Parents penalised for formula feeding

[thechristmaspudding]

I just wanted to open up a discussion to find out the perspectives of other parents on this subject. I would also be interested to hear the opinions of midwives, health visitors and other health care professionals involved with families.
To give a bit of background information, I am a member of the Boots parenting club, which has many parents are likely to be aware gives you access to discounts and offers on baby related items in store. I went into my local boots today to buy my son's formula, hoping to get a good deal as I had been notified of an offer in store. Now, in my sleep deprived state I did not read the offer properly and it did clearly state that it was an offer for follow on formula and not infant first. The cashier was very polite and explained that due to government regulations shops are not legally allowed to offer discounts on infant first formula due to the government expectation that breastfeeding should be encouraged for the first six months. To be clear, I am not taking issue with Boots or any other shop, but it got me questioning whether this is fair? No, I do not believe that formula companies should be able to dissuade women from breastfeeding through aggressive marketing campaigns that encourage parents to buy their product. But surely parents have the right to weigh up the pros and cons of bottle feeding and make an informed choice that reflects the needs and circumstances of their own family? I tried really, really hard to breastfeed but found it extremely difficult and due to a lack of postnatal support gave up (the inadequate breastfeeding support in this country is another issue in itself). This is something I still regret and struggle with. However, my personal experience aside, formula feeding is a valid choice to make whether parents decide to feed this way from birth or at a later stage.
I also remember watching an episode of dispatches a few years ago on how due to the cost of formula many families resort to watering down their baby's feed or even to stealing. This is a situation that is likely to have worsened as a result of the cost of living crisis.
So my question is, AIBU in thinking that it is wrong to penalise bottle-feeding parents when it comes to the cost of formula?

@georgianwindow read about the benefits of breast milk. Links to research as well https://www.laleche.org.uk/amazing-milk/

@georgianwindow I'm not ashamed. I'm sorry the facts have hurt your feelings but that doesn't make them ridiculous and untrue.

Women need all the facts to make an informed decision.

there is a cost to giving points - and running 'baby clubs'
Boots is not a charity. If there were no loyalty points on anything, prices could be lower, as they could if a store/brand did no advertising.

Has it been proven scientifically? If it has parents need to know

Yes, it has. It shouldn't be a controversial statement, it's just a fact.

It's well known that BFing protects against SIDS. Nobody should ever feel ashamed for stating facts.

In todays ‘Things that never happened’

Sorry, but I don’t believe that you know three babeies hospitalised due to allergies. Allergies aren’t uncommon in breastfed babies, but hospitalisations are and for you to know three is statistically ridiculous- I know because I work in this area.

@georgianwindow PS - I know 3 babies that were hospitalised because they were highly allergic to things their mum's were eating, being transferred through breast milk. Doesn't mean people shouldn't breastfeed.

In that case you shouldn't be surprised by the facts I mentioned about formula feeding then...

Sorry, haven’t rtft so imagine this has been said multiple times, but you’re not being penalised, you’re just not getting a reward.

Bf mums don’t get any kind of reward for breastfeeding. If you essentially got free money for formula feeding then that would be incentivising ff over bf.

There are numerous public policy reasons for not incentivising ff over bf. If you can’t bf (and wanted to) then that is a shame for you but it doesn’t mean you should be rewarded for that.

You said this:

"In an ideal world formula would be unbranded and available at cost price for those who need / want it. All those advertising budgets would go towards universal breastfeeding support and correcting the mass of misinformation out there."

So you actually are advocating for formula companies to sell unbranded and use their marketing budgets to promote breastfeeding.

I see I was unclear in what I meant. I didn’t mean for formula to be in private companies hands therefore not branded. I also meant that the money they can spend on marketing be available for breastfeeding support. Not that the companies themselves should unbrand or spend their money on it.

This thread reminds me of a dear friend from 20 tears ago. She was very depressed because she could not breast feed her baby. She was from East Germany, her mother hadn’t been able to breast feed, nor her grandmother. It was a genetic thing. They just didn’t produce enough milk. In East Germany, in the old days, you couldn’t just buy formula. You could only get it by prescription from the doctor. She felt such sorrow and shame.

So, I don’t think treating formula like restricted product really does anyone any good.

That said, I breast fed each of mine for over a year. I do think it’s far better to feed babies, fresh, live milk delivered by their mother’s embrace, rather than starting life on UPF.

We can only give facts and trust that mothers love their children and have very good reasons for feeding their infants as they do.

They just didn’t produce enough milk.

This is why education is vital - because this is so fleetingly rare and no evidence that it’s genetic. Very, very few women don’t produce milk. If their baby seems hungry or fussy it’s likely very little to do with having ‘no milk’ and it can be rectified with the right support and advice.

I have met so many women who think they’ll be unable to breastfeed and I really don’t understand why the NHS doesn’t promote better and more honest information around breastfeeding. Are they still telling women breastfeeding shouldn’t hurt? The biggest load of nonsense I’ve ever heard!

BTW I agree with whoever said baby food labelling is far more harmful than formula. Why is it allowed to be labelled 4 months+? I know a GP can prescribe early weaning for various reasons but prettt much everyone I know weaned early, which is heavily against medical advice, because it looks like it’s ‘allowed’ and trying new things after a boring 4 months of a newborn is exciting.

Why is formula the only product that to be 'ethical' needs to promote itself into being used less?

If there weren’t a ban on promoting formula how would you protect babies from the effect of parents who chased special offers instead of sticking to one brand that they know their baby can have?

People would be chopping and changing their brands of formula all over the place just to get the cheap deals or the most points. That is not something that would be good for babies, even if it were good for parents wallets.

So I'm a little bit anal and have just worked out that (according to C&G first milk recommended scoops/bottle/days) over a whole year a baby 'should' drink the equivalent of just about 52 tubs of formula in their first year.

Which, for C&G works out to be around £550 in their first year.

Hardly breaking the bank (for MOST families) when you think of how much we spend on car seats, cots, pushchairs/prams, toys they'll never use, clothes they'll never wear, shoes they won't even touch the floor in, in their first year.

It's the equivalent of a decent takeaway and some beers/wine once a month. In the grand scheme of things I don't think it's a massive expense (knowing how much teenagers cost to feed, my school dinners are costing me £200 a month in September for one 'meal' a day for 2 teens). I bf'd mine and I know I consumed far more than a tenner's worth of extra calories over the first 12m to produce that 'oh so special' elixir but the cost to my MH as nobody else could feed was far more.

What are you ON?? Broken down it’s approx £46 a month per child. It’s one of the biggest reasons why poor British babies who are formula fed have d&v because it’s so expensive parents often use expired / dilute etc. Breastfeeding doesn’t cost nearly as much as this (even if you take into account the cake addiction)!

Accurate.

I do think one of the reasons why wealthy and poc women of all income classes are more likely to breasfeed is because they have been taught how - either by buying in support, or by their mums / female relatives who breastfed. I have pcos and was told by ignorant NHS midwives that I’d automatically have lower milk supply and then after DS was born that was blamed for him not feeding (despite me feeding DD well). I had to fight to even get his tongue examined and even then it only happened because I paid for a private mw who recommended it.

Yes, this is true. The reasons being it are not yet properly understood though. While we do know that SIDS is a higher risk for babies that aren't breastfed, we have yet to fully understand why, although there are some pretty robust theories.

As others have said, nobody should feel ashamed to state facts. But there is also no need for people to panic or feel upset. Statistics about risk can be applied to many other aspects of baby rearing too, many of which don't seem to make people panic in the same way.

FF does not INCREASE the risk of SIDS. BF lowers the risk yes but FF does not increase it 🤦‍♀️

We couldn’t use cows milk based formula due to my son having a severe allergy to cows milk. If we had had to pay for our daughters formula on 104 tins (smaller size than C&G) it would have cost around £4,000 in the first year.

No. BF is the biological norm, so it doesn't lower the risk of anything.
The risks are increased with FF, as the artificial choice.

https://www.businessinsider.com/nestles-infant-formula-scandal-2012-6?amp

Yes, that's my maths too, around £46 a month to ff a baby. One of the (many) necessary costs of having a baby that the majority of uk parents should be factoring into the cost of having a child.

I agree that poorer families (those who would be eligible for FSM for example) should have some additional financial support (or additional support to bf).

But still there is no PENALTY for ff, it's just a cost of raising a child.

In another example, look at the price of nappies - disposable vs myriad washable types.