Breastfeeding Rant!

There was some research out last week about how breastfed babies are smarter. I won’t link to it, cause, well, fuck ‘em, basically.

First, some background.

We had a problem when it came to breast feeding, in that Isaac for whatever reason, just didn’t take to it. He wouldn’t latch and every attempt to do so caused a screaming match and after a few exhausting days during which my wife used the breast pump for what seemed like hours each day to get only the smallest amount of milk, we decided that bottle feeding was going to be the way to go, not through choice but through necessity of needing our son to, you know, eat. We could have kept going with the breast pump but seeing the strain it was putting on my wife (she literally had the pump clamped to her all the time whenever she wasn’t actually feeding) and how tired she was going to be if this continued, we started on the formula.

So this article has royally pissed me off.

As if there’s not enough guilting of parents who don’t breastfeed at all, we’re now told that your baby is going to suffer later in life because you didn’t – couldn’t – breastfeed.

Fuck. That.

And fuck anyone who comes to me with this news.

Stupid babies need the most attention.

There’s a culture that I’ve noticed, and I’m sure everyone else in the midst of pregnancy has too, that breastfeeding is best. That’s not the annoying part, that’s true. But the other is that if you can’t do it, or worse don’t do it, you’re a horrible mother, denying your baby of the nutrients he/she needs. I could see it in some of the (older) nurses eyes in the hospital after we noted that we were only thinking that bottle feeding might be the way to go, as we were at that stage. That look of, “well, just keep trying until the baby is absolutely starving and then we might just consider trying that heathen formula milk.” We had wanted to breastfeed, mainly because it’s natural, gives baby all they need and frankly, it’s cheaper, but were prepared to go with the flow with whatever Isaac decided. The nurses were not of this opinion. Breast is best! Breast is best! One of the nurses came in, took Isaac in her hands and practically smushed his face into my wife’s breast to try and get him to latch. Now, I’m not saying this method doesn’t work, some babies I’m sure will latch fairly quickly and there’ll be no problem. Isaac was screaming. Our baby, not even 12 hours old was being forced to do something he clearly didn’t want to. This continued over the next few days because as new parents we tended to do what we were told when it came to this sort of stuff. Still he screamed. And screamed and screamed and screamed.

Once we were home and had tried ourselves with no success we moved to formula. And he took to it with minimal fuss. Why, I have no idea, but he did and he was happy. And so were we. So to be told that by wanting our baby to have a full tummy and to give ourselves some peace of mind, we’ve doomed him for life with a lower IQ has made me very very angry.

The study itself is very vague and states that a number of other factors could also be responsible for the lower IQ, including upbringing and funnily enough, level of education.

So fuck anyone telling me that what we did for our baby was wrong.

Fuck anyone telling me that we’ve already lumbered our son with average intelligence.

And fuck the breastfeeding brigade getting up on their high horses with their “I told you so” faces.

We fed our son when he needed fed. He’s happy and healthy, and eating all the food we give to him and has done since we started weaning him before Christmas.

Rant over.