When Lauren Marks-Clee recovered from a bout of postnatal depression brought on by her conflicted feelings about breastfeeding, she was angry that the parenting class she had paid hundreds of pounds to attend had barely mentioned bottle-feeding at all. In fact, she felt it had done little except exacerbate her guilt.
“I spent two hours listening to a woman telling me breast was best when I was pregnant,” she said. “So when I struggled to breastfeed, I felt I’d failed as a mother … I didn’t bond with my son and I think that was partly because I dreaded the feeds and the pain. I dreaded having him passed to me.”
Earlier this year, Marks-Clee launched the latest in a new wave of alternative parenting classes that focus on helping expectant mothers and fathers feel confident and happy about their decisions, whether they opt to have C-sections or natural births, and regardless of whether they formula feed or breastfeed their babies.
Many of these courses market themselves as practical, open-minded and above all “non-preachy”, and have been created by recent mothers who feel traditional antenatal classes, led by the National Childbirth Trust, can sometimes encourage parents to have a natural birth or breastfeed when those options do not suit them.
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