No formula milk available from foodbanks

[CaraDuneRedux]

Times article:
www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/food-banks-ban-on-formula-leaves-babies-to-go-hungry-tcghd25gm

Maybe someone cleverer than I am can do the share token.

But in a nutshell, in order to follow Unicef guidelines, food banks like the Trussell Trust are refusing donations of formula, so as not to be guilty of encouraging women to give up breast feeding.

Note that we are not talking about the infamous bad old days of formula companies handing out free samples on post natal wards so that women never start to breast feed.

We are talking about families where a decision has already been made to use formula, and where the mother's milk has therefore stopped, who then find due to change in circumstance (eg. job loss during the pandemic) that they are unable to feed their babies. They can't magically restart breastfeeding at this point - the choice (given the 5 week delay between starting a UC claim and receiving the first payment) is formula or starvation.

Are others as horrified by this box-ticking piece of insanity as I am? What can we do? How do we exert pressure on the foodbanks to get them to help the people they were set up to help (rather than pursuing some Unicef-approved tick of self-righteousness)?

@Charleyhorses - I volunteer at a foodbank. Although the foodbank relies on donations of food from the public, each foodbank will have a list of what they are short of. If you google your nearest foodbank, they will have a list. Sometimes the supermarket collection points also have a list. However a regular cash donation is amazing as the foodbank can then buy what they are short of.

@EssentialHummus

Different babies need different formula. It's easier to refer families who needed formula to HVs and other services who can provide.

This, in short. I run a food bank. A few months ago the local council asked us to stop supplying formula, and instead to make an urgent referral to the local HV team. It works, in our case - families that need it receive vouchers or formula within the day and are then on the HV’s books, as it were.

1. It stops people falling through the cracks in the medical/HV system.
2. You really don’t want to have your formula supply reliant on a (generally) volunteer-led service that may receive Formula A one week, B the next and nothing at all most frequently. We could buy it in but that doesn’t solve the brand issue and relative to other items we buy it’s expensive and would affect our broader purchasing - 8 tubs of Aptamil or enough bananas for 400 people, which do you choose?

That's brilliant - that's exactly the sort of scheme I was hoping people could set up.

The question is how the country as a whole gets this set up, rather than it being up to local councils, who may or may not be on the ball.

£36 spent on advertising for every child born worldwide, shocking. Just think how many women would be breastfeeding thier babies, free of the financial burden of formula, if they were not subject to this aggressive marketing. They wouldn't spend so much if it didn't work.

www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/leading-milk-formula-companies-spend-p36-on-marketing-for-every-

Formula companies over inflate the price of formula, many breastfeeding charities would love to see generic brand No posh labels but at a much lower price. After all the content of first infant milk is actually tightly controlled so there is actually little difference between the brands anyway. HV should always adivce you to buy whatever brand is easiest for you to obtain locally.

This would be much easier for families to afford and can be purchased with milk tockens for lower income families (or whatever the equivalent is nowadays).

You see this milk povitiy is seen in many countries around the world, thanks to their over inflated prices and hard times it's effecting people here to.

I think it’s perfectly obvious that the guidelines are to protect babies and certainly not a judgement call on mother’s feeding choices. The issue isn’t food banks who are doing a sterling job in very difficult circumstances, it is the accessibility of other services. They are a charity with costs covered by donations. They can’t be expected to cover everything.

The article contains an anecdotal story where a mum claims she watered down formula.

I meant actual scientific evidence - eg statistics of how many babies in the uk were diagnosed with malnutrition or starvation who had not been able to access adequate amounts of formula for their baby?

I don’t remember seeing any formula marketing when I was pregnant but decided to use formula as it was the best choice for DC’s, me and our family. I bought the brand most readily available at our local supermarket - marketing didn’t come into.

@MandosHatHair this exactly, if even some of this money could be spent on breastfeeding support more women would be able to get the help they need to feed their babies to. Not only that but do people realise there are not actually enough cows on the planet to produce enough milk to bottle feed all babies. It needs to be a choice for when it's needed yes but not everyone can do it.

Many Food Banks are independently run, the one I volunteer is, we accept formula milk and if we don't have any in stock and someone urgently needs it we will go and buy whatever brand is needed.

However as volunteers it is not right that we are constantly picking up the pieces where Social Services, Health Visitors etc should be providing support, it is far too easy for people to be referred to 'the Food Bank' rather than given the support they need, many councils have been given substantial extra funding recently to support people in need (ie the Free School Meals fiasco) but it is clearly not going to the people who need it.

If only marketing was allowed so people could be made aware that a cheaper supermarket brand was just as good as the aptamils of this world- alas, it is not.

@parker231 no active advertising on milk for babies under 6 months is band in the UK. But they do spend a lot of money advertising follow on milk this is allowed toddler milk (who ever invented that unless product) and advertising in countries where they can. This and the branding on the tins (they hire expensive people to design that to catch your eye you know) all adds to the cost of the first milk products
Then they want to make a healthy profit. But if we had an organisation making it at cost, with fancy labelling it would be a lot cheaper.

[quote AldiAisleofCrap]**@user1471462428* They have a chat about feeding then ensure good hygiene with bottles then provide the formula* how patronising! So suddenly finding yourself without money means you forget how to wash bottles.[/quote]
It's not that we think that people forget. It's that they need to understand the importance of it. People who don't have any money will want to cut corners where they can - so might not boil the kettle fully for their own hot drinks, or might try to wash up in plain water rather than buying washing up liquid and things like that.

It's not about trying to be patronising. It's about trying to ensure that they know where savings can be made and where they can't.

Very few women can't breast feed their babies because of lack of milk. I agree with person who said Mums should be aware of cost of tins of formula milk and how frequently they will need to buy formula milk before they decide not to breast feed for convenience. That said no baby should pay the cost for their Mums choice not to try to breast feed and some women try really hard but can't produce enough milk often for larger babies.

I agree totally Ragwort.

In a country with a decent social security safety net (which this country had before the Tories ripped it apart), there would be no need for food banks.

The issue is, given that we are where we are (UC being totally inadquate for purpose, and having a built in delay of weeks before you can access support, plus overstretched health visitor services, plus private food banks struggling to provide what is needed, plus people losing their jobs in the pandemic) - how do we actually do something against this backdrop?

Speaking as someone who has just had to very reluctantly give up breastfeeding due to a number of issues, I feel OPs fear of not being able to access formula - DD is 3 months old and we are comfortably off but the idea of not being able to feed her makes my blood run cold.

I don’t think any of us are disputing that babies need access to formula (for some of us, all the will in the world can’t help us feed our babies breast milk) but that the system that is in place should be more secure and less patchy.

I agree it shouldn’t be linked to food banks for the reasons mentioned up thread but the patchy HV provision is a huge problem for running this along that system. I’ve never met my HV and tried calling their line when we had difficulties feeding and didn’t get anywhere (lots of we’ll call you back, often taking a few days, by which point I’d cracked and given formula by that stage).

What id like is for money to be pumped into the HV system, meaning all women have access to breastfeeding support (all face to face breastfeeding support in my area has disappeared due to Covid) and, if that support doesn’t lead to successful bf, that it’s that system which organises formula for babies. A world class, fully functioning system to support new mums, promote breastfeeding but ensure no child goes without formula if they need it.

Ain’t gonna happen, but there you go.

It is not for reasons of dogma that food banks don't take formula. That's such a weird, outdated thing to say.

We don't for a number of reasons starting with we don't have any health experts who can advise on the right kind of formula

Our client base is signposted to us by the people who also signpost to, or are themselves, the organisations that do give formula advice and vouchers.

We follow UNICEF advice on this. It is NOT a religious judgement, a bias against formula feeding etc. It is following best advice, best practice.

Some food banks take follow on milk. Some do have links or specific sessions with HVs etc where formula advice, vouchers etc are available.

I hope that helps explain the issue.

Support should be readily available for all - whether that be for bf or ff.

Cost of formula has been a problem the government has known about for some time. There are many families already watering down/moving onto cows milk too early.
www.infantfeedingappg.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/APPGIFI-Inquiry-Report-cost-of-infant-formula.pdf

This report is from 2018. I can understand the difficulty with food banks (supply/type) but something clearly needs to be done. Do they still do the healthy start vouchers? Peroxiding like to see the price of formula regulated and capped. The product costs pence to produce. It’s a complete scandal that it costs so much but of course that will never happen with multinationals worth £££ in control of supply and pricing.

@SinkGirl

It’s not as simple as that. Food banks can’t guarantee a consistent supply of formula on an ongoing basis. They can’t hold large stocks of all the different brands as they go out of date. The idea is that giving the family food and ensuring they are accessing everything they can in terms of support can free up money to enable parents to buy formula, and if they can’t then there are other routes available to ensure a consistent supply of formula. If a food bank does give a tub or two to a mother who wants to stop breastfeeding, what happens when that runs out and the food bank don’t have any more and her milk supply has dropped or stopped completely?

The guidelines are there to protect babies, not to judge people for their choices. If a parent needs formula then they need a consistent supply, not an occasional tub when the food bank has it.

I had to stop BFing DD at 4 months for several reasons. I absolutely sobbed as I'd really tried & felt like an absolute failure. We couldn't afford formula. We couldn't afford food. We lost weight, especially in winter because we daren't put the heating on. We didn't even have enough income to cover the rent & fixed bills, we basically fell through a gap in the benefits net. My mother had to buy formula for DD & we lived off plain rice & whatever extra groceries she could afford, she brought over each week with the formula. It wasn't a lot. We'd pick up coins in the street, 8p is enough for a carrot or small onion. I had to lie to the bank about my return to work date, to get a loan to pay the rent. DH couldn't get a job. We got a food bank referral & it was fantastic but if they'd been able to include formula, any brand, we'd have been able to give DD more instead of restricting her feeds & putting her to bed crying because she was still hungry. We weaned her early on the MW's recommendation, there wasn't another option for us.

We're better off now. We were homeless earlier this year when our LL sold our house, but thankfully we got a HA house before the pandemic hit.

Formula should be available through health or social services for families who are struggling, not relying on charities.

I agree. But it doesn't seem to be. It would probably be seen as the state discouraging mothers from breastfeeding.

This is disgraceful absolutely disgraceful, what are we becoming 😔

@Neitherupnordown, I do think it is a failing sometimes in our health care system. Midwifes and HV are allowed to tell you that first milk is regulated and they are just about all the same. But I think they sometimes worry they aren't allowed to say anything. Whenever I got asked I would tell mums whatever you can easily get hold of locally and can afford as they are all really the same.

This is what they should be telling mums.

@WrongKindOfFace

Provision should be more joined up but hopefully they are also helping eligible families to apply for healthy start vouchers which can pay for formula milk. www.healthystart.nhs.uk/healthy-start-vouchers/

I don’t think asking people to donate milk would be helpful as they wouldn’t necessarily be buying the brand needed.

On a practical level yes. But I think voluntary provision shouldn’t be more joined up. It’s a national shame that in 2020 food banks are not just a necessity but a way of life for many and it’s an accepted part of our society. Food banks should be there for the few people who fall through the cracks but in our society we have gaping holes which many people are falling down. Our governments should be shamed that they have allowed this situation occur, I know I am.

Curious out of interest who makes the 'rules' for your FB, are you part of Trussel Trust?

If you read this article carefully, you will see that the UNICEF guidelines are not to do with promoting breastfeeding, but to do with the fact that giving a parent formula is not actually a simple task, and should be overseen by a professional.

In the article, the UNICEF woman says:

"There are numerous different products on the market and there is no guarantee that formula donations will be the most suitable for the babies in need, or that food banks will receive the consistency of supply that is vital for babies’ survival and health.

“Health visitors and midwives have been trained and are best placed to support families to feed their babies as safely as possible depending on the circumstances, and food bank staff cannot be expected to take on this responsibility."

Also, I have limited sympathy for the mother in the article. She admits that she chose to formula feed as she thought it would be "easier" when she returned to work. There is plenty of freely available information online that she could have read to support her to breastfeed, despite planning to return to work. I went back to work when my child was 9 months. I breastfed exclusively for those 9 months. Topped up with a bit of formula when I went back to work, as I found pumping a faff. Carried on bf until my dd was 4. I know there are some women who can't bf (eg because of certain medications) or bf doesn't work for them.

anti I am very pro breastfeeding. I would love to see breastfeeding rates improve and I would advocate it to anyone, and I still think that is awfully unfair. She doesn’t have to justify her reasons.