to think that the new SMA advert is very close to breaching the WHO code.

[sickoftheholidays]

Just seen that nauseating advert from SMA "Theres nothing more important than what you do for your baby at the start" cue mum handing lap top with big SMA logo on the screen over to dad, and then picking up newborn baby.......

I thought the UK we werent allowed to advertise breastmilk substitutes for babies under 6 months of age? yet here we are with a newborn and a clear implication that SMA is a great thing to do for your baby at the start.

I honestly dont want to get into the whole bf/af debate, I dont give a sh*t what mums choose to feed their infants as long as its nutritionally adequate, correctly made and in sufficient quantity, but I do support mums having accurate unbiased information regarding feeding choices for their infant, and also about manufacturers of artificial milks sticking to the rules regarding their adverts! The cow and gate one was misleading enough, but at least the baby was over 6 months!

I feed mine on SMA or Hipp organic it depends what the shop has, not all shops stock Hipp organic and it tends to run out fast.

He got the C&G bottles given to him in the hospital it made him sick, he was fine with the SMA ones, personally I think the Hipp organic is the nicest one, I try everything he eats.

Never bought Aptimil it's expensive for no reason other then the fact it's seen as the middle classes brand.

I was brought up on SMA, my sister was BF and she is a very sickly person, my brother got condensed milk and brown sugar as fomula was not on sale in the UK then and there was no alternatives when he was born premature.

I grow so very tiered of the harping on about breast is best, formula has the correct balance of vitamins and minerals required, as breast milk is based on what we eat then the nutritional value will very depending on the diet of the mother, as my mother once said it seems crazy for the WHO to be trying to encourage third world mothers to breastfeed when half of them look like they are not getting enough nutrients out of their diet to sustain themselves let alone two.

ryoko studies have shown very little difference between the milk of mothers in Scandinavia (i think it was) and a country in Africa where mothers were less well nourished. not got the reference to hand, but the mother's diet is not especially relevant unless she is actually seriously malnourished.

sorry I'm a pedant and hate to see myths being perpetuated.

-I grow so very tiered of the harping on about breast is best, formula has the correct balance of vitamins and minerals required, as breast milk is based on what we eat then the nutritional value will very depending on the diet of the mother, as my mother once said it seems crazy for the WHO to be trying to encourage third world mothers to breastfeed when half of them look like they are not getting enough nutrients out of their diet to sustain themselves let alone two.-

Ryoko, your post is spectacularly ill-informed. And people here say women are making INFORMED choices on how to feed their babies

And of course formula milk is on abundant supply in third world countries.

'Mothers in Africa' are precisely why a ban on formula promotion is important, and one of the main reasons it exists. How do you think they can afford formula Ryoko? And where do they get the clean water to make it? The sterilisers, kettle etc?

Breastmilk takes the best on offer, bf is incredibly important in '3rd world' countries, to believe otherwise is incredibly ignorant.

Formula is an 'acceptable' substitute, it will never be as good (due to the tailoring of bm).

Ryoko.

Proving the argument that mothers who choose formula are informed, educated and making a balanced and well researched choice.

• sorry - should say ALL mothers.

Clearly many are.

So does that mean the milk comes first? i.e the reserves in the body are used up to produce the milk to the correct standard, just like birds who lay eggs need to be given an increased amount of calcium, over the males as otherwise they would get weak brittle bones as the eggs need comes first and drains it from the body.

Put simply if there was no formula, I wouldn't have had a child, I've never had any interest at all in BF, I did try using a pump thanks to the guilt trippers at the hospital giving me grief but that was stupid and I was very happy to give up trying that crap, mind you if there wasn't any formula in the world the wet nurse would make a big comback and the powers that be would soon allow formula as people would turn to home made mixtures of things in the absence of any proper ones, like they used to before SMA was invented.

eh?

eh?

not sure about your last paragraph's relevance, but i guess it's like when you're pregnant, the baby gets the good stuff first.

Ryoko, I'm sure you want mothers to make an informed choice. In that case, please stop perpetuating myths.

Of course, babies who are not breastfed for whatever reason need a substitute that will enable them to grow and be nourished.

No one is saying anything different.

But your spectacularly sweeping comment about 'half' of women in the developing world 'looking as if' they don;t get enough to eat meaning it's surprising they are ecouraged to breastfeed deserves a response.

Breastfeeding does not depend on mothers having sufficient to eat, or a good quality diet. Happily, nature has arranged it so that during pregnancy, the body lays down energy stores that convert to breastmilk, and even a poor or inadequate diet can sustain breastfeeding perfectly well.

I seem to recall this has been explained at length before to you. It is your choice to remain misinformed on this, I suppose.

'I was very happy to give up trying that crap' - that's just a foolish thing to say!

Tiktok"Happily, nature has arranged it so that during pregnancy, the body lays down energy stores that convert to breastmilk, and even a poor or inadequate diet can sustain breastfeeding perfectly well. "

Peer reviewed evidence please.

Baby formula products DO NOT KILL. It's rather insulting to think we women make a choice for our kids based on adverts. And by the way, the WHO do not set the rules.

Ryoko said Why the hell do you need "adverts" promoting breastfeeding? thats like having "adverts" to promote having a piss, it's a body function.

Like Albrecht said, Yes, there are adverts promoting BFing. It's called Health Promotion. I think I may have seen them on the telly up here, but the are definitely on the buses. What's wrong with that? It's just like the anti-smoking ads, anti-bingedrinking ads, healthy choices ads etc. Or do they not have health promotion ads down in England/whereever you come from?

Redbin - plenty of robust evidence for this.

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/718175_2 - this one is very long, and is more of an overview of what we know about this issue.

Let me know if you would like more.

However I don't think it's in the least controversial to state that the function of laying down fat in pregnancy is to support initial breastfeeding.

redbin

From WHO's publication "Community-based strategies for breastfeeding promotion and support in developing countries", link:

whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2003/9241591218.pdf

Emergency situations
The care and feeding of infants is especially important
in emergencies such as famine or refugee situations,
when infants and young children are particularly
vulnerable. In emergency situations misconceptions and
adverse living conditions may present special barriers
to breastfeeding that need to be addressed and overcome.
A common but unfounded belief is that malnourished
mothers in emergency situations cannot breastfeed. On
the contrary, malnourished mothers can breastfeed; the
amount of breast milk produced depends primarily on
the frequency of breastfeeds and the effectiveness of
the baby suckling on the breast.

Tiktok, That article is opinion and not evidence.

We do make choices all the time based on adverts, it's naive to think otherwise. I consider myself intelligent (have two degrees at any rate) but will admit to having bought Special K believing it was lower in sugar than other cereals I could have chosen .

Of course no-one makes a conscious choice to formula feed because they saw the advert for Cow and Gate that said x, but advertising is insidious. It makes things seem normal that were previously only done/used by a minority. (The recent barrage of adverts for online gambling is particularly worrying, I think, since normalisation of gambling is surely not something any society would welcome.)

MarianneM
Nicely produced pamphlets prove nothing apart from the fact that the WHO has too much money to spend on propagating unfounded opinions.

But does it sustain it to the detriment of the health of a malnourished woman? that was what I was getting at with the egg laying birds.

So you don't think it's a load of crap to buy a useless pump because the midwives guilt tripped you into thinking you are a freak for not wanting to breast feed, at the time I was in tears over the whole thing, now I think it was all a load of stupid shit and it must have been hormones that led me to be so weak willed and let them get to me.

Frankly I have no interest in BF so researching it means nothing to me, I wouldn't have done it full stop no matter what the findings are, there are no guarantees in life, eat five and day and you can still die of cancer, jog everyday and you can still die of a heart attack at 40.

But there are plenty of places for those who are not dead set against doing it, to look for information, there is tonnes of it if people want to look and no one can possibly say they don't know where to look, just use google or ask a GP or Midwife and they wil throw ten tonnes of info at you, in the classes at the hospital when I had my son it was all about breastfeeding with not a mention of formula

I am pro BF but on the issue of maternal diet and breastfeeding, it is confusing to hear about how it doesn't matter if the woman has an inadequate diet etc etc but then when you have a baby and are getting breastfeeding established, all the midwives and breastfeeding supporters I saw all kept saying how you have to eat properly and have a proper lunch like a jacket potato instead of a festy old sandwich etc...sure it makes sense to look after yourself and your diet regardless of whether you are breastfeeding but they all do seem to place a lot of importance on making your milk good quality with a good quality diet. Its surprising that they place such an emphasis on it if it turns out not to actually be the case...

Yes Tatty have also heard of people being told to eat a snack at every feed - think it's an old (mid)wives tale. Unless your diet is so bad you're malnourished or vitamin deficient it doesn't matter. I lived on cake and kitkats for the first couple of months

Redbin, prove this "WHO has too much money to spend on propagating unfounded opinions".

You're talking out of your arse.

"....it is confusing to hear about how it doesn't matter if the woman has an inadequate diet etc etc but then when you have a baby and are getting breastfeeding established, all the midwives and breastfeeding supporters I saw all kept saying how you have to eat properly and have a proper lunch like a jacket potato instead of a festy old sandwich etc.."

Breastfeeding can be tiring. It is better if you keep up your strength with an adequate and or good diet.