Breastfeeding Myths - Keep Britain Breastfeeding 2013

Hands up if you have ever heard any of these:

If you are ill, you will pass it on through your breastmilk.
You have to have a perfect diet to breastfeed.
Small breasts are no good for breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding ruins your breasts.
If you breastfeed, you'll have no idea whether your baby is eating enough.
If your baby is nursing frequently, then you don't have enough milk.
Your baby is just comfort sucking/using you as a dummy.
You can't exclusively breastfeed twins/triplets. 
Feed your baby every 4 hours/for 10 minutes each side.
Big babies/small babies need formula top ups.
He should be sleeping through the night now.


These are common beliefs about breastfeeding, but each of them is a myth or misconception. Some come from lack of education on breastfeeding or normal baby feeding behaviour; others have been perpetuated by formula companies in the bid to "booby-trap" mums into giving up breastfeeding.

So, I shall tackle each of these myths, revealing the truth, and attempting to give you some great comebacks to uneducated comments from those around you.


If you are ill, you will pass it on through your breastmilk.
On the contrary, breastmilk contains antibodies that protect your baby from illness.  Even better, when your baby comes into contact with illnesses, he passes the bacteria to you whilst feeding, and then your bodies makes the antibodies which are passed back through your milk! "In the first hours and days after childbirth, a mother produces the first milk, called colostrum – the most potent natural immune system booster known to science." (http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/images/Superfood_for_Babies_UK_version.pdf) The best thing you can do to protect your baby when you are unwell is to continue to breastfeed, as you'll pass on the antibodies that your body is making to fight the illness. If baby does get ill, it won't be from your breastmilk, but you can be sure that that milk is helping to prevent baby being severely ill. Kellymom has some great info on feeding through illness. While we're talking about breastfeeding preventing illness, please go and find out more about Save the Children's Power of the First Hour campaign.

You have to have a perfect diet to breastfeed.
Rubbish! "Unless extremely malnourished, virtually all mothers can produce adequate amounts of breastmilk." (http://rehydrate.org/breastfeed/faq-maternal-nutrition.htm) Yes, it's important to eat a healthy and well-balanced diet, but not because eating badly will affect your milk. Your body is designed to place the baby's needs first, so if you don't take in all the nutrients you need, your body might suffer, but your baby will do just fine. "Even when a mother’s own supply of nutrients and energy is limited, she still is able to produce breast milk of sufficient quantity and quality to support the growth and health of her infant." (http://www.asklenore.com/breastfeeding/resources/mysteries.shtml)

Small breasts are no good for breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding is one of those areas where size really doesn't matter. When it comes to making milk, it's all down to the amount of breast tissue present. Women with bigger breasts often have the same amount of glandular tissue as those with smaller breasts. The size difference is down to fat. Ever lost weight and discovered that the only area that's got smaller is your breasts? (I tend to find it goes from my toes, but that's another story!) That's because breasts are made up of fat and glandular tissue. You'll find as well that your breasts will increase in size during pregnancy.
However, if your breasts display any of the following characteristics, you may well have difficulties breastfeeding:

• widely spaced breasts (breasts are more than 1.5 inches apart)
• breast asymmetry (one breast is significantly larger than the other)
• the presence of stretch marks on the breasts, in absence of breast growth, either during puberty or in pregnancy
• tubular breast shape (“empty sac” appearance)
• disproportionately large or bulbous areolae
• the absence of breast changes in pregnancy, postpartum, or both

These are all characteristics that may indicate mammary hypoplasia or insufficient glandular tissue (IGT). I have all of these, but it wasn't until an IBCLC diagnosed me with IGT a week after B was born that I was aware that there was a problem. All the doctors I had seen previously, regarding my breast asymmetry, had said that my problem was merely aesthetic, which explains why I was totally shocked and surprised when I found that I couldn't exclusively breastfeed.
So, size isn't a factor in whether or not you can breastfeed; it's shape, placement and asymmetry that indicate the presence of hypoplasia. And here I can dispel another myth. Having mammary hypoplasia does not mean that you cannot breastfeed. With supplementation, either of donor milk or formula, it is still possible to have a breastfeeding relationship with your baby. We used bottles to supplement, and Ruth at A Mixed Bag of All Sorts uses an SNS, and I have been breastfeeding for 22 months now.

Breastfeeding ruins your breasts.
Sorry - it's pregnancy that does that, I'm afraid. Research has found that there is little difference between the sagginess of breasts of women who have breastfed and those who haven't. In fact, this study says that breastfeeding actually leaves your breasts with better skin quality than not breastfeeding. And breastfeeding protects against breast cancer, which is about as far from ruining them as I can think of!
Check out PhD in Parenting for a great summary of the research.

You'll have no idea if your baby is eating enough.
Do you really need to see the amount going in to know if your baby has had enough? No. All babies eat different amounts at different time anyway. Even if you're bottle feeding, you might find that baby wants a small amount several times a day or large amounts spread less frequently. There are some really simple ways of telling if baby is getting enough milk:

• weight gain - a small weight loss after birth is normal. Babies should regain their birth weight by two weeks old. After that, a gain is a gain, though the average is about 6oz a week after mum's milk has come in. That's average, remember. Some babies will gain more; some will gain less - but a gain is a gain!
• wees - pale, mild smelling wee. At least 1 wet nappy on day 1, going up to at least 6 per day from about 6 days onwards.
• poos - 2-3 meconium to green nappies at first, then there should be no meconium and about 3 poos a day after about 4 days. Poos will be yellow and seedy.
• baby's mood - content after feeding. Settling and sleeping, though not necessarily wanting to be put down to sleep.
• baby is alert, active and attaining developmental milestones - cries, moves, roots and shows other hunger signs.

If baby is nursing frequently, then you don't have enough milk.
Poppycock! Remember, your baby has been constantly fed for the past 9 months. He has never felt hungry or thirsty. He has been in a small, confined, safe place, hearing your heartbeat and your voice and all the other noises your body makes. He has been in the dark and warm. Now, your baby is in a bright, loud, big world. He feels hunger and thirst. He has to get used to quiet and cold breezes and being able to move his arms and legs. It's a scary place. Being skin to skin with mum, hearing her heartbeat, suckling and getting the sweet warm milk whilst being held close is a true comfort to him. He will nurse frequently to satisfy hunger and thirst, but also to be soothed and comforted. Also, a newborn's stomach is tiny. On the day he is born the capacity of his stomach is about a teaspoon full. And breastmilk is easily digested. Put the two together, and you get the picture - he needs frequent small amounts. Which your colostrum will provide perfectly. And the more he feeds, the more your breasts will make. Go with it and refer back to the previous mythbuster to ensure your baby is getting enough. The likelihood that you don't have enough milk is very, very small. Also, read this: Normal Newborn Behaviour.


Your baby is just comfort sucking/using you as a dummy.
Breasts were around long before dummies. Dummies were invented to provide for the sucking needs of babies who were being bottle fed. So, baby is not using you as a dummy; babies use dummies as fake mummies. And what's wrong with comforting your baby anyway? Like I said above, they've been used to safety, warmth and closeness. They're tiny and defenseless and just want to be with mummy. Comfort your baby! They are biologically programmed to suck. The action of sucking at the breast protects against ear infections, helps to develop the jaw and increases milk supply. This article is brilliant and puts it all much better than I can.

You can't breastfeed twins/triplets.
You can breastfeed twins. You can breastfeed triplets.

Feed your baby every 4 hours/for 10 minutes each side.
Breastfeeding works on a demand and supply system. The more your baby suckles, the more milk your breasts will make. If baby is fed on a schedule, rather than on demand, then your breasts won't know how much milk is needed. The downsides of scheduled feeding are that your baby will have to go hungry waiting for his next feed, you will have to find alternative ways of comforting him and calming his cries, and it's likely that baby will not put on much weight, or even start to lose weight. As you saw above, babies' stomachs are tiny and breastmilk is quickly digested. It's highly likely at the start that your baby will want to feed every 2 hours - that's from the beginning of one feed to the beginning of the next. The every 3-4 hour schedule (sometimes) works fine with formula feeding, but breastfeeding needs to be on demand. Scheduled feeds may well bring your breastfeeding relationship to an early end. How would you like to be told when you are or aren't hungry? Or when it's an acceptable time to eat? And you're an adult, who is capable of understanding that having to wait for a few minutes is not the end of the world. Remember, your newborn is still getting used to the sensations of hunger and thirst, and he doesn't understand time.
And as for the timing each side business, one baby may well be able to drain a breast and want to move over to the other in 10 minutes, but the likelihood is that this will take longer. The longer a baby feeds on one breast, the fattier the milk from that breast becomes. If you restrict baby to only 10 minutes on one side, you run the risk of baby only getting the watery milk and not getting to the fattier stuff. This is like only quenching his thirst and not his hunger, and probably will result in him wanting to be fed again much sooner. You may also find his poo turning green from too much 'foremilk'.
Here are some links that challenge these myths:

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1391769/Why-granny-wrong-feeding-baby-Feeding-demand-help-PREVENT-obesity.html
• http://www.parentingscience.com/infant-feeding-schedule.html
• http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/20/want-a-brighter-baby-feed-on-demand-not-on-a-schedule/
• http://www.breastfeeding-problems.com/cue-feeding.html

Big babies/small babies need formula top ups.
Nope! Unless you're in that tiny percentage of women who are physically unable to exclusively breastfeed, you will make enough milk for your baby, as long as you are allowing him to feed on demand until he decides he is finished. My Mum exclusively breastfed my 10lb 8oz brother - no need for any top ups for that chunk! And my Nana breastfed 8 children, one of whom was my father who, I have heard, was 11lb at birth! Nearly 60 years have passed, but I doubt women's breasts have changed that much that modern woman is no longer able to feed her large baby herself.
The same is true of small babies - you will make enough milk for them to grow too. Don't let health visitors scare you by saying your small baby isn't putting enough weight on, or is on too low a centile. As long as baby is weeing and pooing, alert and active, and putting on some weight, they are very likely to be getting enough milk. Some problems you might come across with a low birth weight baby are a poor suck and lethargy. You will need to keep them awake for feeds - tickle their feet, undress them, talk and sing, wipe them with a damp washcloth - so that they don't just fall asleep at the breast straight away. Once they put on a bit of weight they'll have more energy to feed more.

He should be sleeping through the night now.
Baby's are not biologically designed to sleep through the night. Human adults don't even sleep through the night - we often wake up when rolling over, or to get a drink, or for no reason at all. The difference is that we are able to get ourselves back to sleep pretty swiftly. Babies wake because their stomachs are tiny and they get hungry. Sometimes they wake for no apparent reason but need help to get themselves back to sleep. Frequent wakings are normal for babies, because breastfed babies wake frequently. You should not judge your breastfed baby by the behaviour displayed by artificially fed babies. Formula is hard to digest, so it takes much longer than breastmilk, and so formula fed babies often sleep longer. Not always though. When we were supplementing B, she had a bottle of formula before bed and often one in the wee hours of the morning, and yet she still woke every 2 hours at least. Night feeds are brilliant for boosting your supply too, as it is at nighttime that your prolactin levels are at their highest. If you cosleep, you can even feed baby lying down and go back to sleep whilst they're feeding. The hormones in your milk help baby get back to sleep, and the action of breastfeeding releases sleepy hormones in you too. Waking in the night also protects your baby against SIDS - formula feeding increases the risk.
This is a brilliant article on normal baby sleep behaviour: http://babycalm.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/normal-baby-sleep-what-to-expect-feeding-and-development-part-1/



Check out some of the other Scavenger Hunt Bloggers:
Where Roots Flourish -The story of us. The best years of our lives, and all that goes into them. I'm an excited new wife and mother of our first child, Max. I think of myself as slightly crafty and frugal, and I am sharing my adventures here!
Milk Machine Mum - I am a Christian, Mrs, Mummy, Lactator Extraordinaire, new to the blogosphere. I am enthusiastic about breast milk, they say, “Breast is best” for a reason. Even though many have difficulties getting off the ground and some find they are unable to feed their babies themselves I am of the opinion that if its possible it should at least be attempted, we can’t fail or succeed if we don’t try. We Had a pretty rocky start to our breastfeeding relationship but 6months in we’re going strong.
The Thoughtful Publisher - Susan Last is the publishing director of Lonely Scribe. She's the mother of three breastfed children, all born at home in water, a volunteer peer supporter with the NHS in Derbyshire and the editor of Lonely Scribe's book Breastfeeding: stories to inspire and inform. She blogs here about breastfeeding, parenting, publishing and other things that readers of Lonely Scribe's books might be interested in.

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Lactivist promotes breastfeeding with witty slogan t-shirts, bags, badges and hats. It was started by a mum, Lisa, when her son was tiny and she was criticised for breastfeeding. (Lisa also designed the hunt logo!)