To be really annoyed you can't get points on formula?

[Jengnr]

Due to 'Government legislation'

How about the Government fuck off? I've made the decision (actually, it was made for me but that's neither here nor there), I'm spending the bloody money, why should I not be able to collect advantage points on that?

Wankers.

I'm not bothered about points, but the price of formula is ridiculous and heartbreaking for those of us who were desperate to breastfeed and couldn't and didn't get enough support in a busy hospital to overcome the difficulties. Now as well as feeling like a failure we have to spend a fortune on this stuff and are made to feel guilty about using it.

Perhaps one of the 'I want to be advertised infant formula' brigade can explain this product, made by a certain company costs £10.55/kg:

Demineralised Whey¹,Vegetable Oils ,Lactose¹ ,Skimmed Milk¹ ,Dietary Fibres (Galacto-Oligosaccharides¹, Polyfructose) ,Whey Protein Concentrate¹ ,Calcium Carbonate ,Fish Oil ,Potassium Chloride ,Potassium Citrate ,Vitamin C ,Magnesium Chloride ,Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin) ,Choline Chloride ,Taurine ,Ferrous Sulphate ,Uridine 5'-Monophosphate ,Zinc Sulphate ,Cytidine 5'-Monophosphate ,Vitamin E ,Inositol ,Adenosine 5'-Monophosphate ,Inosine 5'-Monophosphate ,L-Tyrosine ,Nicotinamide ,Guanosine 5'-Monophosphate ,Pantothenic Acid ,Folic Acid ,Copper Sulphate ,Vitamin A ,Biotin ,Thiamin ,Vitamin B12 ,Vitamin D3 ,Vitamin B6 ,Manganese Sulphate ,Potassium Iodide ,Vitamin K1 ,Sodium Selenite

and this one, made by the same company, costs £8.88/kg

Demineralised Whey,Vegetable Oils ,Lactose ,Skimmed Milk ,Galacto-Oligosaccharides (GOS) ,Whey Protein Concentrate* ,Fructo-Oligosaccharides (FOS) ,Calcium Carbonate ,Potassium Citrate ,Potassium Chloride ,Fish Oil ,Magnesium Chloride ,Calcium Phosphate ,Vitamin C ,Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin) ,Choline Chloride ,Taurine ,Iron Sulphate ,Zinc Sulphate ,Uridine 5'-Monophosphate Sodium Salt ,Cytidine 5'-Monophosphate ,Vitamin E ,Inositol ,Adenosine 5'-Monophosphate ,Inosine 5'-Monophosphate Sodium Salt ,Niacin ,L-Tryptophan ,Guanosine 5'-Monophosphate Sodium Salt ,L-Carnitine ,Pantothenic Acid ,Folic Acid ,Copper Sulphate ,Vitamin A ,Biotin ,Vitamin B12 ,Thiamin ,Vitamin D3 ,Vitamin B6 ,Manganese Sulphate ,Potassium Iodide ,Vitamin K ,Sodium Selenite

Explain then why further marketing/promotional activity will benefit consumers, when they are already being conned by pseudo-scientific bollocks into buying the same product at a higher price?

btw Polyfructose is the same thing as Fructo-Oligosaccharides, and Ferrous Sulphate is the same as Iron Sulphate

It's not advertising that's wanted though its impartial advice on all aspects of ff and not just being told to bf because not everyone can nor does everyone want to.

What's wanted is regulated pricing and information that we can safely adhere to

Condescending, much?

Pondering - if no advertising was possible, then the only information available would be the facts.

It should be treated like paracetamol and available branded for fools who want to be parted from their money, and generically for those who don't.

I should point out that the £10.55/kg is being purchased consumers convinced that the more expensive product must be better for their baby, when it is in fact made by the same company with the same ingredients as the £8.88/kg product.

Some of these same consumers are then complaining that even though they bought the identical, but more expensive product on the reassuringly expensive principle, that this more expensive product is not available on 3-for-2 or with loyalty points.

Chunderella, you wanted evidence that "free" formula means less breastfeeding.
From Canada:

www.thestar.com/life/parent/2010/03/16/free_formula_spoils_breastfeeding.html - the whole report is on the web but this is a clear account of it.

From the US:

ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2006.103218

Loyalty points and 3-for-2 are both forms of marketing, as is charging more money for an identical product with a different brand image.

I'm just really struggling to figure out why, when the marketing of infant formula demonstrably already results in people paying more than they need to, that people believe the route to lower prices is even more marketing?

Chunderella you asked why! There has been lots of academic work done on the role of promotions and price obfuscation. I used to work in the field of competition policy. Not particularly with respect to infant products but I can't see why it would be different (my interest was the utilities sector). So I guess informed conjecture at least?

Don't you agree it would at least be easier to compare if there was just one unit price? Could you even tell me the per nappy price of the nappies you use of the top of your head?

Points make it even harder to compare. To find the true price of nappies at tesco, you have to calculate the price per nappy (including any bogof deals), then how many points you earn, then what those points are actually worth (and this depends on what you can do with them and varies over time). You'd have to do this for at least two shops to compare true prices. Unless you do that, you are not really comparing prices so you are weakening the incentive of shops to lower their prices.

After giving birth, my DS was FF by the staff at the hospital where he was born, in a developing country. This was a result of formula companies pushing their product in these hospitals with free samples and so on.

As a result of this initial FF he refused to breastfeed subsequently, and this 'free formula' cost us hundreds or thousands of pounds in subsequent formula, and several bouts of diarrhea and hospitalization caused by the extreme difficulty in maintaining proper hygiene/sterilization of bottles in a hot country.

Thankfully we don't get any 'free formula' in the UK, although, since the same formula companies killing babies in these countries are active here, there is no doubt that we would if it were permitted by law.

Am I the only saddo who actually does that? Not on nappies as mine are out of them but on the normal groceries, I use the bit where it says 12.8p per whatever and do a round about sum in my head to work out the best value, takes me ages to go shopping but hey ho

He refused to feed because he had one feed of formula? I find that hard to believe. My dc were cup fed in hospital whilst I tried to establish bf and they took to it very well unfortunately I didn't produce any milk for them so they had to go onto bottles but being given formula didn't hamper their ability to feed.

Not one feed of formula, he was there for 2 days, and he was bottle fed during that time, and subsequently got very red-faced and angry at having to work at a breast rather than a bottle.

About 9.6p/nappy (lidl). I then use this as the "standard" and only buy nappies that are less than that. But I have a maths degree...

I actually avoid Tesco because I spent 10 minutes deliberating over sausages once, because they had so many bloody offers on that I couldn't work out which were best value. So I would fully expect the introduction of offers on formula to lead to more price obfuscation and swinging prices (especially as its much more difficult to change formula brands on a newborn than nappies).

Pondering, while of course Joan's experience does not happen to everyone, the research shows a clear association between the use of formula in the early days and subsequent early switching from the breast. It's more complex than cause and effect, but in many cases, early formula makes it harder to establish bf....one reason is that ff amounts may be unphysiological.

Can we have a discussion which includes personal experiences, without posters like you saying 'I don't believe your story, because it didn't happen to me like that.'?

Sheesh.

I'm happy to stop that kind of discussion so long as it occurs on both sides

Sheesh

We need far less promotion of bf and far more education about bf followed by useful support of bf when problems occur. I now wish I had done far more reading and research into bf before I had dd. I just assumed I should attend the NHS bf class and then, if there was a problem, the midwives would know what to do.

They didn't know how to help me and my dd.

Yabu. I don't think parents should get rewarded in any way for buying formula. like it or not it is not the best thing for baby, mother, environment or society.I do however think the price of formula is far to high. Personally I would like more money to be invested in helping parents to breastfeed and help with the running of milk banks for the few that are generally unable to, with the aim of getting rid of the money grabbing, unethincal, formula companies. I accept that's unlikely to happen though.

Chundarella, in New York State a recent measure to ban 'free' formula 'gift' bags was enacted amid great controversy, and there was quite a lot of evidence presented as part of that debate.

Pharmaceutical and food companies are not exactly slouches in the marketing area - I think we can safely assume that if the give-aways were not increasing sales they would cease. Give-aways only cease when they are legislated against - manufacturers have to be prevented from giving the stuff to mothers. What does that tell you? :)

I put 'free' and 'gift' in " ", because someone is paying for this, and it is marketing like this that keeps prices high.

Own-brand formula in the USA is not marketed anything like as heavily - it is cheaper.