To think that if you're going to start an advert 'Breast feeding is best for your baby' you shouldn't turn out to be selling formula?

[SomeGuy]

I'm sure I'm not.

(This is an advert for Aptamil follow-on.)

Obviously it's not as bad as the ad with the bloke who says he's doing night-feeds for his baby (who obviously is over six months, oh yes), but still....

Are there any milk adverts that aren't actually secretly shilling for infant formula?

(Like the Aptamil follow-on milk advert 'Aptamil 3' - conveniently almost identical in name to 'Aptamil 1' and 'Aptamil 2', both of which are illegal to advertise in the UK.)

Yes, while there are no studies that assess individual families' hygiene, as far as I know, of course poor hygiene makes infection more likely. It's common sense.

It's not the whole story, though, because the health deficits aren't just infection.

I'd be very interested to see studies done with willing famililes to see whether it's the formula that causes "health deficits" or some other related fact.

There could be certain groups in the population who on average use more formula than others, and perhaps these groups also do other things which could have health implications (such as smoking more), thus skewing the statistics to make it seem as if it's the formula itself which causes problems.

In addition, some of the "non-infection health deficits" could be indirectly related to poor hygiene and infection. Perhaps infections would have an effect on the immune system and this could lead to other problems which, while not clearly linked to poor hygiene, might actually have stemmed from it, and not the use of formula in itself.

It was a flippant remark in response to noddyholder. sorry

These factors are controlled for, Tinfoil.

They are very obvious 'confounding variables' and the majority of studies accommodate them.

OK tiktok, well maybe there are studies accommodating the variables of the most obvious factors such as smoking etc. But I'm still wondering about factors indirectly related to hygiene, keeping bottles too long and so on, as opposed to the formula itself. It would be good if more detailed studies were done.

Also, formulas will have improved since some studies were done, and this may benefit future health. For example, long chain fatty acids have now been added to some formulas.

The 'deficits' are not so much to do with nutritional aspects I think, but more to do with how formula errodes the gut, that it isn't made to a specific 'formula' for YOUR baby, that it doesn't change daily/hourly to meet your baby's non-nutritional needs (nevermind the nutritional ones) etc etc.

It might be helpful to think of milk as 'white blood' (it is quite close in composition to the mothers' blood). Can you see logically how this will enable a baby to thrive better than the blood of another species that has been boiled so hard many nutrients are not longer present and therefore needed to be 'fortified'?

The evidence that LCPUFAs in formula compared to formula without them gives significant benefit is just not there, though - these are not human LCPUFAs, but synthetically-produced ones, whose long-term effects we just don't know.

These ingredients are added as a 'me too' commercial exercise, so no brand misses out in comparison.

They may improve formula - we don't know and we cannot tell, and there are no long-term studies tracking the babies who have the formula with them in.

I don't think any formula can be produced that makes up for the fact it's from a cow, and then processed, rather than from a human being

I can't bear this advert. It's whole message is
"If you decide to "move on" from breastfeeding (and it's about time you did, you hippy bf weirdo - that's the 'normal' thing to do, haven't you realised?) then substitute breastfeeding for this formula here, this is a lovely, lovely product that contains, erm, well lots of made up stuff and is accompanied by a soothing soundtrack and happy images.

Oh, and by the way, this product is absolutely not a breastmilk substitute, oh no. Despite what we just said."

Using the euphemism of "move on from X to Y" and then claiming to be abiding by the legal requirements of NOT advertising Y as a substitute for X makes me grind my teeth. Mostly at the ASA for allowing them to continue doing this.

There is some kind of partial ban on formula advertising something to do with avoiding women being influenced by ads to switch to formula as "breast is best".It's on all the boxes of formula "breast is best".
vaguely related link here

You can't have read the study properly, Harpy. There are three categories of outcomes in it: fully bf, partially bf, fully ff.

Look. There are many papers, controlling for social, economic and environmental factors, that show formula feeding has health risks. Some papers look at a specific health issue, some look at cognitive effects, some look at short term outcomes, some look at long term outcomes. Sometimes the evidence is an association, rather than a presumption of cause and effect (like SIDS, for instance, or obesity, where formula feeding appears to act in conjunction with multiple other factors); sometimes the link is pretty slippery (like the effect on cognition - 'IQ' - where it is really hard to fish out all the cultural baggage anyway, to get a precise result).

The point is that breastfeeding is physiological, and all the evidence (yes, all) points in one direction only, just as you might expect comparing a physiological, evolved, ancient 'system' with something that borrows from another species.

It's a little bit like trying to show that walking is 'better' than using a wheelchair or staying in bed all day. Using a wheelchair or staying in bed all day might be unavoidable for some people, and some of them may have wonderful, fulfilled lives despite this...but both of those are substitutes for walking, and we would resent and even prevent wheelchair manufacturers from promoting their wares to people who were able to walk! Please don't pick apart the analogy - I know it has weak points

"There is a popular myth that, somehow, formula fed infants are horribly deprived in so far as immunity, nutrition and bonding is concerned. Its frankly an absurd generalisation"

Errr - sorry, but all ff infants are deprived of the immunological protection that is provided by breastfeeding: formula doesn't contain antibodies or antiviral/antibacterial agents. Formula is also nutritionally inferior to breastmilk.

There is no argument about this - even the formula manufacturers admit it.

How this manifests itself in relation to the health and development of individual children will obviously vary from child to child, depending on environment and heredity. You have used the expression 'horribly deprived', but these are just your words - I have not seen anyone else use emotive or judgmental language in relation to this issue here on this thread.

Personally I'm that anyone is suprised that there are health issues related to infant feeding choices. Historically and geographically humans across the globe have had diverse diets, but all human infants were fed on breastmilk until about 100 years ago (at least pretty much all those who went on to live past their 1st birthday were). Breastmilk is as complex a substance as blood, and has many hundreds of constituents - all of which have some function in the body. Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have honed it to be the best possible source of nutrition for babies. Formula contains only a fraction of the constituents found in breastmilk and is a very crude approximation. Of course it's going to make some difference to their health and development - sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle.

I've heard the almost wholesale switch to ff in the West described as "the single most radical change in the history of human nutrition", and it is you know. And I think the study of health outcomes of groups of individuals over the course of a lifetime is so complex and difficult that we'll never really fully understand the myriad of subtle ways in which how a baby is fed might affect them.

Good post, sabire.

I find it a tad depressing that these debates always have the same elements, all of them pathetically weak and easily countered, as they are, but tedious nontheless. Many of the following have already appeared here:

• control of marketing (for formula) means mothers who use formula are made to feel guilty
• control of marketing is the same as 'banning' formula
• infant feeding studies don't realise that ff families' different socio-economic profile may account for the diffs between bf and ff (well....duh)
• my kids were ff and are fine (double duh)
• my sister's kids were bf and have eczema
• lots of people think and say that ff kids are stupid and always ill (the 'knuckle dragging apes' argument....)
• if formula had risks it wouldn't be allowed to be sold
• lots of women can't breastfeed - what are they supposed to do?
• how do women find out about formula if they don't see ads for it?
• if you control/ban ads for formula milk, why not ban ads for [insert other product here - this time it was cars, FFS)?

There are others. Maybe I will devise a bingo game along these lines. We have yet to see 'oh, research...you can twist it and use it to prove anything. I don't care about research.'

tiktok - for the saving of time we could keep your last post on file somewhere, with an answer for each point c+p'd from one of the many thousands of well written posts on this subject from the bf board.

Then every time one of these threads pops up we could just use it to divert people away from pointless and futile arguments, and towards a coherent and useful discussion of the real issues - the quality and direction of antenatal education about infant feeding, the general crappiness of postnatal support for both bf and ff mums, and the role of formula manufacturers, and public mores in shaping people's perception of the issue.

someguy, I just read and re read, your post from earlier as "my child was born in Asda" LOL!

Harpy - no one is arguing that breastfeeding is without risk in the very particular cases of HIV/AIDS, and the very rare cases of meds, radiation or chemotherapy. For goodness sake.

Face it. You don't know the literature enough to make sweeping statements about 'more studies which do not take education etc etc' into account.

Weight of lit. is not assessed by counting up the studies, but by making a judgement of quality studies, and really, I don't see how you come to the conclusion that 'studies comparing breastfeeding with formula tend to be highly contradictory' - do share how you come to this conclusion, where studies 'tend' to be contradictory, 'cos it's news to me.

I am not sure what you mean, anyway....you mean they contradict each other ie study A contradicts study B? I can only think of one area - intelligence - where that has happened (study A says babies are more intelligent if bf and study B says no difference...when along came study C which revealed that there is a genetic component which affects the take-up of 'IQ' factors in breastmilk, which only 9 out of 10 babies actually have).

Find me the quality studies which say formula fed babies are healthier than babies breastfed according to the physiological norms (or actually, even any bf will do) and we can start talking. Please omit outlying cases like HIV/AIDS, mothers having chemo, mothers having heavy-duty psychtropic meds. I thank you.

There is no difficulty whatsoever in finding an 'emphatic clear answer', however. No one has used the term 'health liability' have they? Though I think I might start using it - that's what formula is, in public health terms, for sure. It's not like smoking, I agree - adults choose to smoke, and no one has to smoke; babies don't choose to have formula, but of course they have to have it if not breastfed.

I find the whole thing annoying because it is such an OBVIOUS technical loophole and they are making a mockery of the ban on infant formula advertising.

Ok, you can debate it all you want but the fact is that this government has decided that the advertising of infant formula is harmful. Whether that's wrong or right, that's the law at present and it's banned. So why not see the fecking ban through?

It's a bit like banning cigarette advertising and then allowing B&H to start marketing cigarette-shaped cigars in a cigarette-shaped packet under the slogan "CIGAR-ettes. For when you decide to move on from not smoking. (Not a cigarette substitute)"

(Note - I am not comparing formula feeding to cigarette smoking - I am comparing the surreptitious advertising of banned products and there are not that many other banned products out there).

"I'll happily concede that breastfeeding is better. However formula should not be classified alongside smoking as a health liability. Its absurd"

But ff can be said to be pose a health risk if it results in more children being hospitalised than when mothers use the alternative - breastfeeding.

And yes - it's true it's still a good alternative if expressed or donated breastmilk isn't available. Actually it's the only reasonable alternative if breastmilk is not otherwise available.

It's a bit like banning cigarette advertising and then allowing B&H to start marketing cigarette-shaped cigars in a cigarette-shaped packet under the slogan "CIGAR-ettes. For when you decide to move on from not smoking. (Not a cigarette substitute)"

lol

It's a typical example of policy makers trying to have their cake and eat it.

One the one hand they want to be seen to be supporting breast feeding, but on the other they don't want to piss off industry. So they opt for a stupid middle-ground that annoys everyone.

I don't think there's anything wrong with challenging academic studies or asking questions about how a specific study reached a conclusion. Some studies are better than others, and not every study/paper will have taken every single aspect into account, so it's a fair point to query.

There isn't anything wrong with people raising the same issues as they aren't the same issues for them. Perhaps they don't have the resources or knowledge of some of the experts on here, but wouldn't think that it's tedious of someone to ask.

Forgive my tetchiness, ilovemydog

It's just that I prefer grown-up arguments, that don't use 'my kids' to trump a gazillion aggregated years of scientific enquiry, that know at least a little bit about the scientific method (we've all been to school, FFS) and why controlled studies are necessary, and which don't equate 'marketing restrictions' with an assault on liberty....

I don't mind questions about a study at all.