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.)

I've just watched the aptimil advert unfortunately. It says 'Follow on milk is not a breastmilk substitute'. I mean wtf - isn't that breaking the Sale of Goods act? What exactly else is it a substitute for?

[green] I find the discussion a bit funny- surely you all realise that all ADVERTISING is EVIL and designed to make you BUY STUFF. Thank goodnes THE advert mantions breast feeding - they could easyly just say that bottle feeding is better or easier or less demanding on women or sth - so also thank goodness for nanny state that forces the company to admit that breast milk is better ! hi hi

mamusia you can bet your last penny that the advertising people actually benefit from saying 'breast is best' otherwise they would be fighting saying that tooth and nail.

here is how it works: reminding people that breast is best at the start kick starts that parental anxiety about giving our baby the 'best'. well since I could not/did not want to breastfeed can give my baby (insert brand) which is the best my money can buy.

what they should actually be saying is that breastfeeding is normal.

what makes me spit feathers is the 1+ milk they also promote. but that is another story.

of course foxytocin - you'r right, in a way, but really they can do almost anything they want and all of them do say brest is best. All I'm saying is that they don't care that brest milk is better - they just selling their product and nothig else matters - if they don't do it well somebody else will

Academics can pretty much write what they want? Fab!! Why didnt anyone tell me that? Would have saved me a lot of time and effort actually doing any research .

I have probably had a good stab at reading those 13000 studies as am an academic whose research area is breastfeeding. I have just trudged my way through a phd on the stbject and believe me there are many many studies which show the benefits of breastfeeding (risks of FF). Not every study is conclusive, not every study controls for confounding variables etc etc. However, the good studies, the meta analyses - they more often than not come up in favour of breastfeeding.

Maternal factors do obviously play a role, particularly maternal weight, eating habits and SES but often the studies which control for these still are supportive for breastfeeding. There is evidence for example that breastfeeding reduces obesity risk independently of maternal weight and SES.

Most of the strongest evidence centres around gastronintestinal and respiratory diseases. That is good enough for me as those can cause great problems for little babies. What Kramer was actually saying - and he was hugely misquoted - was that some of the other areas need further examination. It always makes me giggle / cry when he is used against the case of breastfeeding as it was his major review which was the basis of WHO recommending exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months.

I very much like TikToks wheelchair analogy and will steal that for future use thank you . What needs more emphasis is how we support mums and babies who cant breastfeed. If the government could put the money that the formula companies use into breastfeeding then we would be sorted.

About follow on formulas - they are a little bit less fatty - so suit a mixed diet of older ones - I'm huge fan of breast feeding but my DD stopped at 7 mnths and DS at 9 so i used it. But Cow and Gate ads freak me out - don't those babies look weird - so never use their product

Also if anybody is worried about formula being given in hospital - when i had DS i had CS and he had trouble BF first night so DS was given formula but next morning we were fine and i BF very succesfully for 9 months (but we had help from experts available and lovely midwife came to check on us- wonderful times)

Harpy, take a piece of advice. Forget the antibodies. It's a cul de sac. You are making a tit of yourself and beginning to sound a mite obsessive. Roving round the web cherry-picking quotes from papers and the odd textbook or presentation does not make you an expert in this. You really are arguing about the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin....it's rubbish, as I said.

What does it matter whether the antibodies are in the bloodstream or protect locally? Immune protection via the antibodies in breastmilk is dynamic - driven by the mother's and the baby's encounters with pathogens and conjured up to order - and this plugs the immunity gap that human babies are born with.

And as for ads for anti-aging products - these are controlled, and manufacturers are not allowed to make unsubstaniated claims, though of course they can create an image and a dream to convince us of something that's not true, just as the formula ads do. I think babies, and their mothers, deserve better than this - they deserve openness and honesty and advertising can never, will never, deliver either.

harpy: "The composition of infant formula is similar to breast milk, but it isn't a precise replica because the exact chemical makeup of breast milk is still unknown [....](incidentally Im speculating here, not stating that I believe breast milk and formula are similar in composition...)"

Eh?

So are you saying it's similar or not?

The composition is not a precise replica because one comes from a cow and one comes from a human being. That's basically it. One's for calves, and precisely matches the needs of calves....and one isn't.

You might as well say the blood of a cow is not a precise replica of the blood of a human. Or the lymph. Or the cerebral fluid. Or the saliva. etc etc etc.

"However as I mentioned previously, humans are unable to absorb these antibodies from the milk and into the bloodstream. "

Oh yes they are

I look forward to your retraction, theshriekingharpy.

About follow on formulas - they are a little bit less fatty - so suit a mixed diet of older ones

I checked, and the composition of SMA 1 per 100ml made-up is:

67 kcal
7.2g lactose
3.6g fat (1.6g saturated)

Compared with SMA 2:

67 kcal
7.4g lactose
3.3g fat (1.3g saturated)

So they provide the same amount of energy but the follow-on milk has 10% less fat and 3% more sugar.

If a baby has a mixed diet then a marginal difference in the composition of his formula is not going to make any difference - the human body is quite capable of handling the minor variation, otherwise the baby food companies would be selling not 'Beef in vegetables' and 'Creamed parsnips' but 'Chemical blend 1, 2 and 3'.

It's just a marketing tool with two aims:

1. to cross-promote the infant formula (which has the same brand name)

1. to try and convey the impression that these products are so incredibly scientific and precise that you have to switch products at six months (which also cross-promotes the infant brand)

THis thread has made me want to boycott Nestle with a vengeance! I hope to also reach a stage where my DD knows the logo to be "bad", whether she sees it on a kit-kat or wherever.
I was so shocked at that video of the twins.

I swear I can tell whether a small baby is breastfed or not. I sat in a nursing room in a big shopping centre and watched the mums and babies come in, tried to guess if they would BF or FF. Honest to God, the BF babies legs were all much dimplier and fatter. So now Im always suprised that mothers are recommended formula if their baby is not putting on weight because it seems to me that breastmilk helps babies fill out better than formula fed babies, whereas before I had babies I thought the opposite. Again this goes back to lack of info and knowledge about BF. The BF mother whose baby is not gaining weight properly needs to be helped with understanding how to increase her supply.

Sakura, I don't think anyone has tested a visual check for bf/ff babies, and I don't believe this is an accurate way of differentiating, sorry

Breastfed babies are very slightly heavier than formula fed babies at first, and then they become gradually lighter from about 5-6 mths on so by the age of a year, the bf baby on the 50th centile is lighter than the ff baby on the 50th centile (one of the reasons for the new weight charts, which show this and therefore a more physiological growth).

HVs suggest formula for babies to put on weight because they are unaware of, or choose to ignore, the fact that improving and increasing the breastfeeding is often perfectly possible - if all a baby needs is calories, then the first option shd be to give him breastmilk ones! The other reason for this urge to give formula is a poor understanding of how little significance a minor faltering in baby's weight may have, in the context of the 'whole' baby.

Harpy, once again I have to suggest you read properly. I don't believe anti-aging ads. That's my point. Medical claims in anti-aging ads are outlawed, and they peddle imagery and half truths insread - just as formula ads do. I reckoned babies deserved protection from this crap.

I resorted to 'rubbish' as an argument in scorn and desperation - soz. I have no fanatical agenda, so none to support, and I have made no zealous sermons...what I say I back up (apart from the unscientific 'rubbish' comment, I admit).

I am chained to the computer at the moment, as it happens My work involves me in an on-line project which is keeping me here, and mumsnet is a diversion when my mind wanders

Here's a tip: read more, read carefully, don't accuse people of being 'dogmatic' or 'fanatical' when they happen to know more than you do, and check out the maelstrom of scientific discussion on the infant immune system. No one has the last word on that one yet - not the Naked Scientist and certainly not bloody Slate magazine, which is where you fished out your Spiesel quotes from.

Shrieking Harpy are you a bloke? You remind me of someone.

And of course if you are your name gives a lot away about your thinking.

TheShriekingHarpy - Tiktok is a well known and respected poster on the boards, particularly on the breast and bottlefeeding board. She has helped, and continues to help many mothers with breastfeeding through her contributions. We should consider ourself lucky that she is so generous with her time and her expertise here on mumsnet.

She's the least dogmatic person posting on infant feeding here, and by a long way the best informed (and probably one of a very few individuals here with extensive training and a formal qualification in breastfeeding support).

You are really out of your depth with this argument, why not just go quietly before you make yourself look even sillier?

And harpy - do just forget the antibodies. Please. You're out of your depth and anyway, it's angels dancing on a pin.

It is clear formula feeding increases the risk of illness in all settings - and that this is to do with lack of immune protection.

Somehow, you think that it's a whizz-bang argument that maternal antibodies cross the placenta and the human infant is therefore born with them...no one has said this doesn't happen. It is rubbish to conclude from this fact that the research on infant feeding and immunity is somehow flawed.....antibodies in breastmilk work locally, we know that, and newer work indicates they may also work by crossing the gut wall and entering the bloodstream (it is thought).

Either way, the effect of early nutrition on health shows up in a whole bunch of research.

I would like to read any research that reveals that anti-bodies from breast milk are not absorbed into the baby's bloodstream though.

Whether 'we' like it or not babies do have formula and many many thrive happily, with happy parents who seem to have more sleep than those of us who exclusively bf. Why shouldn't they advertise their products? There is a market and they need market share. I don;t think it ever convinces a happy bfer to switch to formula and grass roots education and support make women choose bf over ff. When I decided to bf mine it was on the basis that all of my antenatal were middle class women over thirty who all decided to bf. I'm not sure I would have chosen to bf if my antenatal group were all twenty somethings whh thought bf was yucky/inconvenient.
It should be the natural choice shouldn't it? Not natural in the tie die lentil eating way but in the obvious choice way, ff if you have no other option. This can only be encouraged by women doing it, choosing to feed.