to think MN shouldn't support boots co-advertising newborn bottle sets and "follow on" milk

[ICBINEG]

when there's a national campaign on to promote BF?

Presumably this advert passes the letter of the law regarding the non-advertising/non-special offers on formula for new born's but it defies the spirit in every way possible.

AIBU to expect a little more social responsibility from MN?

McDonalds is not crack coccaine

Op YANBU

The quote came from UNICEF

Totally agree with you OP and please MN HQ appear to support your view too :)

OP was no way suggesting women shouldn't have a choice to formula feed - if no formula companies had adverts for their products people would still know the product exists and be able to look at which brands etc are available in the appropriate areas of the shops.

Follow on milk is not necessary at all, only produced so the companies can get around the advertising ban.

Apologies if this has all been said already above. I have to admit I haven't read through the whole thread, but was astonished by how much criticism and little support the OP was coming under!

But if you go by the op's logic advertising causes one to throw all logic out the window.If one sees an advert from Boots one will instantly reach for the bottle.

Given the fact that the horrendous numbers of children leaving primary school obese are rocketing and children are obviously not just stopping at an odd treat when consuming Mcdonalds( probably not helped by the pushing of the products with free toys) then clearly the above fear of Boots advertising should kind of extend to McDonald's advertising.

Obviously if we go by the logic that we all use our common sense when parenting then the op might seem a little unreasonable particularly when you consider the immense bigger longer lasting damage unhealthy food such as Mcdonalds does to children in this country.

There may not be any on TV, but there are loads in other places - GP's, hospitals, surestart centres.

Why are there no FF support groups?

Dreaming I am pretty confident that FF ranks higher than car crashes. The stats are horrible and I don't think we should go there. I could PM you if you like?

sock thanks I will follow that up

Absolute rubbish op.

Yes but let's face it, a TV campaign is far more influential than a couple of posters. As for ff support groups, bf can be fucking hard. & you need the support if you're going to succeed

Perhaps the distinction between formula and alcohol advertising is that in one instance you are making a decision for yourself, while on the other you are making it on behalf of someone else? And possibly also because alcohol adverts tend not to claim that their products are super-healthy and offer medical protections?

So Mumsnet is not anti-formula feeding per se

Eh?

If you really support choice, you should not be anti-FF at all

I actually think pulling the ads is not very MN at all. We're not a bunch of idiots needing protecting from the big bad cynical formula companies.

I for one would like to see the horrendous stats directly linking formula as a cause of death in infants.

I can't believe people peddle this shit.

forget oh we had buses with BF "adverts" on them around here a while back!

But to be honest I am not sure an arms race is the way forward.

As many have said on here it would be better for the people who are already locked into their feeding mode to be left in peace to get on with being parents.

I would prefer no adverts at all....just info at antenatal classes.

Oh I couldn't agree more, Cognac. They shouldn't have to.

My MWs drummed that into me. The MW running our NHS antenatal classes did too - out of about a dozen of us I think maybe one or two FF (one of whom had twins - I know it's doable but moving to FF after the colustrum stage is pretty understandable if you have more than one). The rest BF for at least a couple of months.

This was 12 years ago.

www.unicef.org.uk/BabyFriendly/News-and-Research/Research/Breastfeeding-research---An-overview/

Here is the link, which also contains to quote sock mentions, but if you read further it clearly says these studies have been controlled:

Also this quote (c&p's from unicef) clearly summarises what meny of us have been saying on this thread:

Breastfeeding may be documented as having a ?small protective effect? against certain illnesses. Whilst it is clearly accurate to say that that the risk of not breastfeeding is greater with some conditions than others, what is a small protective effect in one child is likely to have a much more dramatic effect across a whole population.

OP -- thanks but you're right, we don't need to go there with stats. We are probably not going to agree anyway.

Sorry for typos

BF mothers shouldn't have to worry about intake etc I meant. I'm tired, sorry.

I'm quite certain that knowing this contributed to such a good uptake of BF among my little group.

It's FOLLOW ON milk. Normally a child will start cows milk at age 1 as part of their diet.

see Justine's post Fakebook

Haven't bothered to read the replies.

Has formula been compared to crack yet?
Don't forget that a bottle of coke is cheaper and babies love it.

If you follow guidelines there is no risk what so ever. I want to see respected concrete scientific evidence that directly links formula (and formula only )prepared correctly following guidelines to illnesses.