What’s your experience been of feeding in public?

The, one person in a well known shop’s lingerie department came up to me and said that I should be doing it in a changing room and I was sat right next to this super cleavage push-up bra, and I was thinking, ‘how bizarre that I shouldn’t be feeding my baby here because you don’t take your clothes off to breastfeed, you just like discreetly attach them’, if you’ve got a hungry baby that wants feeding it’s so easy, that just, it makes it ridiculous to have to go somewhere to feed your baby the whole point of breastfeeding is it’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s natural.

And you do it wherever?

I do it wherever, if it would be acceptable to bottle feed a baby then I’d breastfeed a baby so, if it was somewhere like toilets I’d think it was pretty disgusting to bottle feed a baby in toilets so I wouldn’t breastfeed Grace in there unless she really, really needed just a little bit of comfort, but yeah I’ll feed her wherever.

Yes, some men were like looking away and putting papers in front of their faces but one man sat next to me, hes looking at me and smiling like, 'Well done, good on you' and I'm like do [laughs].

How did that make you feel?

It’s a bit odd, it is a bit odd having someone look at you, giving you like sort of grin as if to say, 'Well done', you know, but I don't care it is, your first instinct’s, 'Oh hes looking at me', but then I look at her and it’s like, 'Well she comes first' so you can look at me all you like because they ain't very sexy at the moment and I don't see them as sexual, like before feeding her my concern was that there'd be, it would feel sexual feeding her because obviously they are like sexual toys, aren't they before making new baby and that was my concern and that’s what I found a lot of peoples concerns are is that it would feel sexual but it really doesn't, you know, so I'm like, I don't see them as sexual toys any more they are just udders I suppose they feed her [laughs] they're hers and until I stop breastfeeding her they are hers so it just doesn't bother me any more, and you can stare all you like, covered in stretch marks go for it.

So that’s a big change in attitude, then?

Yeah, yeah, really big but I find that’s the main concern for a lot of my friends I mean, one of my friends is pregnant and that was her concern and, you know I sort of said to her it doesn't feel anything like that but because you do and because your body changes so much after having a baby as well, and nobody sort of says about that do they? It’s all sort of, 'Oh its hunky dory and no pain no nothing everythings it’s easy" and it’s so not.

What about your friends? What do they think? Because often young women don't breastfeed.

None of them have really said anything, I just do to be honest with you if they have something negative to say, I just ignore them anyway [laughs] it’s my right as a mum you know everyone has got their own opinions and I'm not saying bottle feeding is wrong and that you should breastfeed but I think you should give it a go and if it works then brilliant and if it doesn't work for you then don't do it, you know, that’s just my view though but I wouldn't give her a bottle now shes so attached to it that I just wouldn't bother the only bottle she has is a bit of water.

Why do you think a lot of young women don't breastfeed?

The problem again it’s sexual, you know they see them as toys and they are concerned that feeding your baby will feel sexual and that you'll feel like a bit of a pervert I suppose because it’s a young child, isn't it so a lot of, I think that’s a concern for a lot of people is that you'll feel a bit like a pervert or you know it or that it won't feel natural but I'd say give it a go, you know.

This area theres not a lot of women breastfeeding and I think that’s why Sure Start set up the Breast Mates that really does help, improve the breastfeeding rates and keep these people breastfeeding. I think I’d have given up breastfeeding if I hadn’t have gone to this group because I would’ve felt that I was the only one, and occasionally I do and people can be quite subtle about being not supportive about breastfeeding and they can just say like, ‘Oh you’re breastfeeding are you?’ and then the next question will be, ‘oh I don’t expect your baby sleeps through the night then’ or, ‘I don’t expect you can do this’ and then just kind of almost blank you, and I do go to some groups where I’m the only woman breastfeeding, and sometimes I feel a bit self-conscious because it’s human nature to feel a bit self-conscious. And I’ve just, I’ve had friends, I’ve made friends there, it’s just we don’t talk about breastfeeding or bottle feeding and we don’t get into that whole debate because I don’t want to offend people for their choices.

So it becomes a taboo subject when you’re with a group that doesn’t do what you do you just don’t discuss it?

I just don’t discuss it because I have been in situations where I’ve bit my tongue and someones said something, like, ‘Well I weaned my baby at three months I was putting rusk in their bottle and they slept through the night’ and it made me, quite aggressively to me, as if to say I’m doing wrong by not doing that, and I’ve thought ‘should I speak up and say, ‘Well that’s really damaging to your baby’s health and I care more about my baby than to do that’, or do I just let it pass and well carry on talking about toys and nappies and various other things’ and so it’s easier to just let it pass. Which isn’t very socially responsible, because if people keep doing that then breastfeeding will still, will always be the underdog.

Why do you think people in this area don’t breastfeed?

I don’t know why people don’t breastfeed in this area, it’s really difficult that, it’s not just my generation, lots of these are like third generation women that have been bottle fed and I read on the internet somewhere that if monkeys don’t see other monkeys breastfeeding they forget how to do it, they don’t know how to do it, and I think that, that’s something that people try but they don’t have much success and theres no one there to say, ‘Well this is how to do it’ or, ‘you’re doing well or, ‘it is difficult to start with and alright there are easier options, if you want you can give your baby a bottle and go away for the weekend or go to Lanzarote for a week, and that’s always there, people are quite willing to say that, but very few people are brave enough to say, ‘But women are meant to breastfeed their baby, and babies want to be breastfed and breastmilk’s the best thing for your baby’ so and, it becomes ingrained in the community that every one of us sees people bottle feeding and so it’s just become acceptable and the norm and then anything else is strange.

How do you think that might be overcome?

I don’t think well overcome it in this country as things stand. Things, breast, people breastfeeding and every person that someone sees breastfeeding may inspire someone and encourage someone and like breastfeeding support groups I go to and the promotion they’re trying to do is really good, and breastfeeding awareness weeks are really good. But until theres some, more kind of unpleasant changes for the formula milk industry theres no, I don’t think that the trend will be reversed. If all of a sudden no formula milk could be advertised and you had to ask for it over the counter, and every supermarket and every petrol

We were talking about how isolated you are actually in your breastfeeding with only two mothers in the district feeding

[Mm-hm].

‘and how there are a lot of areas where this is quite common, why do you think… Why do you think it is that some areas are not very, that not many women feed in some areas?

I think theres a range of reasons, I know a lot of people if they’ve never met anybody or never known anybody else that breastfeeds then they wouldn’t really be inclined to, to even try it. And I think as well my mother told me something a while back, she said in her day it was only very, very poor people that breastfed because there was this, you know, powdered milk that you could buy and theres the whole thing about having the money to buy the powdered milk and if you were seen breastfeeding you couldn’t afford to buy the powdered milk, now I know that’s not how it works now but, I think that might be something that’s been passed down.

These things become quite entrenched don’t they?

[Mmm].

People never re-visit the beliefs.

Yeah and theres a whole lot of, ‘Well I was formula fed didn’t do me any harm’ and so it goes on.

Do you have any ideas of how health professionals or voluntary workers or anybody else like that might break this cycle, and help these women who perhaps are not aware of all the choices that there are for them?

I think there does need to be more support for women who are, who are planning to breastfeed, I don’t know the numbers but I think there probably are quite a lot of woman that try it and then they run into problems and who do they turn to? And, there are a lot of very good health visitors but I believe there are some as well that are, are maybe not quite so clued up on breastfeeding. And it just needs these mothers maybe a referral to one of the breastfeeding groups and a breastfeeding counsellor, or in fact for there to be breastfeeding counsellors available in the hospitals at the very beginning and for people to be able to be educated about it. All the information is out there if you look for it, but it’s a case of the information is no use if people don’t understand it and know how to apply it to their own circumstances. So I think maybe, more information for pregnant women and I don’t know what I’m trying to say, more information for pregnant women and possibly sort of newer mums who are maybe two and three months down the line coming talking to pregnant women, and just to show them that, you know, well, maybe, oh I thought I would try it and here I am still three months later, that sort of thing I think would be good to, to encourage, to encourage people.

Now I’m aware that you accessed the web’

[Mm-hm].

‘and quite, quite a lot’

[Mm-hm].

‘that’s not always available to other people is it? And as you said

No.

‘they may not know how to apply what they find on the web to their own situations.

[Mm-hm].

Oh I don’t know what I’m trying to say [laughs].

Yeah because I mean I think, you know, leaflets and things about breastfeeding, they sort of tell you how the perfect breastfeeding would go and then theres maybe a little bit saying problems yo

If you were God what would you change about the breastfeeding environment? The whole thing?

For me the best environment for a woman to breastfeed would be, in a way I just realised how much it would have been helpful to be in a village, in a community, where you could really call on people around you. So a total like, sort of, if I was God [laughs] and changed things, I would probably go back to village life where you have people you love and respect and people of different ages around you so that you can really call upon them. It’s a time where you need to have friends and you need to have family, it doesn’t need to be family maybe but just people around you, you really do need to hear about other peoples experience. So perhaps a closer community, a closer sort of, perhaps a more informal, you get a lot of formal advice in books and you know, on the internet and, but in fact the delivery of it would be so much better if it was from a neighbour, a friend. I think it would be more human and that would be more desirable and perhaps that would be best problem but perhaps that’s a fantasy as well, it’s very difficult to say.

What about in society, attitude towards the breast and breastfeeding?

I have never come across somebody that was against it or shocked by it personally, I think everybody knows it happens but it’s kind of not talked about and in a way I am not sure whether that’s actually to, to care for the mothers by respecting this intimacy, or whether it’s just an embarrassment, or, it’s an interesting subject, I don’t know why it’s so little talked about, in a way, but then would I like to shout about it to everyone, perhaps not, it’s an intimate experience as well, so I think it’s important that those groups happen, you know, that you can, you can ring the NCT and find a group of women doing it, that’s very, very important.

What about the way breastfeeding or infant feeding is portrayed in the media?

And that, that is one thing that I am really shocked about and in fact it’s both in France, I think possibly more in France, the magazines are covered by advice, advertisement, advertising sorry, for formula milk and powder milk and those companies have got a lot of funding so they can really go for it, they send you things through the post, in fact, when you’re in hospital you fill a little sort of pamphlet with your address and your name, and you’re too tired or too involved with your baby to tick the boxes that you don’t want to receive all this advertising through your letterbox but, you know, they send you a little, like samples of milk powder and they send you a sort of teat and they send you things, and in a way it would be so easy at that low point when you have mastitis to say, ‘Oo I’ve got that pump oh I might as well try it’ and you’re a customer for life [laughs] or, you know, you’re a customer for a long time, so I think the advertisings, which in fact, is covering magazines is too much. I know they have to put a little line saying, ‘Breastfeeding is better for babies’ but, you know, when you have that colourful page with that absolutely gorgeous looking mother and the gorgeous looking baby you think, ‘Oh I’d like to be this’, you know, when you tired and you have your eyes like [laughs], you know, grey eyes and you feel absolutely awful, you think, ‘Oh is that what I would get with that powder’ then perhaps you might be tempted and I think that that’s a bit, you know, undesirable because at some weak point where, I think it’s the tiredness that really makes you so weak in taking decisions and you could so easily opt for that option, whilst really I think it’s more important to breastfee

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, shed 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

I’d say all health professionals probably have to do a Baby Friendly Initiative training course from the World Health Organisation, I think there are certain health professionals that have the right attitude about Baby Friendly, training and status, there are some that don’t quite see it like that and I think a lot of health professionals are trying to get their hospitals up to that standard and sometimes old attitudes die hard. We have to realise that some of these health professionals maybe didn’t breastfeed their babies themselves, and they are human beings and they have their own emotional baggage and attitudes about how they feel about breastfeeding and not everybody will be seeing it from your point of view or sitting in your chair, and some people may see it is a, especially if the baby’s not thriving, that you are just being stubborn and ignorant and, ‘Look at the baby, the baby needs feeding. So I think, you know, as a mother you have to sometimes realise that not everybody is going to support you. Of course the literature and the government’s attitudes are, you know, to encourage breastfeeding but the baby marketing of products of baby milk, of baby food, it’s so strong even subliminally it’s strong, even if it’s not meant to be advertised, you know, breastfeeding your baby for the first six months is the best thing that you can do. And I would also advise anybody if they can afford to take extended maternity leave to take it, because it just goes so quickly, it really does, and you don’t get it back, and all those other little milestones somebody else will be. But some people have to go back at six months because they have to pay the bills and have to pay the mortgage, we just used our savings so we won’t be having holidays for a while.

Right, I want to just look at the company’s perspective on this for a little bit, the workplace

Mm-hm.

and the breastfeeding mother, what have you got to say about that?

I’m lucky, I think, I have a female boss, who failed to breastfeed her son and her daughter, but knows how important it is to try and succeed. Also because I work in a large company we have an Occupational Health Department who have rooms, who have fridges, all the rest. So it was kind of, I said I wanted to do it, and you know I’d read up on it, I knew the, I knew my rights [laughs] and I asked them and they just said, Oo are you allowed to do that and I said, yes I a they said, oo okay the, and I taught them, and in fact after I did that one of the nurses, after having a baby and going back after maternity leave also expressed at work and told me that she didn’t know, she wouldn’t have known she could do that unless I had done it.

Has it spread any further, it’s a large company you’re talking about?

No, one of my things at the moment is I’m trying to persuade them, they send out, when you say you’re pregnant they send you out a letter saying, These are your rights, this is when you, you have to tell us when you’re leaving, this is when you have to tell us if you’re coming back, this is how long we hold your job open fo that sort of stuff, and I’ve asked them, and I’m not sure that it’s got through to the right person yet, to put a sentence, just one sentence on that, If you wish to express breast milk for your child when you return to work please contact Occupational Healt that’s all it needs, because that then just triggers the thought in the mothers’ minds.

They haven’t done it [laughs] but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t actually got through to the right person yet, because I think it’s been the same standard since about nineteen seventy-three so you know, it’s just getting through to the right person and then I’ll try and get that changed because I think that’ll be really good, but yeah weve got a fridge, there are rooms where people go to see nurses and they’d let me have one of those rooms, my boss was very supportive and yeah you need to tell, you take the time.