Category: Post-Partum Depression and Mental Health

This is What Lactivism Does to Parents and I Was Lucky to Hear the Words “Fed Is Best”

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I am sharing my story because I know new parents are struggling with lactivism right now; they need to hear my story to protect themselves. It was lactivism that compromised my mental health, and it was lactivism that caused my child to suffer.

I thought lactivist rhetoric existed only on social media, but I was wrong. It’s also part of our medical institutions and is harming moms and babies. 

When I was pregnant, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to feed my baby, so I planned to try breastfeeding and switch to formula if it didn’t work. After her birth, my daughter had a difficult time breastfeeding. My nurse told me that babies are born to breastfeed, so I should keep trying until she does. I stayed up all night with her trying to breastfeed, but she just

wouldn’t for more than a few minutes and would fall back asleep.    Continue reading →

The New Seven Letter “F” Word

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As soon as the word “formula” rolls off your tongue and leaves your mouth for everyone to hear, uncomfortable silence occurs. Parents are reluctant to talk about or admit freely they feed their babies infant formula. Most are suffering from the deeply entrenched shame and judgment that is associated with formula feeding; they have experienced it first hand in countless social media parenting groups, from friends, their health care professionals, WIC offices, and even in their hospitals.

How did we get to the place where talking about infant formula is profoundly divisive, shameful, and anxiety provoking for parents? 

 Let’s face it, infant FORMULA is the new seven letter F word. The scarlet letter F.  FAILURE. 

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Why Fed Is Best: From One Therapist’s Point Of View

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Written by Sarah Edge

I am a Counsellor Psychotherapist, specialising in postnatal mental health in the United Kingdom. I am also a Mum of two small children. I recently wrote a guest blog on “The Process of Healing From Infant Feeding Trauma, Guilt, and Shame: When You Wanted To Breastfeed and Couldn’t” for the Fed is Best Foundation, and when I was asked to write again, I jumped at the chance. In this piece, I aim to examine the Fed is Best message through my therapist’s lens and discuss why the Fed is Best message is an essential part of healing and recovery. 

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The Process of Healing from Infant Feeding Trauma, Guilt, and Shame: When You Wanted to Breastfeed, but Couldn’t

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My name is Sarah Edge, and I am a counsellor psychotherapist and mum of two. After my experience with breastfeeding trauma, guilt, and shame, and the associated decline in my mental health after the birth of my son, I was motivated to start my own practice specialising in postnatal mental health. 

I suspect that most of you reading this are doing so because you have your own experience of infant feeding guilt or trauma, where breastfeeding didn’t work out how you had planned. My personal story is a tale as old as time. My son was born late preterm, healthy but sleepy and unable to latch. He developed significant jaundice and low blood sugars, resulting in us returning to the hospital, and him being admitted onto the children’s ward at five days old.

I tried everything to breastfeed: nipple shields, continuous pumping, cup feeding expressed breast milk, triple feeding, lactation consultants, and infant feeding professionals. I had alarms set every 90 minutes to feed my son, and I kept this up for almost two weeks without any results. His feeding consultant then prescribed him formula milk, and he began to thrive. He was happy and healthy, and we returned home to start our lives as a family of three, this time formula feeding him. 

My baby was finally thriving but I was not. I was left with so much sadness, jealousy, disappointment, and animosity towards breastfeeding. World Breastfeeding Week was unbearable, as the social media pages were flooded with beautiful photos of babies at breast, and seeing other women breastfeeding sparked this intense and animalistic jealousy I had never felt before. 

So why was I left with all this sadness?

 

Sadness is an emotion that is associated with feelings of loss, sorrow, depression, grief, guilt, disappointment, shame, despair, helplessness, fear, and disadvantage.  It can be difficult to shake and needs to be processed.

 

I was personally experiencing grief. I had suffered a loss. Breastfeeding was important to me, and my feelings were—and are—absolutely valid. 

No matter the reasons you could not breastfeed—and there are countless—you are allowed to mourn the loss of breastfeeding. Just because your baby is thriving without breastmilk doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to grieve or ask for support or comfort, especially if healing has been difficult. 

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Dear Chrissy Teigen, You Are Right; We Need To Destigmatize Formula Feeding Our Babies

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Dear Chrissy Teigen,

Thank you for your Twitter post raising the very important topic of stress, guilt, and sadness when a breastfeeding mother experiences low milk production.  

I could feel the deep despair you expressed through your words because I have supported thousands of mothers, just like you, who felt tremendous guilt and stress when they tried their best to make enough milk.

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