body grew him for 9 months, nourished him exclusively for a further six and continues to give him the very best. I’m immensely proud of that. “

3. Muireann Lynch, mother to the gorgeous Ailbhe "Breast is best. Of course, we all know breast is best. Honestly, though, as a breastfeeding mother, can I let you in on a little secret? I hate that phrase! I used to agree with it completely, then I came to disagree strongly, and then disagree for different reasons. Breast is simply not best, but I didn’t learn why until I had my own child. I was raised by a woman who breastfed not only me but all six of my siblings. My mother’s friends nearly all breastfed as well, and I grew up surrounded by breastfeeding women. Like all children, I thought my parents could do no wrong, and so when I learned that some women never breastfed and gave their babies bottles instead, I admit that my five-year-old self looked down on them. Later on, I remember being in secondary school and seeing the Home Ec book lay out the ‘benefits’ of both breastfeeding and bottle feeding. The list for breastfeeding was about four times longer! My five-year-old self’s perception was reinforced. As far as I was concerned, breast was best. As I grew older, I began to encounter talk about breastfeeding in the media, on radio and TV and in newspapers and magazines. I began to see a whole new side to breastfeeding. I never remembered my mother battling thrush, mastitis or supply issues that it seemed are par for the course with breastfeeding. None of us had tongue tie. Then my nephew was born and I saw my sister struggle with breastfeeding, ultimately successfully, but it did make me think again. Was my mother some sort of superwoman? Maybe her body just didn’t fail her like other women’s bodies seemed to, on a regular basis. Formula feeding had always seemed to me like a choice women made rather than an inevitable outcome they had to wearily give in to. Breast did not feel like best anymore; it seemed more that women were predestined to have breastfeeding work out or not, but there was little to no choice in the matter. ‘Breast is best’ began to feel like an ugly club with which breastfeeding mothers and health care professionals bashed formula feeding mothers.

I conceived my own daughter Ailbhe in August 2015. I had miscarried the previous April and was still dealing with the emotional fallout. I’ll never forget the helpless feeling I had while miscarrying, of knowing that my own body was letting me and my child down and there was nothing I could do but sit and watch it happen. This, coupled with the near constant stories of women who tried to breastfeed, but had to give up for so many reasons, had me doubting whether I could breastfeed. However I am nothing if not proactive. I did my research. I attended a Preparing to Breastfeed class in my maternity hospital, where I heard even more veteran mothers bemoan the lack of support they had received when nursing their first baby in hospital. I learned about how an epidural makes it harder to establish breastfeeding, and we were all told about the importance of skin-to-skin immediately after birth. The midwife warned us about Night Two, that the baby would be awake and crying all night, but just to keep feeding: the baby’s nursing would make my milk come in. I took it all on board, feeling more nervous but also glad that I had the information I required in advance. Thanks to my waters breaking unceremoniously early, meconium in the amniotic fluid and the baby’s positioning in the womb, I did end up having not only an epidural but an instrumental delivery and an episiotomy as well. The baby had to be taken after only a few minutes of skin-to-skin to be checked by a member of the paeds team. I knew I was doing all the ‘wrong’ things to get my breastfeeding journey off to the best start, but I tried to go with the flow. I have three vivid memories from the labour ward. The first was obviously seeing my daughter’s little face for the first time, and hearing her cry. The second is seeing my husband hold my daughter for the first time. And the third memory is feeding her for the first time. The midwife told me to lie on my side and she lay my daughter next to me. She talked me through it, ‘tummy to tummy, nipple to nose...’ and I felt the latch for the first time. I can’t describe how it felt. It felt nothing like I expected. It wasn’t pleasant or unpleasant, it was just so firm, so strong, so determined. It was like the baby knew exactly what she was doing. I realised for the first time how perfect the word ‘latch’ was to describe what the baby was doing. She was latching firmly onto me, her lifeline, and was doing the only thing she knew to do. We were in this together, just like we had been for my whole pregnancy. It was a moment of amazing clarity for me.

I was discharged quickly from the hospital and so was at home for the dreaded Night Two. This was where it would all fall apart. I would want to sleep. I would want to cry. I would want to throw in the towel. I would need to push through. I think there was about one hour that night where all three of us slept at the same time. Apart from that, my husband slept while I fed the baby, and I slept while he walked with her. I would feed until I had to switch sides or else stop altogether, at which point I would latch her off using my little finger as the midwives had shown me. It was a constant cycle of latching, unlatching, latching, unlatching, but it all felt like the right thing to do. I was tired, sure, but I wasn’t exhausted, and wasn’t this what I had signed up for anyway? Day three was when I have my next vivid memory of Ailbhe. It is as engrained in my brain as my first feed. The midwife had just been to visit, and had told me, to my surprise, that my milk was in! I couldn’t believe it had come in so quickly. After she left, I sat down to feed Ailbhe – again. She latched on and fed away as usual, and then, for the first time ever, she unlatched by herself, rolled back on my arm, and fell asleep. She slept like a log, for the first time in two days. I couldn’t believe it! This milk thing was magic! It was like I was manufacturing some kind of sleeping potion! On day five Ailbhe was due to be weighed. This was the moment I was dreading. She was feeding well, but I knew that if she had lost too much weight the dreaded top-ups would enter the picture for the first time. I knew the danger of top-ups – the more formula the baby drinks, the less breastmilk she would drink, which meant my body would make less breastmilk. The midwife arrived with her scales. She asked would I like to weigh the baby first or would I prefer to have her check the feeding first. I opted to feed first – anything to stuff a few more grams into the baby! I needn’t have worried – Ailbhe was only 80g down on her birthweight, which was fantastic! Finally, I relaxed – my body was doing just what it was supposed to do, and so was Ailbhe. Two days later, at one week old, she was 120g over her birthweight, and I was discharged from the midwives’ care. The next few weeks passed with lots of night feeds and Netflix, and the baby continued to fall blissfully asleep after each feed – just for a few hours, but as a new mother, you take whatever you can get! I couldn’t believe how straightforward it all was. Where was the excruciating pain I had heard about? Where were all the negative comments? Why wasn’t anyone pushing formula? Why wasn’t I being stared at when I fed while out and about?

It’s not that I don’t think those things happen to women who breastfeed. I just realise now that I genuinely thought those things happened to all women who breastfeed. In fact, since my youngest brother had weaned when I was ten, my experience of breastfeeding – mostly from the media – was almost universally negative. It’s really remarkable that we have let this negative image of breastfeeding continue unabated. Does it contribute to our incredibly low breastfeeding rates? Quite possibly. The best comparison I can think of, strangely enough, is sex. Some people jump in the sack for the first time and have the time of their lives without a bother. Most people take a while to get the hang of things, and are learning with their partner, possibly for an extended period, how to have an enjoyable sexual experience. Some people encounter dreadful difficulties having sex and need to seek professional help in order to get to the bottom of these issues. This, however, is a well-kept secret that few people other than healthcare professionals know about. We don’t let the fact that some people have difficulty having sex completely dominate the discussion. Furthermore, no one would suggest that someone experiencing difficulty having sex should just give up altogether. At this stage, Ailbhe is nearly ten months old, drinks water from a cup and eats solids, but I’m still breastfeeding. If I keep breastfeeding until she is one I will never have to give her formula. I have so many little memories of her feeding, each one a milestone in itself: how she learned to latch on herself without needing me to help, how she learned to stop rooting for milk in every pair of arms and just in mine, how she learned to pull at my top to let me know she’s thirsty. These are things that before I would have found weird, but now they really do feel like a normal part of our journey. We’ve learned it all together and I am proud of us both. I often wonder if I should describe myself as ‘lucky’ to have had the smooth breastfeeding journey I have had. The truth is I simply don’t know if I am lucky. We don’t know how many women gave up breastfeeding due to a genuine medical issue, or how many gave up due to lack of awareness, lack of information and lack of support. We also don’t know how many women gave up, or never started in the first place, due to the negative narrative surrounding breastfeeding. I don’t know if I would ever have breastfed myself, had I not had a positive experience of breastfeeding from my childhood. I think language is important, and while I am fortunate that I did not experience any of the very real difficulties many women experience, I hesitate to say Ailbhe and I were lucky. It really just feels like Ailbhe and I did what we were always meant to do. This is why breast is not best. Breast is not best; breast is natural. Breast is biologically normal. Breast is not societally normal, as a high minority of infants receive no breastmilk ever and the vast majority of infants receive formula at some point. Right now, from society’s perspective, formula is normal, even though biology says otherwise.

By saying breast is best, it implies that I am doing something extra, something special, or something better for Ailbhe, compared to other mothers. I completely disagree. I am doing my best for my child, and every other parent I know is doing the same. This applies no matter how our children are fed." Huge thank you to Martina, Niamh and Muirreann for writing and sharing their experience. Catch up with Jen Ryan (a 30-something, married mam of two little munchkins and two dogs) on her hilarious blog, thescenicroutebyjen.com or on her Facebook page.