Anonymous wrote:No one truly cares if you breastfeed or not, they are just doing their job.

Bring a sign, but you might still get asked out of reflex. Lots of my colleagues also exclusively formula fed for various reasons. If someone gets rude, report them.

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Anonymous wrote:NP. Every time someone expresses concern about being bullied if they choose not to breastfeed, someone comes on here and says "nobody cares how you feed your baby", which is demonstrably false. Then people point that out to them and they say "yes well who cares? just do what you want". Actually, the way that women are treated in our health care institutions does matter. I think that women should be treated with dignity and respect, so yes, I care.

And yes, women get bullied for formula feeding and they get bullied for breastfeeding. Both things are true. In fact, they are two sides of the same misogynistic coin.

What is your solution, beyond women directly and firmly stating doing what they want to do, and doing exactly that? I'm honestly asking. What do you propose?

I'm proposing that women not rudely and sarcastically dismiss other women who don't want to be bullied after they have a baby. I'm not sure that fits your criteria of a "solution", but that I gotta say I do not care about.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm saying how do we lobby for that and get that message out beyond DCUM and other message boards?

Interesting, it sounded like your solution is "women directly and firmly stating doing what they want to do, and doing exactly that". Now you want to lobby? Have at it. Start with telling relevant officials (hospital boards, state, local and federal lawmakers) about how terrible Baby-Friendly hospitals are for women.

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Anonymous wrote:Gave birth this summer at GW and had somewhat of an opposite experience- wanted to exclusively bf but was pressured to use formula Which they brought me. I was not expecting that at all and it was really stressful and disruptive. The people who downplay FTM being pressured about their feeding choices clearly have not experienced a pediatrician or nurse playing on your anxieties around the health of your baby to push you into doing something not best for you and your family. It sucks.

My guess is that if they were urging formula at GW it was because your baby had lost a lot of weight or jaundice. That’s not “playing on anxieties around the health of your baby” - it’s providing medical care to your child.

Actually no. They told me to give formula because I could not pump 40 ml of colostrum every 2 hours.

I'm going to call BS on this. I'm an overproducer and didn't get that much every 2 hours the first day. Also colostrum is fattier than regular breastmilk so a tiny bit fills the baby up.

colostrum actually has fewer calories than mature milk

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Anonymous wrote:Gave birth this summer at GW and had somewhat of an opposite experience- wanted to exclusively bf but was pressured to use formula Which they brought me. I was not expecting that at all and it was really stressful and disruptive. The people who downplay FTM being pressured about their feeding choices clearly have not experienced a pediatrician or nurse playing on your anxieties around the health of your baby to push you into doing something not best for you and your family. It sucks.

My guess is that if they were urging formula at GW it was because your baby had lost a lot of weight or jaundice. That’s not “playing on anxieties around the health of your baby” - it’s providing medical care to your child.

Actually no. They told me to give formula because I could not pump 40 ml of colostrum every 2 hours.

I'm going to call BS on this. I'm an overproducer and didn't get that much every 2 hours the first day. Also colostrum is fattier than regular breastmilk so a tiny bit fills the baby up.

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Anonymous wrote:Gave birth this summer at GW and had somewhat of an opposite experience- wanted to exclusively bf but was pressured to use formula Which they brought me. I was not expecting that at all and it was really stressful and disruptive. The people who downplay FTM being pressured about their feeding choices clearly have not experienced a pediatrician or nurse playing on your anxieties around the health of your baby to push you into doing something not best for you and your family. It sucks.

My guess is that if they were urging formula at GW it was because your baby had lost a lot of weight or jaundice. That’s not “playing on anxieties around the health of your baby” - it’s providing medical care to your child.

Actually no. They told me to give formula because I could not pump 40 ml of colostrum every 2 hours.

ok so that’s good they told you to give formula. glad to hear they are being more careful about making sure babies don’t get dehydrated than when I delivered there.

I'm being very serious here: you sound stupid. A newborn's stomach can hold around 7 ml. If the nurses or LC's at GW truly told PP to give formula for not producing 5.5 times that capacity every 2 hours, it was bad advice and had nothing to do with dehydration.

Anonymous wrote:Darn, I delivered at a VA area hospital and couldn't even get an LC or anyone to talk to me about breastfeeding. Diapers were what my nurses were rabid about and filling out that diaper chart. I got yelled at so many times (seriously? I was sleep deprived and couldn't remember to write down whether it was pee or poop and write the time on the chart at 3am) I lined the dirty diapers up on the counter for them.

Also, I will say that the second time around everything works better. Breastfeeding might be ridiculously easy for you the second time, which is common. But if you don't want to, no one cares.

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Anonymous wrote:Gave birth this summer at GW and had somewhat of an opposite experience- wanted to exclusively bf but was pressured to use formula Which they brought me. I was not expecting that at all and it was really stressful and disruptive. The people who downplay FTM being pressured about their feeding choices clearly have not experienced a pediatrician or nurse playing on your anxieties around the health of your baby to push you into doing something not best for you and your family. It sucks.

My guess is that if they were urging formula at GW it was because your baby had lost a lot of weight or jaundice. That’s not “playing on anxieties around the health of your baby” - it’s providing medical care to your child.

Actually no. They told me to give formula because I could not pump 40 ml of colostrum every 2 hours.

ok so that’s good they told you to give formula. glad to hear they are being more careful about making sure babies don’t get dehydrated than when I delivered there.

I'm being very serious here: you sound stupid. A newborn's stomach can hold around 7 ml. If the nurses or LC's at GW truly told PP to give formula for not producing 5.5 times that capacity every 2 hours, it was bad advice and had nothing to do with dehydration.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gave birth this summer at GW and had somewhat of an opposite experience- wanted to exclusively bf but was pressured to use formula Which they brought me. I was not expecting that at all and it was really stressful and disruptive. The people who downplay FTM being pressured about their feeding choices clearly have not experienced a pediatrician or nurse playing on your anxieties around the health of your baby to push you into doing something not best for you and your family. It sucks.

My guess is that if they were urging formula at GW it was because your baby had lost a lot of weight or jaundice. That’s not “playing on anxieties around the health of your baby” - it’s providing medical care to your child.

Actually no. They told me to give formula because I could not pump 40 ml of colostrum every 2 hours.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gave birth this summer at GW and had somewhat of an opposite experience- wanted to exclusively bf but was pressured to use formula Which they brought me. I was not expecting that at all and it was really stressful and disruptive. The people who downplay FTM being pressured about their feeding choices clearly have not experienced a pediatrician or nurse playing on your anxieties around the health of your baby to push you into doing something not best for you and your family. It sucks.

My guess is that if they were urging formula at GW it was because your baby had lost a lot of weight or jaundice. That’s not “playing on anxieties around the health of your baby” - it’s providing medical care to your child.

Actually no. They told me to give formula because I could not pump 40 ml of colostrum every 2 hours.

ok so that’s good they told you to give formula. glad to hear they are being more careful about making sure babies don’t get dehydrated than when I delivered there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Gave birth this summer at GW and had somewhat of an opposite experience- wanted to exclusively bf but was pressured to use formula Which they brought me. I was not expecting that at all and it was really stressful and disruptive. The people who downplay FTM being pressured about their feeding choices clearly have not experienced a pediatrician or nurse playing on your anxieties around the health of your baby to push you into doing something not best for you and your family. It sucks.

My guess is that if they were urging formula at GW it was because your baby had lost a lot of weight or jaundice. That’s not “playing on anxieties around the health of your baby” - it’s providing medical care to your child.

Actually no. They told me to give formula because I could not pump 40 ml of colostrum every 2 hours.