Why aren't you breastfeeding? Informal medical school survey for mothers and mothers-to-be.?

I am interested in finding out from recent first-time mothers and mothers-to-be who chose or are choosing not to breastfeed the primary reason(s) you did so. This information may be included in a medical school research project if I get a good response. Please answer!

Why aren't you breastfeeding? Informal medical school survey for mothers and mothers-to-be.?
i breastfed my daughter in the hospital. however i had no milk. so when night came after i had been in labor 22 hours with nothing to drink or eat. because noone even said ice chips were availble. i went unmedicated 13 hours with no change in size because my muscles would completely lock and the baby could go nowhere. i accepted alot of drugs axiety and so many more. so after all that i had the baby at 9.30 pm. and i got a few hours rest. they bring her in the room with me and she is sleeping but all the next day she is screaming , i dont know why. night comes and everyone elses babies are sound asleep and mine is screaming at the top of her lungs. no nurse comes to see if there is a problem. and if they walk by they fly by. my poor husband who hadnt slept in 3 days had to come in at 4 am to try to quiet her. i breastfed for 45 minutes at a time and i told the nurses i had. so they ignored it and let the baby keep crying. so my husband went walking down the hall and finally someone asked if there was a problem. i was so tired and noone noone offered formula or anything . they said they werent allowed to offer it is you are breastfeeding. of course i wasnt al lin my mind after all that went on the day before so i hadnt even thought of formula. so finally one of the nurses pulled my husband aside and suggested formula i in tears accepted. oh by the way they were like yea milk doesnt come in for 3 days. so my baby was starving i was a first time mom and so much had been going on. i had no choice but to use the formula. but after i got home my milk came in a pumped and breastfed for about a month and a half and my milk just dried up . so i had no choice but to go to formula,.i have tried several times since to pump and breastfeed but she just now screams and pushes me away so i gave up , she has been drinking formula alone for 3 1/2 months now. i feel like a bad mom but i dont have a choice.
Reply:There are a couple reasons, one I wasn't producing enough to even keep my baby hydrated properly, you could see it in his skin and his very dark urine by the second day. Two- baby was tongue tied (just slightly) and with me being decently endowed before getting pregnant and being very well endowed by the end of my pregnancy my nipples are too big for his tiny mouth so it was painful and too hard for him. The nurses supplied formula so I tried doing a combination, breast first then bottle. When I got home, after the 5th day the pain was so bad I couldn't put a bra on since when the milk came in I went up yet another bra size, I started pumping. I still put the baby to breast occasionally as a comfort measure for him (it cures his hiccups) and to keep my hormones going since it's supposed to stimulate them. Please know that this is a 2 week old baby that from the day I started him on formula realized he eats 3 to 4 ounces every other feeding and in between will do at least 2. I've learned that it's very uncommon for first time mothers to be able to produce that much right away and even harder for those like me who had a c-section instead of the natural child birth as I missed out on the hormone rush. I've finally gotten up to be able to pump just over 3 oz at a time semi reliably and in time I know I will make more if I am consistent with the pumping. In this way baby gets the best of everything, my milk, formula to make sure he gets enough and time at the boob even if he doesn't get a feeding from it.
Reply:I have formula fed my 6 month old from day one. I had no desire to breastfeed (and yes, I am well educated and know the benefits, etc). I decided that it would be better for me and my daughter to bottle feed. I didn't want the pressure of bf. I am totally happy and content with my decision.
Reply:You'll find that the majority of mothers who do not breastfeed do so because of two reasons:





-Lack of education


-Lack of support





Not knowing HOW breastfeeding works, and how the common pitfalls can occur is the biggest obstacle. It's not just "out the baby to breast and then start". It's a learned skill, one that both mother and baby have to learn.





When your knowledge is imperfect, or comes from someone who has an imperfect understanding (classic example: "My mom and grandmother never made any milk") is a poor start.





The second primary reason is lack of support. A nursing mother needs education, help, and a freakin' cheerleader squad! I had a very difficult first few months, and would never have done it without the support of my husband and lactation consultant. When everyone else was telling me that I should just give up and use formula ("It's so much easier!" they'd all say. Yeah right.), they kept on, and helped me through.





Just reading over the responses I've seen here, I see so many problems that could have been avoided with the right information, and the right support, right from the beginning. You can't even trust many pediatricians' advice... so many never learned about breastfeeding properly in the first place, and never bothered to learn about recent developments.





Some common misconceptions:





- "I don't eat well, so my milk won't be any good." False. Your breastmilk is perfect, even if your diet isn't. Your body will suffer before your baby will.


-" I didn't make enough milk in the hospital" - Your body doesn't begin making actual milk until 2-7 days post partum. Before then, it's colostrum, which is all the baby needs.


-"My mom and sister didn't make enough milk, so I can't." Again, your family history has no effect on your ability to produce milk.


-"Supplementing with formula won't affect your supply." Again, false. Every feeding your baby gets that doesn't come from your breasts is one that your body isn't signaled to make milk for. That one supplemental bottle can start you on the slippery slope to a reduce supply and ultimate failure of the nursing relationship.


-"My baby was constantly hungry because I wasn't making enough milk." 9 times out of 10? False. Newborns eat as often as every HOUR. Breastmilk is very easily digested, and does so quickly. When you're only able to fit an ounce or so in their tummies in the first place, it digests quickly, and they're hungrier sooner. Formula doesn't "fill them up" better... it's harder to digest.


-"You should nurse every three hours for 15 minutes, then switch sides." Not necessarily false, but not necessarily true, either. I'm a firm believer that this advice has led to so many failed nursing relationships. Babies don't read clocks, and should feed on demand. I only switched sides when she mostly emptied one breast, and the flow had slowed enough that she was getting fussy. That was only a few times in 17 months. Babies need to nurse for as long as possible on one breast before switching to ensure that fatty, clalorie-rich hindmilk comes in.





Approximately 5% of women are medically unable to breastfeed.
Reply:My child refused to latch on to my inverted nipples even with a breat sheild.Pumping didn't help.He is on formula 99% and 1% pumped breast milk.
Reply:with my first she could not tolerate the breast milk so i quit after a month, she would throw up every time she ate and scream for an hour each time.





with my second, she just up and quit after three months.





with my twins, they spent so much time in the NICU they never learned to latch on, so i pumped for 3 weeks when i figured out i was not producing enough to feed them both.
Reply:Why did I nurse?


1. The incredible, astounding rates of lower diseases and better health outcomes for both mother and child


2. Because we are mammals and make species specific milk


3. The correct balance of brain-building lipids and proteins


4. Something processed in a factory that comes out of a can cannot possibly be better for my child than what I make


5.How could millions of years of women nursing babies be supplanted by 50 years of fashion?





Here's something you need to know: The VAST majority of women who fail at nursing do so because of a lack of education, support, and the poor, misguided, or flat out inaccuracies perpetrated by medical personnel, specifically pediatricians and poorly-trained nurses.


Just look at the answers you're getting above: nurses going behind mother's backs feeding the babies with formula, doctors telling women they just don't produce enough, it's unconscionable.





Anecdotally, I received some horrible advice from the on-call ped to "top-off" with formula to relieve my newborn's jaundice. This cut my milk supply. I spent two weeks in hell trying to bring it back. It was only because I was so determined to nurse that I kept going. I later did research of published peer reviewed studies--each study said that for normal jaundice the preferred method was increased nursing, NOT formula.





You would not BELIEVE the kind of rotten advice that nursing moms get from medical professionals. I hope your study will help correct some of those outdated and frankly incredibly harmful notions.
Reply:Well, I always wanted to breastfeed ... but it didn't work out ! My son didn't latch on. Tried lactation consultants ... no use !!! ... I cdn't deal with the pressure and finally gave up ! ... Expressed milk for first couple of months and then put him on formula.
Reply:I didn't breastfeed my first because we had latch on difficulties and my husband wasn't supportive and I gave up after *trying* to pump for three months. (That's when I got pregnant with #2 and what little milk I had vanished into thin air.) I had a c-section and by the time I was out of recovery, she was busy getting routine tests. I took a nap and was still asleep the very first time the nurses brought her to me. My husband told them to give her a bottle because I was really tired. I had a "No Bottle, No Pacifier" note on my chart but they gave her a bottle anyway. I missed my first baby's first feeding! I could have killed my husband, and those #%*! nurses.





My second was exclusively breastfed and weaned at 2 1/2 years.





My third was exclusively breastfed until he was 6 days old and my c-section incision became infected. I was put on six or seven different antibiotics, three at a time, for 9 weeks. One of them, Flagyl, isn't safe for babies so I had to pump and dump. (Note to new breastfeeding mothers: Always read prescription labels no matter what your doctor says about a medication. My OB said that all of my antibiotics were safe to take while breastfeeding, but he was wrong. Maybe he didn't care? I could have killed my baby if I had just trusted him! Always ask the pharmacist and read labels!) Anyway, he ended up with (undiagnosed) food allergies that made feeding him in any way difficult because of all the crying and puking. By the time I figured out that he had allergies and removed all the offending food from my diet, I didn't have enough milk and never really recovered my supply completely. I would nurse him so he could get whatever milk I had, then give him a bottle, then nurse him to sleep.





To sum up: First, latch on problems.


Second, breastfed.


Third, medical problems, inadequate supply
Reply:I knew from the second I found out I was pregnant that I would not breastfeed. My mom and my sisters all did, but I had no desire. I am somewhat shy so I don't know if it was partly because of being exposed. Honestly though, I am just really grossed out by it. I was breastfed til I was 2 so I don't know if its some adverse affect.


I also am a terrible eater, so in my situation my breastmilk would have been so unhealthy. My son is a happy, healthy 6 month old!
Reply:I am mixed feeding my baby. I do not have enough milk even if I take lactation supplement to increase my milk supply. My doctor said that some mothers cannot produce enough milk for their baby, in which case, the baby has to be mixed fed.
Reply:Originally, I was pressured into breast feeding my oldest daughter by my husband and his family. In the end I was glad I had done it.
Reply:This sort of research is and has already been done in a more formal way which IS USEFUL! Posting on Yahoo!Answers isn't going to get you a wide response since the majority of new mothers aren't spending any time on Yahoo!Answers. Many of the problems Moms had 8 years ago aren't there today.