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Most of the midwives were “fantastic” but she was furious when a midwife in Special Care gave her baby infant formula against her wishes.
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Well she was in an incubator and because she was cold and they said they thought she had hypothermia so they were keeping her warm and they'd got antibiotics for her as well. And they got antibiotics that they had to give to her because they thought she'd got an infection called Strep B and they wanted to make sure that they sorted that out, so it really was just while she had those because she had to have them on a drip so obviously that meant being in special care rather than being with me, she wasn't as such ill, but they had to give her this.
So where were you while she was in special care?
I was still at the hospital on the ward.
On the postnatal ward?
Yeah on the postnatal ward just round the corner from where she was so, I could go down.
And did you visit her?
Yes I went down to see her and so on and.
And you expressed breastmilk?
Yes I did.
How?
They'd got a pump at the ward which you could, in a separate room that you could go and use so they showed me how to use that and then every opportunity possible I was trying just to get something, something out for her so she could have some as, which went well apart from one, on one occasion the midwife came back down to the ward and she said to me, “Oh we, we”, she brought my daughter back in fact and she said to me, “Oh she was hungry last night and we didn't want to wake you up so we gave her formula milk”.
How did that make you feel?
I was furious, to say the least, because I'd said to them, “If I'm asleep wake me up and I will try and feed her myself and if not I will express”, and so I was very angry because I had said to them, I'd actually put it in my birth plan that I wanted her to have no formula milk at all so, quite angry at that but this was this one midwife who wasn't particularly supportive of breastfeeding, the others all were, they were fantastic. I mean one midwife sat with me for two or three hours trying to get her to feed, so she was good, but this particular one I don't think she was that supportive of it and I just, I think it was the easy option for her.
Did you do anything about that?
I went and complained afterwards about it but then left it at that.
Did you get a response?
Trying to think, I did get a letter back I think, but I can't remember precisely what they said now, I think I got a pretty standard apology and not much else but I think there was much less emphasis then on breastfeeding, we're talking nineteen ninety-nine, I think there was less emphasis then on breastfeeding than now, so you didn't have any of the hospitals where they were Breastfeeding Friendly and so on. |
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She was fed up with breastfeeding her two-and-a-half year old daughter and decided to stop but it was still sad to think that she would not breastfeed again.
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I was thinking, 'I'd have enough of this' and I was getting fed up with doing it and so in the end I said to my dad I said, “Could she come to you for a weekend?” Because I've got to go and look at houses anyway because I was going to buy a new house, so she stayed there for a weekend and, you know, I fed her beforehand and I said to her, “Right you're going to be at granddad's for the weekend and you won't be able to have any mummy milk”, which was what she called it, and she said, “Oh I'm a big girl now and that was that”, so she never asked again, so, which was a bit sad really for me but she didn't mind, but I had had enough of it obviously two and a half and enough's enough, I mean it was only morning and night anyway and only then when she remembered to ask, so I just thought, 'Right let's call it a day', she's had a good go. |
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She worked as a volunteer for a breastfeeding lobby group before having her children and did not have bottles or infant formula in the house although she nearly bought it once.
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So can you think back to before you had your daughter?
Yeah.
And what did you know about breastfeeding at that stage?
Nothing, to be quite honest my mother hadn't sort of breastfed me, she'd wanted to but couldn't, and I hadn't known anybody who'd had, so 'cause I was very small when my cousins had children, so I didn't really know anyone who'd done it at all, but it just seemed like the right thing to do, and the easy thing to do as well so.
So you had no background in it really…
No.
…no family background?
No not at all.
But it was what you wanted to do?
Yeah, it just seemed like the right thing to do.
Where do you think that inclination came from?
Well I've always liked to do things the natural way sort of thing I don't like taking lots of medicines and everything else anyway, so really it's just part of that, that, and also I think well why get up in the middle of the night to make a bottle up and why spend all this money on formula milk when it's there? And I've done voluntary work for an organisation who don't particularly like formula milk and the way it's marketed, so of course from that made me think about it.
So what organisation was that?
They're called Baby Milk Action and they campaign against a company and their marketing of formula milk in the developing world so.
And what work are you doing for them?
Well I don't any more but I used to do voluntary work for them, just helping out with anything that needed doing, 'cause we happen to live in the same place and it was an issue that interested me so.
How did you get involved in something like that before you were ever a breastfeeder?
Well I've heard of them and I can't remember how I'd heard of them, but then found out they were in the same town as me, so I thought well, you know, it seems like an issue that was important and I didn't like what the company concerned were doing so when I found they were campaigning against them because I'd boycotted the company's products anyway before, thought, 'Right let's see what I can do' and to help them out so.
So how long ago was this that you were involved with them?
It would have been in the early nineteen nineties.
Right.
About six years before I had my daughter, six or seven years.
So six or seven years before you even had your own children?
Yes, yes, that's right.
Oh that's pretty amazing yeah. so do you feel as though you went into your pregnancy then pretty well clued up on breastfeeding?
Well I didn't know anything about it at all but I was determined that's what I was going to do, it never occurred to me that I would do anything else, it just seemed like the right thing and...
Okay.
...I certainly wouldn't want to spend money on formula milk and give money to the company whose things I'd been boycotting anyway, I mean there's other companies that, you know, I was aware that I didn't like the idea of it and it just seems so unnatural and so unnecessary, so.
Has your husband ever said anything to you about the breastfeeding particularly at night?
He thinks it's great so, he doesn't like the idea at all of giving them formula milk, I mean he knew that I was determined to breastfeed him, and he's never once suggested formula milk or anything else, he's talked me out of it. When he was, when he was a few weeks old and I said to him, “I've had enough of this he's feeding all the time and I'm sick to death of it” and I went into [Supermarket] and I said, “right we're going to get some formula milk” and I stood there looking at all the formula milk and he just turned round to my daughter and he said to her, “Tell mummy what you think of the formula milk” and I could have hit him, I really could, and she just said to, looked at me she said, “You can't gave him that horrible stuff” [laughs], and so I just said to her, “Just keep out of it.” She said, “But you can't, you like breastfeeding babies, you keep saying that's right, you can't give him that stuff “and I said, “Well I am, it's nothing to do with you” and put it in the trolley and she stood there and said, “Well my mummy doesn't breastfeed babies so I won't let you buy it” so then she took to out the trolley and put it back and so we came home without it [laughs], and if it hadn't been for what she'd said I think I would have bought it and, so, so there.
I think if you've got bottles in the house you will use them, personally, I didn't buy a steriliser, I didn't buy bottles, I didn't buy formula milk, and people said, “Oh have them just in case” and the one occasion when I thought 'it might be useful just to give him a bottle' was when it was his baptism and, so I went and I got a, got a pump and I expressed some milk for him and I gave it to a friend and said to her, “You know, we'll, try and give to him and see what he does”, and he took one look at it and he said, “I'm not having that”, you know, so he refused point blank to take it, and the only person he would take this cup of milk from was me anyway so that defeated the whole object [laughs] but I just think, 'No if you have them in the house you'll end up using them because it's there' and you'll just think, 'oh I don't feel like feeding him tonight so', I just, I just wouldn't have them in the house, because it's easy and you think you want to go out and think well you've got some, you know, you have to boil the bottles before you go and everything else, and you can go out and take the baby with you and, you know, they want, they want some milk then you just let them get on with it, and it's so easy, you know, they're there and you can put them in a sling or you can just put them in a car seat whatever suits you and they're so easy and they're so easy to feed them and, a lot of people when he was little and I took him out and I'd be feeding him, and people say, “Oh isn't that nice” and stuff and people don't disapprove when you're out there with a little baby feeding, people think it's lovely, the number of comments I've had. And people have said, people my mothers age said to me, “Oh isn't it lovely to see somebody breastfeeding” and things like that and I just think that's great so, I wouldn't, I couldn't sit there with a bottle with them or leave them at home with a bottle, it's just much nicer to do it yourself.
So what it is that's so awful about formula?
It's just so unnatural and there's no need for it, it costs a lot of money, and I think there's money you can spend far more usefully on other things. I mean I don't actually know what formula milk costs now somehow I couldn't get an idea of what it is but I just think people I know say, “Oh it's so expensive and we have to budget this and budget that so we can buy it.” I think, 'Well why?' You know, and I'm sure, yeah mothers who absolutely can't breastfeed I think there's a few that probably absolutely can't, then I think it must be a godsend but, I just think why give something that's not, you know, properly designed for your baby needs I mean. My daughter she had chicken pox when she was a very small age and she had thirteen spots and the doctor said, “She's got your immunity that's why” and I just think, 'Well that's got the advantages so why give something that hasn't got them?' and this thing I was reading the other day and they were saying that, one of the things that they found a few years ago was that formula milk they have to add fat to it, now I haven't checked anything out about how accurate this is, but they'd found out that they'd been, one of the things they did, they were using peanuts oil to add the fat to it and now we've got all these children with allergies I think I wonder if that's why. And we don't know what goes in formula milk so, why give it when there's a risk of that sort of thing, so, just stick to what natural for them that's what I think we should do. |
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Her periods returned early after her son's birth but she has not conceived. She gets irritable with breastfeeding around the time of her period.
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Is that a problem for you this constant feeding?
Occasionally I'll notice, roughly about, about once a month in time with the monthly cycle I get to find it, I find it a nuisance so, sort of adding insult to injury that with, when he was born I was feeding so much was that my periods came back when he was four weeks old, and I was furious to say the least, I'd had eight months off with my daughter and they just came back straightaway, I've no idea why and I found it.
He was exclusively breastfed on demand?
He was breastfeeding yeah and they came back straightway at four weeks, and I was absolutely furious, I thought this is not part of the deal, you know? [Laughs].
What does that say to you?
I was not impressed so, at all, I don't know why it was I thought about it, I thought, 'Has there been a time when he's not really breastfed much one day' but he hadn't gone long, he went four hours once and then that was it I just thought, 'Well that can't be long enough' but no they just came straight back, but then they came straight back after my ectopic pregnancy it was only two days and they came back, and at first when they came back when he was born I didn't realise I just thought well I've obviously been overdoing it and it's just that after the caesarean it just started bleeding again. But then it was four weeks later and it was four weeks later and so obviously, that was that and so I was not amused [laughs] to say the least, it's not supposed to happen.
So you would not rely on breastfeeding as a contraceptive?
Well we'd, we were talking about whether we wanted to have another child or not and so on and we said, “Well we're not going to prevent it and we'll see what happens” and sixteen months later nothing's happened, so it's obviously doing, it's obviously working as a contraceptive I wouldn't say anyone should rely on it but it obviously is working, because nothing has happened but then maybe it's not working I don't know yet and it's just some other reason, but no I wouldn't rely on it, but no in sixteen months and he's still breastfeeding and nothing's happened so. |
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Her children were both big babies and her health visitors told her that her daughter was overweight and her son would be malnourished without solids.
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Do you remember when you started to introduce other food?
Yeah she was four months old and well she was so enthusiastic, she just couldn't wait to get her hands on other food, so anything you gave her it was, 'Oh yes I'll have that and I'll have some more' so was very, very keen, but I mean I've just, I'd given her vegetables that I'd mix, I'd put milk, I'd put some milk in them for her I'd expressed it so, because I thought I'm not going to mix things up with water or whatever, or cow's milk so, yeah I think it was familiar to a certain extent anyway and she just took to it, well like she had to breastfeeding really once she'd got going she just couldn't stop eating things, she just really wanted it all the time.
Did you have a set pattern or a routine that you would give her breastmilk and then solids, or solids and then breastmilk or anything like that?
I'm trying to remember now, I'd give her lunch about the same time as I did so I think, you know, I mean I always breastfed on demand so it was just a case of well now we're going to have lunch and if she happened to have a feed not long before so be it I wouldn't say, “Oh eleven I'll give you breastmilk and then at half past eleven we'll have lunch”, it would just depend on, you know, what she wanted, so.
So very flexible about it all?
Yeah. I don't go with routines really; I just sort of do what seems the easiest thing at the time, what suits them and suits me. I mean this young man he's completely opposite to his big sister, she would always want to have solid food and he's not really interested.
And how old is he now?
He's sixteen months.
And still not really interested in solids?
Not particularly I mean, he is but on his terms, when he wants something he will have it, but, you know, he might only eat four or five teaspoons in a day, and we've been through, I used to go and see the health visitor and I soon gave up on that idea when, because she was concerned so this health visitor and I don't really see eye-to-eye on pregnancy and birth and everything else and breastfeeding and so on, and my daughter is seven and is tall and thin as they come, now she would eat and eat and eat and apparently was going to be obese by the time she was six, well she has to have a belt to keep her trousers up because her trousers are so, not just thin, she's a beanpole, which is quite funny because when she was little she was overweight and well the health visitor's perception of her as a baby and when she two, well there were two different health visitors, was that she was overweight because she was very, you know, she'd tripled her birth weight by less than a year and so on. Anyway young man has done exactly the same thing and is, you know, generally put on a lot of weight, but he doesn't like solid food and the health visitor who was saying my daughter weighed too much is looking at this little boy who's nice and large and saying, “Oh he's going to be malnourished, he's going to be underweight” and I just laughed, and then she says to me one day she said, “Oh to encourage him to eat solid food stop breastfeeding him now, stop today”, and I said, “Well what about getting up, ending up with mastitis and everything else?” She said, “Oh no, just stop feeding him today, and to encourage him to eat gives him desserts, give him chocolate desserts,” and I just said, “You are joking?” and I said, “Do you know what this does to breastfeeding? You know, do you know what it'll do to my milk supply and everything else?” But she's very much keen on bottle feeding, I mean I've heard her say to mothers when the baby's sixteen weeks old, “Oh I'll let you give a bottle of formula now if you want to I'll let you do it.” Whose baby's this, you know? So no she encouraged me to stop breastfeeding and to put him onto formula milk and make him eat solid food, but I took no notice so, and ignored her and he still feeds on demand and if he has lunch and eats it then fine and if he doesn't well he doesn't and I've no idea…
What about at night?
...he wakes all the time, he keeps on waking up at night, so I think this is the down side of not liking solid food very much, and he likes his comfort and he wakes quite a bit during the night.
But he's in with you?
He's in with us and, you know, he won't be for a lot longer. |
