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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To believe that formula companies have PR agents working the BF/FF threads on here?

999 replies

CocoDeMoll · 02/08/2018 20:53

They are a multi million pound set of companies that are invested in keeping Britain’s low breastfeeding rates down and keeping their profit margins up.

Any positives about breastfeeding seem to be shot down in flames on here.

So much pro formula and anti breastfeeding rhetoric.

They can easily afford to and have the best at the jobs be it lawyers, pr teams or spin doctors on their sides and they’re not exactly renounced for their ethics are they (nestle?!?!).

Or am I just getting a bit tied up in conspiracy therorys? Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
CocoDeMoll · 04/08/2018 00:22

Sorry going back a few pages but:

No one is saying tobacco and formula are comparable. They’re not obviously. However, the companies that advertise and distribute them are very similar. In wealth, ethics etc.

@Arewehomeyet thankyou for discussing what I’d like to be able to say so well. I’m passionate about this but not so much ‘with the words’ as they say Grin.

OP posts:
Pengggwn · 04/08/2018 05:16

Arewehomeyet

In answer to your post last night, obviously (and thankfully) you are not currently a lawmaker, but if you were, and you limited the availability of formula milk to those babies whose mothers had tried, in your view, sufficiently hard to BF and couldn't, then you would be responsible for the outcome. One of two things (and probably both) would happen. More women would BF - we generally love our babies more than we love breathing. So you would get your wish. But SOME women wouldn't. You would have to force them, or their babies would die. So you would be responsible either for handcuffing women to beds and milking them, or for the deaths of their babies when they didn't acquiesce to your demands that their babies be fed.

Either way, sucks to be you.

pollygreen7 · 04/08/2018 06:08

I don't think formula companies feed to change their message (whatever secret advertising people 'think' is going on), I think BFing need to.

BFing support in my experience was anything but support - it was just pressure to keep going. When someone has a broken leg, you wouldn't tell them to keep running. I had hypedemesis, and lost huge amounts of weight and looked like a very, very ill version of myself. My breast milk clearly didn't have enough fat in. Not only did I find it really, really emotionally difficult (already having 9 months of my body not being my own due to vomitting) but I really don't think I was well enough to breastfeed. Every midwife, private consultant didn't really care about my health, mental state or background just telling me to keep going. The group with the messaging problem is breastfeeding. If mum's are finding it depressing why on earth would you tell them to keep going?

Teateaandmoretea · 04/08/2018 06:24

No one is saying tobacco and formula are comparable. They’re not obviously. However, the companies that advertise and distribute them are very similar. In wealth, ethics etc.

Erm someone did actually but I concede it was only one poster when challenged.

The ethics of companies is not the fault of British women who ff for whatever reason.

Teateaandmoretea · 04/08/2018 06:34

Pengggwyn There is a third way - feeding baby other stuff like milk, water and sugar for example. It is absolutely not the case that before formula existed everyone exclusively breastfed - my grandmother who would be 110 if she was alive today had tales of feeding her younger brothers and sisters all sorts of concoctions. My parents generation were fed on national milk which wasnt meant for babies. So babies would not be properly nourished would be the result because there are other options.

Pengggwn · 04/08/2018 06:35

Teateaandmoretea

Yes, that is absolutely true. Option 3 - poor nutrition.

Still sucking hard.

Original poster
CocoDeMoll · 04/08/2018 07:25

The ethics of companies is not the fault of British women who ff for whatever reason.

Of course it’s not. FF mums are not at fault in any way in the first place. The fault lies with the aggressive advertising and that’s why I started the thread.

OP posts:
BertrandRussell · 04/08/2018 08:17

Obviously women choosing to use formula is perfectly fine. My concern is the women who want to bf but struggle. Evidence from other countries shows that around 90/95% of women can bf. Not suggesting they should- just the can if they want to. So something is going badly wrong in this country. There are so many threads on here where women have been given crap advice from HCPs- there is obviously a training issue there. And (this ties in with the OP) I have very rarely seen a thread where a woman is asking for advice either pre or post nataly about bf feeding where within a few posts someone doesn’t suggest formula.

Redteapot67 · 04/08/2018 08:24

I agree - there is zero support for bf in this country
What annoys me is everyone saying switch to formula it’s an easy choice and ‘just as good’ as breast milk.
It’s not just as good and the mums are often left with immense guilt for having ‘failed’ (their words not mine) at bf and often end up with post natal depression as a result.
That’s not other mums or online posts doing that - that’s a failure of the healthcare system to support the people who want to do it.

GreenMeerkat · 04/08/2018 08:24

All the FF vs BF bickering aside. I do 100% agree there is not enough support.

When I was on the ward after my first I was just in complete shock I think, first baby, traumatic long labour, emergency c section, husband turned out as soon as I reached the ward. It was about 2am and I was trying to breastfeed and it just wasn't working (I had no idea what I was doing). I called the care worker and said I was struggling, baby was screaming, and she just said 'I'll go make you a bottle' and in that moment I just happily accepted. I was exhausted, overwhelmed and in complete shock. If I'd had some support, I may have persevered. I did combi feed for 6 weeks but eventually that led to my running out of milk cause of the FF, my supply wasn't correct.

Queenofthedrivensnow · 04/08/2018 08:35

The ethics of companies is not the fault of British women who ff for whatever reason.

Um yeh it is.....this is an uncomfortable truth. They are the consumer and therefore have the power. If no one bought nestle products the business would fail but they do. Arguably boycotting is a western privilege awarded to us via knowledge and access to information.

Buy a kitkat - tacitly agree to the behaviour of nestle and the suffering and death they cause, knowingly.

But ambre Solarie - tacitly agree to brutal animal testing that includes frying Little mice in sun cream on tin foil.

I'm not ok with that.

Original poster
CocoDeMoll · 04/08/2018 08:41

Yep, not enough support. When I get all conspiracy theroy ish it makes me wonder why BF/FF mums get pitted against each other and everyone forgets to mention the obvious which is the lack of support. Derailing and starting the same boring arguement could be the work of nestle?! Wink

OP posts:
flamingofridays · 04/08/2018 08:45

The ethics of companies is not the fault of British women who ff for whatever reason

Um yeh it is.....this is an uncomfortable truth

Bollocks to that. Let's all starve our babies to teach nestle a lesson. Sounds like a good idea Hmm

I don't agree with it but lots of companies test on animals and I do think that will change in time. The fact that nestle to this is nothing to do with the people who buy their products.

flamingofridays · 04/08/2018 08:48

Derailing and starting the same boring arguement could be the work of nestle?!

Or people are just sick to the back teeth of hearing the same bollocks about "formula should be prescription" "formula companies are all evil" "they kill babies"

Not nice to hear especially when you've had to give your baby formula to prevent, you know, their death.

If you think formula companies are evil, don't buy it. Don't try and force your choices on anyone else.

It's like being vegan for example, great if that's your thing but harping on about it incessantly and trying to guilt people into being vegan doesn't work and just fucks people off

Pengggwn · 04/08/2018 08:55

it makes me wonder why BF/FF mums get pitted against each other

Because of threads like this!

What would have been wrong with a thread - perfectly reasonably - asking why support services for women who choose to try to BF are so poor?

Aeroflotgirl · 04/08/2018 08:57

Flamingo, I totally agree, most of us are just ordinary mum's who are sick to the back teeth with hearing all the negativity surrounding formula and the evil formula companies brainwashing stupid women unable to make their own decisions. Actually it was an NHS midwife who told me I had to use formula and nothing to do with any marketing. Formula companies are no different to any other company advertising their things.

This kind of thing puts women off bf, as well as many other psychosocial factors, that some on here have ignored. We are mainly nuclear families, very little extended families near, so if a mother is not able to bf, they cannot pass the baby to a female relative to bf, communities have changed.

BertrandRussell · 04/08/2018 08:59

Formula isn't evil. The companies that market it are. Formula doesn't kill babies-the way it is promoted in the developing world does. Formul should be on prescription is a stupid thing to say. As is breastfeeders are exhibitionists or like dairy cows. Stupid, minority opinions we should disregard

flamingofridays · 04/08/2018 09:08

Its hard to ignore when it's being thrown in your face all the time bertrand

There's thread upon thread like this and they're all the same.

Gierg · 04/08/2018 09:14

I have read a lot of the thread (not all of it admittedly!) but I am a huge fan of the Skeptical OB

She's a Ob/Gyn in the US and she posts some really interesting stuff about breastfeeding and formula feeding and is worth a look. For what it's worth she's anti-"lactivist" and thinks women should be supported Post-birth and safe supplementation advice given.

Infant mortality is actually lower in the UK and went down as formula use increased @Arewehomeyet So I don't know what you're on about with it increasing infant mortality.... of course it's correlation and potentially not causation. But formula use has not increased infant mortality in the UK... do you have a source for your claim?

Aeroflotgirl · 04/08/2018 09:21

Exactly Gierg, what would have happened to babies whose mothers were unable to bf them,die of malnutrition. If not anything. Formula has increased the survival rate of babies. I think a lot of these ERM bf advocates would like to see a national NHS formula milk that you can get from pharmecies, rather like other over the counter medication. There needs to be 24 HR pharmecies then incase it is needed out of hours.

BertieBotts · 04/08/2018 09:23

Nope, most BF advocates don't want prescription only formula. That's unnecessarily restrictive and a huge problem as a concept.

Formula needs to be accessible and it needs to be safe. It should not be overly marketed, that's a completely different argument.

Aeroflotgirl · 04/08/2018 09:26

It does indeed need to be readily accessible, as babies need nutrition asap. And they need to be fed regularly. No restricting formula to mothers.

Original poster
CocoDeMoll · 04/08/2018 09:27

Everything bertrandrussell said. Literally everything.

OP posts:
Pengggwn · 04/08/2018 09:28

The cost of legislating to prevent FMCGs selling formula, then creating an NHS infrastructure to manufacture and distribute the several different kinds of formula through pharmacies would be colossal, and to achieve the same outcome: safe nutrition for babies and free choice for women.

Are people really this thick?

eeanne · 04/08/2018 09:29

There’s a very anti expressing culture in the UK as well which means it’s either breastfeeding or formula feeding if you want to use a bottle.

I’m from the US originally and everyone I know at least partially pumps for bottles when they go back to work. I hardly know anyone who only uses formula, mixed feeding is a lot more common.

Both my fully breastfed (never had formula once) babies took bottles or expressed milk from 6 weeks so I could work, travel, have a night out, etc. I feed direct when we’re together.