to think baby formula should come in plain packaging?

I thought advertising for formula was only allowed for post-6 months formula? And if you're buying that when your HV will tell you it's not needed then more fool you IMO. Normal formula is fine, and when weaned you don't need it at all.

pardon? what health risks? breast milk comes with health risks if we want to be silly about it. Allergens, lack of essential vitamins, disease can all be passed. Neither is absolutely 100% perfect for the baby because babies are all so different.

Formula is a perfectly suitable alternative to breast milk if mom can't or doesn't want to breast feed. It will never be a replacement as an identical food but it is a healthy perfectly satisfactory alternative.

i've breastfed for 2 years with 2 different kids but my youngest failed to thrive. He's now at 2 years old the best sleeper, most active and easiest to feed child out of all of them. He's also at the ideal weight and height for his age, where as the other two were always very small.

I just wanted my baby to feed, gain weight and come home.

I had one midwife on the ward tell me she had far more “respect” for the mothers who preserved wirh BF in NICU even if if meant their babies were in hospital longer.

Fuck that. I wanted us home and him healthy. I didn’t care about breast feeding.

It’s really upsetting and frustrating to come on these threads and see how many women “couldn’t” breastfeed. Statistically, 98% of you “could” have breastfed, but have been completely let down by a broken system with 0 support. 2% or less of mothers have actual medical reasons why they they can’t breastfeed - the rest is purely lack of support and understanding regarding how it works, and a total failure in our system to up support when it’s not working - how quickly does the health visitor just resort to formula or mixed feeding as advice? It’s awful, and then mothers feel they have failed at something when the system has, in reality, failed them.

this simply isn’t an issue in other countries where there is far better support in place, and BF is the cultural norm.

for all those who are saying there is no difference in formula feed brands there historically, certainly, has been and there are sometimes changes in regulations that mean the certain FF companies then have to change their formulation. Things that have historically varied between brands are eg. whether the feed contains palm oil; are the ingredients organic; although there are regulations on what the product has to contain, the sources of these nutrients (fats, proteins, carbs) may come from different sources eg. does the product contain cow milk derived or vegetable derived fats, does the product contain corn syrups; what type of pre and probiotics are included ( that may be really important for parents of poorly babies like mine who had their gut bacteria wiped out by strong antibiotics in their first week of life) . Many of us will not be able to look into this so having market competition is actually important as it means that there is commercial pressure on FF companies to invest in researching and producing the best product.

I didn’t breastfeed because I am quite self-conscious already. I would not have felt comfortable getting my breasts out in public, or in front of male family members if I’m honest. It was also important for my mental health that my partner and mum were able to help out in those early days. I had a c-section and the recovery was brutal, I can’t imagine also being 100% responsible for all feedings whilst trying to recover.

I did express milk and also harvest colostrum for those first few days though.

This is true. The only DC I managed to bf was born overseas and I was kept in hospital for 2 nights, standard vaginal birth with no complications. There was a lot more support and I managed to get a lot more rest than I did in the uk, I was given fresh food as well which was a bonus.

I had my child outside of the UK and can explain why bfeeding is more successful outside of the UK. Min hospital stay is 2 days. A nightmare...but you have staff on hand to watch you bf. I had a nurse come everytime I fed to check my latch. When milk came in day 2...Still in hospital...everyone together yes its normal baby wants to fed all the time. By time you leave most are confident to continue.
In the uk you have a baby and are shipped off home.

I found it really awful in NICU where I was expected to feed large quantities of formula in a way which felt like force feeding, no support with expressing and then moved back to postnatal where breast was best and expected to breastfeed. I don't know if the large formula feeds made my baby expect larger amounts of milk but it was a while before I could satisfy them on breastmilk alone but they didn't want me to top up. The different parts of the hospital and community care need to have a more united approach on feeding because this sucks.

What makes you think they would reduce the price if they are not spending it on the packaging though?

I might be wrong, but I think "first milk" is the only one that is medically necessary (you can keep giving them this until they are old enough for regular milk) follow on milk is not. So they will continue to advertise that, the same well advertised brands stay well known and people will buy the brand they know even if the packaging is quite plain. Or do you mean they shouldn't be allowed to put their brand name on it either?

It would be good if there was a cheaper option available though (the cheapest I've spotted from a quick Google was £8 a can while the most expensive was £18). It is not medically necessary to spend £18 on formula if there is a cheaper one available, doesn't matter what the packaging is.

If baby formula, why not all commodities sold to the public?

Anyone dumb enough to believe the writing on packaging is anything other than advertising "puff" is the sucker who, as W C Fields said, doesn't deserve an even break.

You do realise its formula feeding companies who coined the phase best is best, they actually found it made mums feel OK to formula feed as hardly anyone obtains perfection in life.

Using language like breastfeeding is normal has been found to help encourage mums to breastfeed. Although in then UK the figures for breastfeeding at birth are high, in the 90's. The issue is lack of support, midwife's having little traning in breastfeeding. All due to cultural changes that happen during the 60's/70's, which was fueled by formula companies trying to get a larger market share.

Yes, I had the same. The drs and nurses in NICU could not have been more supportive of FF. they just wanted to see my baby start thriving and get us discharged. They didn’t care if he was BF or FF, just that he was taking milk and getting stronger.

It was a totally different with midwives and health visitors.

The word 'fact' is taking some abuse there.

Do you think cows milk and formula are the same thing? How is infant formula intended for baby cows, is that what the manufacturers secretly want? Should we also be giving formula that wasn't derived from cows milk to calves too? Enquiring minds want to know!

Humans make milk for their babies- that is the biological (or 'normal') way that babies should be fed. This is a fact.
It is not biologically 'normal' for babies to be fed milk intended for a baby cow.
Just because you find the wording triggering doesn't make it any less of a fact.

YABU. ⬆️ this, so you want to create more stigma around mothers who for whatever reason bottle feed their children? I breastfed one of my children. The reason for not breastfeeding the others were circumstantial ones. First DC couldn’t be fed due to mastitis which ended in hospitalisation, the others were circumstantial. The amount of pressure that was put on me to breastfeed was unbelievable. It was horrible, I already felt like I had failed my child but I was made to feel awful and my life was made even more difficult purposely by the midwives as they didn’t approve of bottle feeding. I think we need to stop making mothers feel so guilty for not breast feeding and just offer support. It’s shocking how much pressure can be put on mother’s and it clearly doesn’t work as rates are not high.

You clearly think that people on low income are stupid, and incapable of making decisions about what they can and can't afford. They don't need 'saving' by you, frankly.

If you demand restriction upon restriction until producing formula is not commercially viable (my understanding is that supermarkets have already generally found producing own brands of formula not commercially viable) then there will eventually be no formula milk available - will that suit your aim ?

No formula available would be a crisis. Yes the producers of infant formula are businesses competing with each other. We live in a capitalist society.

Your plain packaging formula would require the NHS or similar to commission and retail the formula (as no brand awareness/no mark-up etc). Fancy doing the maths on the cost of that?

If parents wanted cheap no frills formula then supermarket own brands would have been a success. Parents are very brand loyal with their infant formula and have every right to be.

Breat is the normal natural way to feed a baby and anything else is less then normal. How many of you realise how lucky you are to live in a country where formula is easily avaible and safe to use. This is not the case for millions of babies around the world.

I think a lot of us just think the stuff about norms and biological norms is silly. Virtually all modern humans pick and choose when they want to do what's biologically normal and when they don't. We're all selective about it, you certainly included since you're on the internet voluntarily. And we do live in a society where formula feeding is entirely normal. One only has to live here to see that. This is why the arguments about normal are so unpersuasive.

Similarly, the idea that any woman would take luck into account is bemusing. Millions of women around the world can't feed their older DC a nutritious diet either, but presumably you've enough sense not to think we should be rationing our kids healthy food on that basis.

Not at all the same. In your not-very-clever gotcha the baby is not fed at all - in the post that you quoted, the baby was fed just via a different method.

I loath these goady threads and wish MNHQ would just ban them. You don't need to advocate for any woman but yourself, OP, we don't need your 'help'.

I think YABU, as baby formula is a product like any other. The purpose of product design and marketing is to sell more product. Personally, I never found baby formula packaging attractive in any way. I did however look at the ingredients in each before deciding which one I was happy to feed my child.

This is spot on, in my opinion.

It's a non-existent rhetoric that only serves formula companies.

@ThisOldThang They do, in a lot of places - or did. It's been strongly linked with cardiac issues.

Breastfeeding would be far easier if people didn't stare/comment.

To be fair, I was worried about this - mostly from posts here and on Facebook - but in 2.5 years of feeding, I had one weird interaction. That was all. And probably ten/fifteen mums coming over to congratulate me or say well done for feeding in public, etc.

I had a horrific breastfeeding journey; it was agony until 9 weeks and there was no support as to why. The midwives advice was well-meaning but shit; I didn't have the supply to pump, and we were pushed towards formula. It was HARD to reverse that.

In my NCT group, 7/8 breastfeed, but 3 didn't feed in public - they'd use wearable pumps all the time instead. Once the babies were 8 or so weeks old, they stopped feeding completely and bottle-fed. 5 of them stopped feeding at one, only 2 of us were still going at 2. For most of them, they stopped to TTC. The other one that stopped recently stopped because she's pregnant.

It's a tough place to be. The one who formula fed had to, and I know she feels constantly guilty about it, and wonders if it's impacted on her bond with her daughter. I don't want to make anyone feel more guilty, and it's difficult to reach the people who would never have naturally considered breastfeeding - like me, before the NCT, if I'm honest, I'd never seen anyone breastfeeding or considered it - and reaching people who are very sensitive to breastfeeding messages because they really wanted to breastfeed and couldn't for any of a variety of reasons.

Breat is the normal natural way to feed a baby and anything else is less then normal.

The use of the word "normal". How is that not stigmatising formula feeding or giving it a negative image.

It's not false conflict, just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist, even if it's just a feeling that those women experience themselves. You can't belittle that just because you don't agree.