Claudia Protheroe says she was given little support when she was unable to breastfeed and switched to formula milk

While some mums and babies take to it like ducks to water, others struggle and after weeks of trying, are forced to switch to formula feeding.

But why is it that so many of these women are left feeling like failures?

Surely if a baby is happy and healthy, and the mum is happy and healthy, nothing else matters?

In an ideal world, yes, says Claudia Protheroe.

Unfortunately making the switch to formula leaves many women wracked with guilt, they feel they have failed and are being judged by those who insist they should have persevered.

That’s exactly what happened to Claudia.

“People have this idea that because breastfeeding is a natural process, everyone has the ability to do it and it will just happen,” explains Claudia, a mum to three-year-old Mia and six months pregnant with baby number two.

“I was just the same. It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t be able to do it – that I would not produce enough milk for my baby.

“I did all the antenatal classes going – NCT, yoga, hypnobirthing – but at no point was it discussed that for some women, breastfeeding may not work out."

The expectation, she says, is that breastfeeding will come naturally and the baby will get all it needs from the mum and be content.

But for Claudia the trauma of persevering was worse than the pain of labour and left her with post natal depression.

Claudia, from Colchester, explains: “Some people may think I should just get over it but when you are hormonal, emotional, sleep deprived and desperately want to breastfeed, the feelings of failure take hold.

And there is no-one out there who will say, it’s OK, just give your baby a bottle. I just wanted someone in the health service to tell me it was ok, that I wasn’t being a bad mum for giving Mia some formula.”

Claudia, a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist who runs her own practice, CBT Anglia in Crouch Street, with partner Marc Cavanna, was working when she went into labour.

Living in Chelmsford at the time, she was taken to Broomfield Hospital where she was diagnosed with preeclampsia and had to be induced.

Claudia says the nature of Mia’s birth probably added to her eventual post natal depression and admits the pressure to breastfeed came partly from herself as well as society telling her it was the right thing to do.

For weeks Claudia persevered with breastfeeding, but Mia, who was a healthy 8lb 5oz at birth, lost weight and cried all the time. Midwives and health visitors told her to continue, to eat more to feed her milk supply, but eventually Mia had to be formula fed and Claudia felt she had failed as a mother.

“I was horrified that for weeks my baby had been screaming because she was hungry and although her weight was dropping, everyone kept telling me to persevere,” says Claudia.

Claudia says: “Midwifes, whatever they personally think, have to push the benefits of breastfeeding over formula but they should be able to give a balanced view. It was an elderly midwife who told me to just give Mia a bottle. I felt so relieved someone was saying it was ok.”

Although Claudia had now been given the green light, her sense of failure didn’t disappear.

She felt uncomfortable giving Mia a bottle while others around her were happily breastfeeding.

It wasn’t until Mia was six months old that Claudia realised she wasn’t herself.

“We were at a family party and someone made an insensitive comment to me.

Usually I can brush off things like that I am not a needy person or someone who easily takes offence. But that day I couldn’t handle it. I used the excuse I needed to take Mia out for fresh air and was walking around for two hours, tears streaming down my face.

“When I finally went back in I told Marc I wasn’t feeling right.

You’d think as someone who works in psychology and has helped women like me before that I’d recognise what was happening to me, but I didn’t.

Once I did, I was able to start helping myself.”

Now pregnant with baby number two Claudia hopes she will take a more balanced view of breastfeeding, and not beat herself up if she is unable to breastfeed again.

“I want to try, of course, and I’d like to think I won’t put that pressure on myself again. The difference now is that I have seen Mia grow up healthy - healthier than some babies I knowwho have been breastfed - happy, and we have a very good bond. Everything I had been very worried about when it comes to formula feeding hasn’t happened.

“I think midwife and health visitors should be able to give a balanced view of feeding, and there should be support if you need to make the switch. There is plenty of support for breastfeeders, but nothing if you need to bottle feed. I was left alone and there was no one to answer any questions I had.That needs to change.

“Breastfeeding Mia was more traumatising than my labour,”

adds Claudia.

WHY BREASTFEED?

ACCORDING to the World Health Organisation, exclusive breastfeeding for six months is the optimal way of feeding infants.

After that it suggests babies should be given foods alongside breastfeeding until the child is to or even beyond.

The NHS says babies who are breastfed have less chance of vomiting and diarrhoea and being admitted to hospital as a result, fewer chest and ear infections, less chance of being constipated, reduced likelihood of becoming obese or developing type 2 diabetes later in life and developing eczema.