In all honesty, my mum had died a deeply traumatic death from cancer two years before; I knew I wasn't in the right frame of mind to cope with the unknowns of natural labour – particularly without her there to support me.
I also knew of another woman whose little one was stillborn at full term; afterwards an inquiry showed that a caesarean would have saved his life.
It seems to me that the real reason some mothers feel so furious about formula is that they think it's vain – that mothers like me are just trying to avoid the droopy breasts apparently caused by feeding.
It's common knowledge that mothers can be ultra-competitive and critical of one another, but I hadn't realised until I became one myself that some parental choices are particularly incendiary.
According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 3.7 million one-child families in Britain in 2023 - an increase of 16 per cent versus 3.2 million two decades ago (file image).
