Content Warning: Postpartum Depression and Postpartum Psychosis (PPD and PPP), Child Neglect, Child Starvation, Abuse of Minors, Breast vs. Bottle, Bottle-Shaming, Mom-Shaming, Mental Health Disorders
With the rise on social media of beautiful, aesthetic accounts centered around motherhood, moms are more pressured than ever to put on the perfect show of homemade cooking, playtime, and all the “right” choices for their children.
But the secret of many of these accounts is that they become more about appearances and aesthetic than the actual quality care of their children, cringed the members of the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor Brilliant-Profile163 became increasingly concerned about their sister-in-law and newborn baby daughter, as everyone worried that the baby was not getting enough to eat or putting on enough weight.
When their sister-in-law banned any family members from visiting, stating that they were dangerous to have around the baby, the Original Poster (OP) knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.
They asked the sub:
“AITAH for telling my sister-in-law (SIL) that breastfeeding is not about her journey, but about her starving baby?”
The OP’s family was concerned about the growth and weight gain of their niece, Amanda.
“My SIL, Julia, gave birth to a little Amanda 11 weeks ago.”
“From the beginning, Amanda was barely growing, mostly losing weight instead of gaining.”
“My country is heavily pro-breastfeeding, and Julia decided that she wanted to breastfeed. However, Amanda wasn’t gaining weight properly and landed in the 0.1th percentile for weight.”
Julia then exhibited other concerning behaviors.
“Julia forbade me and my mum from coming to visit them. She said we will poison her if we bring her food. It was surprising, especially since before she gave birth, we were good friends. So we only saw little Amanda in pictures and videos my brother has been sending to us.”
“And only once, my mum said she’s worried because Amanda looked like she was hungry (she was crying and writhing, pushing her fists into her mouth) while Julia narrated on the video that this is how a happy baby looks with a full belly.”
“So my mum asked if Julia could give her a bottle because Amanda still seems hungry.”
“Julia went berserk and cut us off completely. She was pumping, but her supply didn’t go up at all. Amanda had a tongue tie resolved, but it didn’t help much. Julia was using donor’s milk to top up Amanda’s feedings.”
At a recent checkup, the truth came out about what Julia was doing.
“Now, every week they’re visiting a doctor’s office for a control checkup of their weight. This is where it gets really messy. They were there yesterday. And yesterday, my brother called us crying that Amanda was in the hospital.”
“The story went like this: As always, Julia asked my brother to bring her coffee before the weighing appointment while she was using the nursing room to change Amanda’s nappy. As always, he did.”
“Except this time, a nurse went in in the middle of it to ask Julia about some paperwork. And the nurse saw that Julia was feeding Amanda from a bottle right before the check-up… The bottle was 150cc of milk, and it was already half down.”
“The nurse said that Julia was supposed to wait for feeding until after the checkup, and then my brother came in.”
“He got very mad. He said that Julia refused to give Amanda the bottles, so what was going on? Then he took the bottle, and at the same time, Amanda vomited with a very, very thick milk. The nurse went crazy and checked the bottle, and it was filled with milk mixed with rice cereal.”
“The doctor who’s been called to see it immediately ordered moving Amanda to the hospital for an emergency check-up, especially after seeing Julia, who went berserk and started throwing stuff around and yelling at everyone that she will be feeding her baby however and whenever she wants.”
Julia and Amanda were both in critical condition, though for different reasons.
“We went to the hospital to see my brother. Amanda already had her blood tests done, and they showed some problems with her kidneys, liver, and vitamin levels, and iron deficiency.”
“The doctors said she has been starving for a long time and asked why nobody from our family reacted. We told them the story about Julia claiming that we would poison her and couldn’t see her.”
“So the doctors immediately took Julia for a psych evaluation for PPD, but… it turns out she was faking it. She admitted to the doctor (she was super scared that somebody might take the baby from her) that her friend told her that if she fakes PPD, then we would leave her alone and she will have peace of mind during her breastfeeding.”
“The doctors then told her that what she did was not okay and that she was regularly stuffing the baby with milk and cereal before the weight checkup so as to pretend that Amanda had grown. And that she should just give Amanda bottles with formula because this is about the little girl’s life and survival as she’s now failing to thrive and her life and health are in danger.”
Julia dangerously escalated the situation.
“Julia got very mad. She yelled that she will either breastfeed Amanda or she won’t feed her at all, and that the choice is only hers because this is her baby and nobody else’s.”
“Now this is when the doctors told Julia that either she would go for another psych evaluation or they would call the police. Julia agreed to the evaluation, and they locked her up for a week.”
“My brother is working 14 hours per day because they are poor, and after their wedding, Julia decided she wants to be a traditional wife, and he has to earn their living. So my brother said that whatever Julia is doing, it must be right. But after seeing what was happening, he got super mad.”
“He said that she starved Amanda on purpose for her own sick satisfaction, even though he was working hard on providing money so they would be able to buy formula if needed.”
“He said he wanted a divorce and full custody over Amanda. We don’t know if he will get it because it’s rare for a dad to take care of their daughters. Also, the doctors are mad at him because he didn’t notice what Julia was doing.”
The OP called Julia out for her actions and priorities.
“Before Julia went to the ward, I got angry and told her that she made monsters out of us and that we were just worried about her and Amanda.”
“I pointed out that this whole situation was always only about Julia and her ‘breastfeeding journey’ and not about Amanda’s life.”
“She called me a b***h and said I should’ve died in childhood because nobody can love an Autistic person like me.”
“AITAH?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some had witnessed similarly alarming fixations on the importance of breastfeeding.
“Some of us take our babies home, worrying that everything we are doing may not be right. Are they too hot, too cold, eating, too many nappies, not enough. (If my four-month-old had any awareness of my anxiety, he’d be stressed)… and then you have people who will do whatever and assume they are right, no matter what.”
“I do know of one woman who was so determined to breastfeed and not give her child ‘nipple’ confusion, he ended up in hospital being fed through a tube for a bit. Crazily enough, she’s actually a medic herself (a surgeon), and her husband is a general practitioner.” – HaitchanM
“I have seen a similar experience with my wife. And while I do think breastfeeding is important, they have gone way too far. They shouldn’t be lumping this much stress on new mothers, especially the first time around. There are plenty of kids who are purely formula-fed who are perfectly fine.”
“Some kind of messaging along the lines of breast is better, but the most important thing for the baby is a stress-free mom and a full belly, no matter how it gets there.” – Scrofullia
“This is heartbreaking to read. Your niece’s health should always come before your SIL’s pride or desire to exclusively breastfeed. It sounds like the doctors are finally stepping in, which is good, but your brother really needs to wake up and advocate for Amanda before things get worse.” – TatianaChurroBun
“Honestly, it sounds like your sister in law may have fallen down an online rabbit hole, the sort of far-right tradwife ones.”
“Falling into a rabbit hole like that can be part of psychosis, too. The algorithm pushes that stuff hard on pregnant moms (I’m extremely left wing and still got recommended so much crunchy tradwife stuff while pregnant, ugh), so if it caught her in a super suggestible moment, she absolutely could have fallen into it.”
“I’m noticing a lot of dogwhistles – formula being ‘poison,’ her being a ‘traditional wife,’ and the breastfeeding ‘journey,’ above all else. As well as the sudden ableism towards you. It’s probably worth checking her social media to see what/whose ideas she is consuming.” – Dogonacloud
“Thank you for posting this. As someone who was raised by a seriously mentally ill mother and who could never get help or protection because nobody believed that a mother would do what my mother did, I am really grateful to you. People like you raise awareness that mothers can be abusive and raise the chances of children getting protected.” – squirrelfoot
Others were concerned at the danger Amanda was in and urged the OP to stay involved.
“NTA. Julia is very mentally ill and was willing to kill her baby to maintain some weird illusion.” – ProfessorDistinct835
“NTA, obviously. Regardless of what Julia’s diagnosis is, she is not safe to parent poor little Amanda. Obviously, the infant’s needs come first, regardless of what journey a parent wants to make.”
“Based on my work with abused and neglected children, the idea that ‘mommy knows best’ is sadly very wrong in many cases, and fatally so in some.” – Curious-One4595
“OP, not sure the laws of your country, but your family needs to contact your version of child services, and someone takes emergency custody of the child. Do you believe the baby will survive staying with the mother? Do you believe your brother is capable of making good decisions right now?”
“Your SIL is going to probably need several weeks of hospitalization, and then outpatient services for a while. She will not be fit to take care of the child for a long time. Your brother works too much and may have to go through some court-supervised parent classes or more. It depends on your laws, but it sounds like you guys need to speak to an attorney to get ahead of this.” – Miserable_Mission483
“Julia is a very sick individual. Was she putting regular milk or breast milk in the bottle? I remember crying to the doctors that I wasn’t producing enough milk and begging for the best recommendations for formula and how to afford it.”
“Even when my third child had health issues, I begged the doctor to prescribe a special formula (which thankfully they did after some tests). I only mention this because Julia was not putting little Amanda first like so many other mothers would.”
“Your brother is also a problem because he should have known to ask your mom or someone else who has kids if the screaming I’m sure Amanda was doing was normal or not. His clues to stop trusting Julia were when they had to go for weekly doctors’ visits.” – Equivalent_Gazelle82
“PPD or not, this woman is deranged. She is extremely mentally ill. No reasonable person would be doing what she is doing. Unless you think she’s ok with killing her child, she’s clearly not thinking straight and very unwell. She needs psychiatric help, and I’m glad the baby’s doctors have recognized that.” – Candid-Ability-9570
The OP soon had more information about Julia’s fixation on breastfeeding over bottle-feeding, which they shared in a second post.
“First of all, our little Amanda is doing well and is staying in the hospital. She’s being fed with formula and bottles (my brother had to agree to this), and since yesterday, she has gained 30 g.”
“She had more tests done, and we’re waiting for the results. The doctors are also worried about the fact that Julia forcefed Amanda with cereal mixed with donor milk before the appointments because, apparently, it can cause some problems with the digestive system in the future, especially since they don’t know for how long she’s been doing it, and she doesn’t want to admit it.”
“Second, thank you all for your support. Also, thank you for the comments stating that we let Amanda down and put her in danger. My mom and I realize it now, and we feel terrible about it.”
Julia had a much more troubling history than the OP realized.
“We don’t have any information about Julia, but no matter what, we worry about her. She’s our family, as well. She doesn’t have her own family (she said before the wedding that she and the rest of her family had a fight, and they cut her off, so she is alone in this world, and we felt very sorry for her).”
“We managed to get in touch with one of Julia’s friends, Linda, who was donating milk to her. Linda was terrified by the story and admitted she was the one who told Julia to pretend that she was afraid of us poisoning her. All of it because Linda’s MIL was demanding to visit them after the birth, so she used this excuse for people to leave her alone.”
“And apparently Julia said to Linda before giving birth that Amanda is only hers and only she has the right to hold her, and Michael (my brother) if really needed. And I don’t understand this because my mum never asked to hold Amanda. In the hospital, two days ago, it was the first time we saw Amanda in real life.”
“Linda also told us that she introduced Julia to The Milk League, and it was there that she found out all the bad things about formula and bottle feeding. Also, it turns out she never wanted to vaccinate Amanda, but my brother forced her to. Linda said she recommended Julia a couple of lactation consultants who apparently weren’t really educated LCs but some women with Instagram accounts claiming to know a lot about breastfeeding.”
“This is all for now. This is all the information I gathered. The most important to me is that Amanda is safe with the doctors and nurses.”
Fellow Redditors were alarmed by the amount of misinformation Julia had received.
“So not only was this woman starving her kid, she was purposely surrounded by people who were also misinformed to a dangerous degree. I’m glad the baby is safe now, but I honestly don’t think SIL should ever be near a child again.” – 0fluffythe0ferocious
“This is sick. Absolutely sick. I hope little Amanda continues to get the care she needs away from her insane mother and friend.” – Ok_Chemist_8631
“What is Linda terrified of? She TOLD Julia how to mistreat her child. She shouldn’t be shocked that this is the result.” – Shelly_895
“FED is best! I tried to breastfeed, and it went nowhere fast. My son lost too much weight in the hospital because everyone was pushing breastfeeding.”
“I got home, and my mom vetoed everything the hospital experts told me. That boy was fed formula immediately, and I started pumping so I could better monitor his intake.”
“I was only producing maybe half of what he needed, so he was on both his entire infancy. He is now a weirdo, stinky, HEALTHY, smart, well-adjusted tween.” – LifeOpEd
“The OP needs to report Linda and whoever else is involved in this ‘Milk League’ to either the police or a child protective agency. Because if this is what Julia is doing to her child on these nuts’ advice, who knows what’s happening to these other people’s children? How many other kids are being starved because their mothers think they know better than doctors?” – SarcasticAzaleaRose
In a third post, the OP shared more about Amanda’s and Michael’s new living arrangements.
“HAPPY NEWS! Amanda is currently at our home and doing very well!”
“Amanda is out of the hospital, currently placed in our family house. We will have daily visits from nurses who are going to check up on her and on us and make sure that she’s growing well and that we’re taking good care of her. Currently, she gains around 35-40 grams per day, which the doctors say is an amazing result.”
“She is also pink now and not grey, and is very interested in everything. I was scared to hold her because I’ve never held a baby! But my mum showed me how, and Amanda was smiling at me and playing with my braid.”
“My older sister came to live with us for the time being and help us so everyone can get enough sleep and be a present caregiver. Amanda is eating every three hours around the clock from a bottle. She’s getting a high-calorie formula, and she seems to be fine. Tomorrow she will have another blood test done, and we’re hoping for the best.”
“We asked the doctors a couple of days ago to ask Julia to give us some breastmilk for Amanda if she’s willing, but Julia didn’t agree. The doctors told us that she stated once again that either she’s feeding her baby from her breast or she won’t be feeding her at all. So formula, it is.”
There were no updates on Julia yet.
“As far as I know, Julia is still in the psych ward as she didn’t return home. We don’t know what’s going on as she cancelled all the permissions she gave to my brother to know about her health. So nobody can tell us anything right now.”
“Before she cancelled the permissions, one of the doctors told my brother that she has a strong narcissistic personality, but they believe there’s more to this.”
Michael also wanted to be a better father.
“My brother, Michael, knows about his mistakes. He’s taking some sort of parenting classes and being in therapy, and is working on himself to prove that he can take care of Amanda.”
“He will be fighting for full custody. I can’t tell about other things that are going on, so basically that’s it about him.”
“But he found out something interesting that he shared with the doctors of the psych ward.”
This may have not been the first time Julia mistreated a dependent minor.
“So my brother managed to find Julia’s family through social media. When he told them about Amanda and everything that happened, Julia’s parents immediately wanted to come to visit, but Julia’s father has problems with mobility, so instead they invited Michael to them to talk.”
“Now this story is how Michael told us. So Julia was raised in a religious family in a small town. She has one younger brother named Sven.”
“Her parents said that Sven was always a very sickly child. He was always ill, always with weird diseases that made no sense. Like sudden fevers and stomach bugs when nobody else had them. Sometimes he would have bones broken, like fingers or toes, and he couldn’t explain why or how these things happened.”
“So the whole family had to take care of him, and because they had no sitters, Julia was always with them in the hospital when they needed to take care of Sven (mostly on weekends).”
“So this isn’t really weird because I was always hurting myself and being clumsy, so I could relate.”
“But then they said that when he was 18, Sven took all his belongings and moved out of the house and began working in the city. He only sporadically reached out to his mum to tell her he was fine and he wasn’t sick anymore.”
“Julia was very upset when Sven moved out, and her parents said that she was always super, super close with Sven, and they were always together. She was angry afterwards, she was breaking plates and glasses, and even once made a hole in the wall after she threw a chair at it.”
“So her parents asked her to move out. She moved out, and soon after, she met my brother. They were together for less than a year before the wedding because she said she is from a very religious family, and she cannot wait.”
“Now the thing is that Julia is like super, super pretty. And my brother… Well, he’s my brother. So he was really into her, and he really wanted to be with her, especially that she was educated and he is working simple jobs, and he was always admiring her for her knowledge (and that’s one of the reasons he never questioned what she was doing with Amanda, especially that Julia told Michael multiple times that she is the smart one in this house).”
Then Julia invented the whole story about her famliy cutting her off.
“Shortly before the wedding, Julia reached out to her parents, demanding money for the wedding dress and wedding party, as well as inviting them. She also pushed for her brother to come.”
“But when the parents called Sven to tell him about it, he said he would never be in any proximity to Julia, not after what she’s done to him. He broke down and said that all his illnesses were caused by her. She forced him, for example, to eat raw potatoes or old cottage cheese and once even a random animal poop she found in the fields. She also used to play with him violently, and he always ended up with broken fingers, toes, and wrist (three times).”
“So the parents went berserk. They said they don’t want to see their daughter again, and she won’t get any money, and if only they knew who her fiancé is, they would reach him and warn him not to even think about marrying Julia.”
“But they didn’t know Michael back then, as Julia refused to introduce him to her parents before the wedding.”
Everything started to make sense.
“Michael got pretty mad at Julia’s parents that they didn’t try to warn him, but they later said they honestly started thinking Julia was making up the whole wedding thing, as she used to lie a lot when she was a teenager and young adult, and that she probably just wanted money from them.”
“So the parents didn’t make any effort to find Michael, thinking that he probably didn’t exist anyway, but instead focused on Sven and helping him (which is totally fair).”
“So that’s the story for now. I felt sick when Michael told us about Sven. It was a couple of days ago, and I’m still feeling shocked and bad. It feels so wrong.”
“Especially because Julia was always kind to me. She never tried to hurt me (I have known her for almost a year and a half).”
“Michael told the doctors about it, but they couldn’t say anything because of the lack of permission. So for now, this is it. I’ll update more when I can.”
Fellow Redditors were horrified by how Julia treated people whom she could control.
“I had a feeling she was hurting her little brother as I was reading it! You must tell whatever authority involved in her case. She must NEVER be unsupervised with this baby. They need to know, and her brother needs to know, as I hope he would testify to help this innocent baby.” – mcmurrml
“Because you can talk and fight back and tell people she’s hurting you. Sven and Amanda couldn’t do any of those things, so that’s why Julia hurt them but never hurt you. People like her target vulnerable people who can’t fight back.”
“It’s also why she isolated Amanda from your family and did her best to keep your brother away from her, too. So she could keep hurting Amanda without interference.”
“As Sven got older and was able to talk, she probably told him no one would ever believe him, and that’s why he didn’t tell them till years later. He was too scared to either out of fear of Julia hurting him again or because she made him terrified that he wouldn’t be believed.” – SarcasticAzaleaRose
“For Julia, it was likely about the control. That’s what abuse is. She wanted total control of her targets. Why she wanted that control to the point where she actively harmed two children, well, it’s not the act of a rational person.”
“Julia is ill, that’s the reason. She committed crimes against two people. On some level, she knew what she was doing was wrong, given the lengths she went to hide it from people who would be in a position to demand or mete out consequences for her actions.”
“When people seek to hide their real selves, and are really good at it, it can be difficult to see their real essence. But as poet Maya Angelou once said, ‘When someone shows you who they are, believe them.'” – WillemsSakura
“We all want to believe people are good, so don’t beat yourself up about that. You had no reason to believe anything otherwise about Julia until she couldn’t hide her true colors any longer.”
“Abusers, psychopaths/sociopaths, and people who suffer from Munchausen’s by proxy rarely think they’re doing anything wrong or that they need help, so they never seek it out. Julia didn’t ask for help, probably because she didn’t think there was anything wrong with her or her behavior. That was probably only further fueled if her family was praising her for helping with Sven.”
“In your case, with your problems in school and with colleagues, you knew that their behavior was wrong and you needed help managing it. Julia and people like her don’t think that way. They know society doesn’t view their actions as okay, but they don’t care because they believe they’re doing nothing wrong or that they have a right to act how they are.” – Stormtomcat
It seemed to the subReddit like this story just kept getting worse and worse as more details about Julia’s past became available. Fortunately for Amanda, she was with family and away from her mother, and if the past was any indication, hopefully the arrangement would stay that way.