to think baby formula should come in plain packaging?

[Yoyoyozo]

Fancy packaging is used to inflate prices and extract more money from parents with phrases like 'premium' plastered on the tin. Parents shouldn't be made to feel guilty for not buying the most expensive, well-marketed brand.

Yes, parents can make their own informed decisions, but clever marketing is proven to undermine this.

A report published in The Lancet (2016) unveiled that aggressive marketing of breastmilk substitutes is undermining efforts to improve breastfeeding rates

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(15)01044-2.pdf

No, this is not equating infant formula to tobacco! The aim is to prevent exploitative marketing practices that undermine access to impartial information on infant feeding.

What is shaming about a medical product in plain package?

Cigarette packaging is not plain, it is covered in warnings and photographs of cancerous tumours and dying people.

But, since you raised it, formula feeding does increase risk of death by pneumonia, SIDS, and many more ailments. We should not even go into that, it will send the thread into a frenzy. Awful facts, yes. Terrible to hear as a mother who is formula feeding, yes. But to hide these facts would be patronzing and prevent parents from making an informed choice.

This isn't a feeding debate thread, it's about the disgusting lack of ethics in our hypercapitalist society and the normalising of marketisation of infant health.

It is expensive.

id be interested to see the manufacturing cost vs the sale price / shops mark up

This /\

It isn't a medical product is baby food I.mean you do get prescription milk because of allergy/illness but you also get prescription bread because of celiac disease doesn't mean all bread is medicine.

See I think that's the problem when heath care workers are so reluctant to talk about formula, you then have to educate yourself from the advertising. I think those that do feel guilt about breastfeeding not working out are going to want what they believe is the best formula. It's important to talk honestly about how there is little difference between the brands.

It is a medically necessary product. People with celiac disease can survive without bread. A baby with no access to breastmilk cannot survive without formula, therefore it cannot be compared to food or any other product.

OP@Yoyoyozo for those who HAVE to bottle feed because we have no other choice it’s is really important to realise there may be differences in formula brands. I had to put mine on formula in hospital on midwives advice having been presuming I would breast feed…the staff were not officially allowed to advise which brand but 1 staff member kindly did suggest 1 brand above the others. I do feel women having to formula feed should have as much choice around brands as possible . I suggest you should really be more worried about the women who are currently having to water down feed because they can’t afford their food costs at present…poverty is by far a more risk to babies health then whether or not their mums breast feed them.

What is shaming about a medical product in plain package?

Seriously, you can't see why?

Switching baby formula to plain packaging could unintentionally shame parents who use it because it stigmatises it. Many parents depend on formula for various reasons, none of which are anybody else's business. Plain packaging is usually used for products like cigarettes with a negative connotation and using it for formula, will make it seem like using formula is bad or wrong - when it's not. This would only make parents feel guilty or judged, especially because there's a lot of pressure to choose breastfeeding.

Furthermore, in my 18 years of being a mother, I have never once seen 'aggressive marketing' because they aren't allowed to. I don't even think the packaging is that enticing or attractive, or looking 'premium'.

I mean yeah, but.. bigger things to worry about?

Plain packaging is usually used for products like cigarettes with a negative connotation and using it for formula, will make it seem like using formula is bad or wrong - when it's not.

Which products? Tobacco is the only one, and it doesn't have plain packaging - it is grim with hideous photos and warnings. Tobacco will be obsolete soon anyone, no one young smokes anymore, they vape.

I have never once seen 'aggressive marketing' because they aren't allowed to. I don't even think the packaging is that enticing or attractive, or looking 'premium'.

They aren't allowed to, yet they constantly breach the marketing code. Compliance isn't necessary because fines are built into their business model. Kendamil are a great example of aggresive marketing. And people are clamouring to pay 50% more for their formula because HRH Kate is a brand ambassador and they have stuck a crown on the tin.

https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/kendal-nutricare-ltd-g22-1162944-kendal-nutricare-ltd.html

The thing that pisses me off is cow and gate and aptimil. It’s the same milk. Exactly the same, made in the same factory. But aptimil is marketed as superior so is more expensive.

I only read the first page before all the breast is best gang chimed in.

YOU breastfeed if YOU want to and if YOU can.

Fuck what the rest of the world chooses, why do you care? Concentrate on yourself and your own children and keep your nose out of what other people do, it has fuck all to do with you.

(BF two, FF one, couldn’t give a shit either way).

True!!

But if you're allowed to devote an entire thread to the time you farted in yoga, I think this topic is acceptable.

Just interested to know why you care so much?

And why you have included bits about breastfeeding in with your posts about formula feeding?

@Chunkycookie Fuck what the rest of the world chooses, why do you care? Concentrate on yourself and your own children and keep your nose out of what other people do, it has fuck all to do with you.

1. Because we live in a society not alone in a cave, so why not fight against the greed that hurts everyone?

2. This thread is about the injustice of formula companies fleecing families, not about feeding choices. Like your cow and gate example - exactly

Because I hate rich people lining their pockets at the expense of struggling families.

Because formula is a breastmilk substitute.

Why not just put it in a brown paper bag with "May cause SIDS" on it, eh @Yoyoyozo.

God, I hate this sanctimonious garbage from women who found breastfeeding easy. Those of us who've struggled already feel like scum in the supermarket, scum getting out a bottle in public etc etc. You want to improve breastfeeding rates? How about actually training midwives so they have some idea of what to do if babies refuse the breast? How about staffing hospitals sufficiently so you don't wait six hours after birth for a midwife to come to help get baby latched, and three days on a ward to see the "breastfeeding specialist midwife" who just tells you to go private if you're worried about tongue tie.

I've spent about £1k on pumps, baby osteopaths, lactation consultants, tongue tie specialists etc just to establish partial breastfeeding. If women want to waste a couple of extra quid a week buying a specific brand of formula because it makes them feel better about what they're giving their baby, that's their bloody perogative.

Really do you know anything about low income families in the UK? Did you know they are entitled to free formula? And corporate will get rich which ever foods they sell.

I see.

Im still confused why you have mentioned breastfeeding and included an article from the lancet?

People need to feed their babies.

with hindsight one of mine suffered constipation. Due to the “dirty little secret” and judgement around formula feeding there’s little support around it and no one suggested changing formula might help or be possible.
it was a case of trial and error at home with no one to talk to or information out there.

decent information should be out there not further shaming.

You don't sound like scum to me! You sound like a bloody brilliant mum 🩷

Ignore OP, I can't really work out their angle but its definitely a "wind them up and watch them go" post. Don't let someone so ignorant undermine all your hard work 🩷

1. couldn’t give a shit about anyone else.
2. Companies will always make the most money they can and people are stupid, so no research of their own and lap up what they are told and forever it will be so. I’ve had friends who have had health visitors advise a switch from cow and gate to aptimil as it’s “more gentle”, the stupidity is deeply ingrained.

As an aside, kendamil is the only thing my reflux baby would tolerate, it was recommended by a paediatrician and it was life changing for us. And it doesn’t taste like formula, it tastes okay. They made ice cream from it for a marketing ploy, I was sent some. I am the most ardent anti royalist you will ever meet, it pained me to buy it because of the Kate connection.

ETA - FUCKS SAKE how did I add a gif??? I don’t mean to and can’t get rid of it.

Agree with all of this.

Except, how about the women who feel shamed because they can't afford the extra £60 per month to buy 'luxurius creamy organic Kendamil' over Cow and Gate?

Or the ones who do pay that, and have to lose out on whatever that money could have been spent on.

All formula brands are equal, lets stop permitting them to be percieved otherwise

I'm not sure I agree with the idea of having those warnings on formula or that breast is best. The majority of the time that ship will have sailed a long time ago and it feels mean when at that point it's an essential baby food that needs to be used.

I think warnings on formula should just stick to the risks of bacterial contamination and the need for hot water as that's useful information that can be put into practice rather than just guilt tripping that can't.

No one is advocating warnings. That really would be shaming. But there is nothing shaming about a plain package, it would quickly become the norm.

👏👏👏

Clear that many mothers want a medal for being able to breastfeed and cannot resist every opportunity to lord it over anyone who wasn’t able to. This thread alone, suggesting that formula is so damaging it should be in plain packaging like cigarettes. One of those things damages your health, one feeds babies.