to think baby formula should come in plain packaging?

There is no need for wetnurses unless a mother cannot produce milk. Colostrum is all babies need in the first few days, in fact we are really luckily as a species that we ca use artifical milk straight away. Many manuals die without it and cows and sheep they have had to create artifical Colostrum or they don't thrive either.

There’s nothing wrong with accepting that the marketing of formula is pernicious and impossible to ignore. Even medical professionals who KNOW that all brands are equal will not buy Cow & Gate for their baby because the image and target market of that brand is that it’s for young, lower socio-economic parents. How do we ALL know that when marketing of formula is apparently not allowed?

Yes, those emotional formula feeders...

Lord knows breast feeding mums are always calm and rational about breast feeding.

I was once approached by one such lovely mum who lectured me on breast feeding my adopted baby. She was the personification of tranquility. So much wisdom she freely gave a stranger who in no way asked for it. Sigh ... A real saint.

I think the NHS does a lot of harm by preaching that breast is best but then they don't always act like they really believe it if that makes sense.

Obviously in NICU the priority is the babies and the medical team need to be able to access the incubators quicky without too much clutter nearby but I think there should be more provision for the mother's to stay close by.

I chose SMA because that’s what I was raised on and was the more popular formula around me. I didn’t pick it for its tin.

A totally waste of time and energy. Perhaps we should concentrate on the myriad of other problems we have, than on what colour the formula tins are. Quite frankly, I tried more expensive ones, cheaper ones and the one that suited my daughter better, that´s the one i kept to. Nothing to do with pretty packages. pfff
Now she´s 5 on to 6 and who cares what she ate as a baby. We´re on to other things.

with formula given to all children until their mother's milk arrives in sufficient quantities to move exclusively to breast milk.

What?!

I agree with you OP. Sadly, forumla feeders always get straight on the defensive with threads like this. It's very emotive and rarely generates rational and balanced discusssion.

As per the peer reviewed research paper that i previously shared, the actual human norm was wet nurses / community breast feeding, but that was abandoned in the west around 120 years ago. It was replaced with formula - especially in the first few weeks after birth, until the mother's milk arrived.

We've now ditched that and moved to 'breast is best' starvation for newborn children.

Unless we're going to return to a system of wet nurses, then i think this whole breast is best obsession needs a serious rethink, with formula given to all children until their mother's milk arrives in sufficient quantities to move exclusively to breast milk.

Yes, that was exactly my experience. all the midwives seemed to care about was breastfeeding, even though it would have kept him in longer.

The staff in NICU were far more realistic and balanced and gave no pressure at all, they just wanted us discharged and healthy asap.

@FuckOffTom i have actually made a post disputing the OP's comment that "all (FF) recipes are the same" as i disagree and would like to discuss this but I haven't had the op respond to this as yet; other people have also made comments why they disagree with the suggestion of plain packaging, so people are engaging with the topic. However when you have other people on the thread framing people as stupid then its not a surprise when threads expand to more emotional aspects.

People are discussing just not agreeing.

Exactly. But when when I was on the ward, the pressure from the midwives was ever present to breastfeed.

They had one super duper expressing machine. But the ward was on the other side of the hospital from NICU. I’d get on it, then I would be called down for an emergency.

Then I would trek back up, only to find the midwives had locked the room and were too busy to open it up.

But still, the comment about how I should BF even though he would be in longer persisted from them.

"All formula brands are equal, lets stop permitting them to be percieved otherwise"

They're not so the same.

Cow & Gate gave our son really bad reflux. It foamed when shaken in the bottle.

We switched to Aldi own brand which is made in the same factory. That brand didn't foam when mixed/shaken and it fixed the reflux problem.

Well, tackling our obesogenic society would be very expensive. It likely would require significant structural change. That's really hard. Pissing about with formula boxes is much less effort.

@FuckOffTom yes they do, let me see if I can find it.

I don’t necessarily agree with you OP but it does annoy me that these threads all go this way. You can’t have an actual discussion about such an important topic without loads of people assuming you are personally attacking them because they couldn’t or wouldn’t breastfeed. It’s not about you!! It’s a society thing!

In terms of the low BF rates, I know there is data on how few babies are still BF by 6 weeks old but do they gather data on why most women stop or don’t start in the first place?

I think its interesting how some people are so passionate about this topic when there are kids living in poverty, malnourished and not getting proper meals in this country.

There are kids who are already struggling with weight and obesity issues.

It think it's great if society demands changes for healthier children. I just don't think breast feeding versus formula is the way to do it.

🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡

I suspect most babies are happier being formula fed than raised by the kind of see you next Tuesday mums who relish making these kinds of comments.

Yep - I notice the usual trademarks of saying the controversial - then returning periodically after people have shared some really distressing stories to basically "absolve" them of an "acceptable" incidence of formula feeding.

It's the usual wind it up and rake over people's pain trick combined with wanting to basically "shame" women routine. I'm pretty much beyond it now - both my kids are functioning well, kick arse, stroppy and smart pre-teens - but bloody hell the judgement and condemnation from people who really had no business sticking their nose into my baby feeding arrangements at the time was horrendous.

Incidents included:
Stereotypical little old lady peeking into the pram - "what a lovely little baby - I hope you're feeding him yourself" (like no, I ship him down the local crack den every four hours and it's a she thank you)
Watching another woman being absolutely hounded out of the local Sure Start when the breastfeeding circle started a "I can't believe that X celeb is bottle feeding their child - they must really not love their baby" conversation - they then had the fucking cheek to ask me to crochet them the baby boob hat that was the fad back then
I went to a postnatal MH group because I had horrific PND after the second - and a breastfeeding support worker decided to declare that she had the "right" to come in and "educate" this group of women about breastfeeding - when most were on relatively high dose medication that had meant they had had to prematurely stop breastfeeding and were still feeling absolutely awful over that decision.
Oh yeah and a notable mention for the comment when I couldn't do baby led weaning because DD1's prematurity meant her motor skills weren't quite there yet but the guidance at the time was to wean on actual age not adjusted - "you're force-feeding your baby mush".

It is vile, it is toxic and people get a huge fucking kick out of raking over people's wounds (because shockingly - Aptamil does not negate the love you have for your baby) for their own comparative sense of self worth and gratification.

Yeah because I really needed another kick while I was down about my failure to breastfeed 🙄my baby was losing weight, I had no choice. Plain packaging would have just added to the shame I felt.

yeh i'm still buying it. i live in a country where the milk is all uht and absolutely rank.

It is. Very odd that a midwife would consider that an appropriate remark to make to a NICU parent. Speaking as one who's also been in that position. I can't imagine what possessed her.

@WhatNoRaisins I agree, thats the most batshit comment from someone who should know better. I found the NICU staff ,by far, more empathetic than the ward staff and i think its because NICU staff are so aware that having a healthy baby that comes home with you from hospital is the most important thing of all.

No one wants their baby in NICU any longer than they have to.