‘Well, if it’s good enough for a Prince…’
Is breast-feeding best? Quite possibly (though my two young kids have seldom suffered so much as a cold, are fit, healthy and full of beans – and both were bottle fed).
I don’t question the health benefits of breast-feeding, certainly in the earliest stages when mum’s natural anti-bodies are passed on.
But for the women who find they simply cannot breast feed, get baby to latch on or produce enough milk – there should be no doubt in their mind that it is FINE to bottle feed, despite the propaganda machine that will try to brainwash them otherwise.
Why do I feel so strongly? I watched my wife struggle to feed our firstborn.
What were supposed to be magical first days bonding with her daughter were instead tearful and agonizing. As she was unable to produce milk, our baby lost almost two pounds within four days, becoming so weak she refused to even attempt to latch on.
Yet the midwife, health visitor and breast-feeding counsellor summoned to our home insisted EVERY woman can breast-feed and stood over her, forcing her to carry on in vain.
She told us the ‘blood’ was in fact our baby’s concentrated urine, due to lack of fluids.
Every night our baby screamed with hunger pains. By the fourth day she had stopped crying. The top of her head was sunken – a sure sign she wasn’t getting enough fluid during a boiling hot August. More worrying was a reddish brown patch in her nappy. Was it blood?
We showed it to the midwife who suddenly looked concerned. She told us the ‘blood’ was in fact our baby’s concentrated urine, due to lack of fluids.
Panicked, I told her I was going out to buy formula milk and that we’d immediately start bottle-feeding. Her reaction? “I’m glad you said that. I’m not allowed to promote bottle feeding.”
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I have never felt so furious. Five years later, I am still seething with anger that health workers would sit and watch my baby suffer - almost to the point of being hospitalized - because it’s more important to be slavishly ‘on message’ that breast-feeding is best.
My message to any mums-to-be out there? Whatever you choose for your baby - breast or bottle - you are absolutely right. (You can even wean earlier than six months if you want, just don’t tell your health visitor I told you that or they’ll hunt me down and shoot me!)
I don’t believe all mums can breast feed, but I do believe all mums know what is best for themselves and their babies. And don’t let anyone tell you any different.