Ed Milliband on BBC promoting Aptimil

[weasle]

Sorry if already a thread about this but i couldn't see one.

Ed walks around a tesco and says oh look, that is the formula we are using and points to aptamil, camera does a close up of it. Presumably to show he's a hands on dad, like the photo of DC bottle feeding florence.

On the news thursday night.
here
Link to the lactivist website with links on how to complain about the breach of the code here

I agree safe ff is a skill, and it can be taught - and should be. One of the results of formula being thought of as totally benign and problem-free and yes, normal, is that these skills are underplayed. We grow up thinking all you need know about ff is that the end of the bottle with the teat on goes into the baby's mouth and that's it.

When skills are discussed it is only the hygiene stuff that gets shared, sadly.

Do mothers get told that it's important for the baby to be fed by the same consistent one (maybe two) people, and not passed round like parcel for everyone to have 'a turn'? No, I don't think so. In fact, one of the so-called benefits of ff is that 'anyone can do it' - in fact, that is a serious drawback!

cardamom, I understand pressures of time preventing you making a complaint....but you find time to post here in some detail about the poor care you received :) What is likely to bring about change and prevent similar poor care to mothers in your area? A long post to a talkboard, or a letter/email to your maternity services?

The NHS has to respond to complaints and investigate them - you would be doing other mothers a good turn if you let the midwifery services know how bad you felt as a result of their 'care'.

I am happy to PM you with information.
/refs about why it's not just hygiene issues that cause problems with formula. But why do you want to know this? If you are sensitive about using formula it won't make you feel better. Just as long as you know!

TikTok - I may be wrong but I thought that FF mothers were supposed to be shown how to make a bottle up, how to demand feed formula, how to wash/sterilse bottles and how to bottle fed a baby before discharge from hospital or once they were home? Have I dreamed this?

I really feel babies and mothers need support to feed safely and happily regardless of the substance being fed, as I know the vast majority of MN do.

TruthSweet - what you describe should be part of normal postnatal care for ff mothers and babies, but it does not always get done - either in hospital or at home.

yes! people DO think FF is the "easy option" and it's not! Frankly it is a hassle and a huge faff, particularly in the middle of the night, as well as an added expense. and yes, people do think that it is OK for just anyone to do it. so agreed there! i take your point about fidning the time to post here, but not to make a formla complaint. but it is different though, isn't it? here you can rant, be emotional, not worry about grammar, spelling, the logical progression of an argument. making a formal complaint menas gearing yourself up emotionally and intellectually in a very different way. and having to find out the name of the person to complain to, be prepared to chase it when it is ignored, follow-up any response, etc. point taken though.

i'm not sure the references would necessarily make me feel worse. i don't think facts upset me as much as people's emotional judgements based on their interpretation of those facts. the fact is that DD was born to me, and given my background that inevitably meant that she would be at least partly FF. knowledge is power - if she is at increased risk of x, y, z - then that's something to be alert to.

Easy to make a complaint and the link tells you how to find out who to send it to.

Just make it slightly less ranty than a post to mumsnet :) Your spelling and grammar are ok.

Tiktok - then that is as much a travesty as mothers given inaccurate information about bfing. I thought it was part of the discharge process as much as making sure that baby has an appropriate car seat and that mum had the community MW's no.

No wonder women on MN are up in arms over the lack of information on formula feeding. I just think advertising is not the way to glean that information.

It would be nice if there was a yellow card system in place for formulas (i.e. if SMA gave your baby constipation and Cow & Gate give them wind but HiPP suited them you could report that to a central body). Then there could be some analysis of what caused what (obviously some might just be co-incidental changes). I would also like to see an independent side by side comparison of all the formulas on the market, not just the ones produced by the formula companies themselves, with easy to read explanations for the ingredients and why they have been included.

TikTok ? apologies, I know that my emotions are colouring my argument. Yes, ?arsenic? was a wild exaggeration, sorry.

Re the BFing literature: ok, again, I?ve been letting my emotions get in the way of things. However, I have an NHS BFing magazine here, and to quote ?Compared with a full breastfed baby, a baby who is artificially fed is: 5 times more likely to be hospitalised with vomiting and diarrhoea; 5 times more likely to suffer from urine infections...? etc. Over the page, it states (in bold and capital letters!), ?...artificially fed babies are disadvantaged in health terms compared with breastfed babies and have a greater tendency towards developing many other illnesses in later life?.
It?s maybe all true, but you said this type of wording was rare, but here it is. While not hinting at arsenic, of course mothers (or at least me, but I can?t be the only one) are left feeling that they are endangering their child. Which is what ?midwife? was implying with her Ed and car seat objections.

By wider context, I meant ? I take it that all these studies of BFing and risks etc eliminate all other influencing factors e.g. socio-economic factors which have a massive impact on our health/life expectancy, genetic dispositions, geography, environmental factors etc? Or, for example, is it the case that mothers who BF or BF for longer are more likely to be in higher socio-economic groups, have better access to healthcare etc? There are other factors that influences our health.

Re the John Lewis thread ? yes, I do think some of the undertones were that an area wasn?t needed because, to quote ?We live in an FF culture?.

Truthsweet ? if being shown how to make up bottles etc is supposed to be part of antenatal care in hospital or at home by the midwife, then it certainly wasn?t done with me. Firstly, when being told on day one in hospital (or, in fact, day 0) that I was to formula feed because baby wasn?t latching and was low birth weight, they asked me ?What formula do you want to use??. I said I had no idea, I didn?t know the difference, could they recommend one, aren?t they all the same, and ?I thought the difference was just marketing?? The doctor and midwife looked at each other, and you know, I don?t think they even said anything. They went and picked one and brought it back. On being discharged from hospital, distressed at not being able to feed my baby except small amounts of EBM with a syringe and formula with a cup/syringe, I was given an A4 sheet on how to cup feed. The midwife, understanding that I was upset and didn?t have bottle equipment at home (I hadn?t bought any, never for one moment thinking that I?d leave hospital not BFing) gave us soem syringes, a cup and a few bottles of formula and said ?I?m not supposed to give you these ? if anyone asks, they slipped into your bag?. The midwife the next day advised me what bottles and sterilising equipment to buy, and DH hurried to the shops and bought some formula too.

Re the card idea ? interesting idea, because as far as I see it, there?s no way to choose the formula you use and make comparisons. I?m still totally clueless on the differences between them (and are they so different?). I do now know about the ?follow-on milk? con, though, from Mumsnet

Cardamonginger / Toddlerwrangler ? again, I think we have similar experiences :(
I?m not sure what the answer is either, but I think soem sensitivity is needed because it is very hard to be constantly asked ?are you BFing??. I wish people just didn?t ask. I feel like i have to justify myself all the time too :(

theborrower - I am in favour of sharing correct information about bf and ff, and that includes the (rare) statements about ff have disadvantages. This is right - breastfeeding has no benefits, any more than breathing air, or having blood that circulates freely, or producing saliva, or putting one foot in front of the other in order to walk, have benefits. It's the way humans are, it's what the body does, it's what babies expect (physiologically speaking) to have.

Of course these facts should be alongside good support and cultural and social acceptance for breastfeeding, together with sensitivity and kindness and acceptance of women who don't do it. Sadly, much of this is missing.

The midwife's car seat analogy was crap - and a good example of poor training in communications and understanding.

I happen to think that infant feeding is a community concern - no one should be left feeling that they as an individual have done something dangerous to their child by not breastfeeding, with all the self-blame that brings.

In fact, as people point out, in some cases, formula is the active, safe choice that 'rescues' the mother from something heartbreakingly difficult and the baby from not being fed at all. In a world where donated breastmilk is hard to find, and good knowledge about how bf can be fixed or improved, it's not mothers that should bear the brunt of breastfeeding 'failure'.

There are many excellent studies on infant feeding that control for the issues you list - this is essential, because a pure epidemiology study that did not look at these factors would be pretty worthless.

Sometimes, I feel women who ff who wanted to bf cling to the idea that formula/breast is not really all that different; that the studies don't take into account socio-economic differences; that somehow it doesn't matter all that much and no one should be making a fuss that people don't get good help to enable them to do it.

It's because they feel it's all individually their fault - and it isn't.

You had what sounded like poor help with ff at the beginning. My experience is that when people get poor help with ff, it's a place where there is also poor help with bf. That may have happened with you - the mother of a low birthweight, non-latching baby on day 0/1 should be given other options than 'which formula do you want?' Because there are, actually, several. They may not have applied to you, but someone, surely, should have shared them with you.....:(

Err, no I was given no other options. I was led to believe that I had to give formula because she couldn't afford to lose weight given that she was already small. I could barely express a few ml, and this has always been the case, hence the need for formula :(

I'm interested to know what other options could have been presented to me though...?

theborrower - please take this in a spirit of general information sharing. I have no wish to comment individually on your case - I am not a doctor, I wasn't there, there may be all sorts of things I can't be aware of that apply to you individually.

In general, though

• low birthweight babies should be treated individually and assessed individually - an otherwise robust baby who is just 'small for dates' as they used to term it may not be desperate for calories, and it might be fine to 'wait and see' for a few days or else wait to see if there are any other symptoms (low blood sugar is one they'd be checking for)
• expressing colostrum is a technique - a few mls at a time is normal, but good technique, usually using hands (not a pump) or sometimes, a syringe, and someone who knows what they are doing, or who has the patience and skill to enable a mother to do it, can yield a good amount - and even low birthweight babies may not need more than a few mls at a time. Day 1 average intake of colostrum is 5-7 mls at a time.
• donated breastmilk if available careful, sensitive, support to do 'skin to skin' and cue feeding and self attachment - sometimes this gets totally f*d up by some bright spark over-handling mother and baby - puts the baby off who may scream and fight, or else 'switch off' by falling asleep and not being responsive at all to anything
• if formula is unavoidable, keeping it to the minimum, while the mother's breastmilk option is maintained by keeping the baby skin to skin, hand-expressing, with a view to dropping all formula and moving to full bf later

If these are not presented to a mother who is told her baby needs formula, with an explanation of why they could not apply in her case, then I'd say that was poor care.

theborrower - I'm sorry (and cross ) for the poor care you and your baby received in hospital. It sounds like you got the short straw with both bfing help and with ffing help. How crap of the hospital

I'm bfing peer supporter and part of what we do is run a stall at the ante-natal classes (we provided info on all aspects of feeding not just bfing). I had a chat with a mum who was pg with a subsequent child and hadn't bfed her previous child/ren as had heard too many horror stories about bleeding nipples/etc. She was looking for support to perhaps bf and as part of our chat I gave her leaflets on formula and how to make up feeds correctly. Her previous child/ren were young enough that the current recs. for 70C water etc were out when they were born but she had not been informed of them. She had missed out on so much information and support to feel secure in feeding her children. I just hope she is supported in making the right decision for her and her family - WHATEVER that is.

There was no pressure from me for her to make a decision either way ante-natally just gave her some info on skin2skin, how bfing works in the early days and suggested she try that and see how things went as well as the formula info [oh and to bother the MWs all she wanted if she wasn't happy with latch if she did go with BFing].

It seems that women are missing out on vast tracts of information because ??? Are Drs/MWs frighten of upsetting mothers/aren't sure of the facts themselves/wish to be partisan and not be seen to recommend one over the other/misinformed that to be pro-bf means to be a ffeeding information denier?

TruthSweet - sounds like an excellent approach, and I wish I had spoken to someone like you when prgenant.

Alf was born April 09. It wasnt till I joined MN that I had heard a single thing about thos 70C water business, though I suspect it was around whne he was born.

All sensitivies because of my circumstances, I find it really, REALLY upsetting and infuriating tht my childs health was put at risk because noone would talk to me about bottle feeding. :(

AGGHHHHHHHH! That should read:

Alf was born April 09. It wasnt till I joined MN a few weeks ago that I had heard a single thing about this 70C water business, though I suspect it was around whne he was born...

All sensitivies because of my circumstances aside, I find it really, REALLY upsetting and infuriating tht my childs health was put at risk because noone would talk to me about bottle feeding.

Hmm, then perhaps I got poor care :( I was shown how to hand express but I certainly found it difficult, and donated milk was never given as an option. I've seen mothers at the BF clinic using nursing supplementers - this was never mentioned either. In fact, the last time I went to the clinic (at the hospital) there was a mum in her dressing gown with her baby. Why was a visit with their consultants not offered? They knew I was having problems :(

Just remembering now by thinking of the size of the syringe, it wasn't a few mls of colostrum I could get out at a time - it was about 0.2 - 0.5 ml in an expressing session that took about 20 minutes. Tried hospital expressing machine - I think we got about 5ml in a half hour session. Ever since the most I've ever been able to express is about an ounce (if I'd missed a pumping session), but normally about 10-20 ml at most.

I think what gets me down is not knowing exactly what went wrong for us, if you know what I mean? I'd love to have another baby, and would still try to BF, but not knowing exactly what the issue is makes me anxious already! I think a combination of everything led to our problemsm though :(

It's such a long story, but in a nutshell, I think our problems were (in this general order):

• EMCS, delayed cuddling
• small teeny tiny baby - just not big enough to latch on
• lack of 'careful, sensitive handling ...' etc as you describe above. Baby just screamed and screamed when being put to my breast, and midwives manhandling her didn't help. No wonder the poor wee thing got distressed
• sleepy newborn phase
• visits to BF clinic, advised to try at breast (but if screaming to stop and move on to EBM, formula) then expressing to keep up supply
• baby in a pavlick harness and lots of hospital appointments, now making positioning more difficult and time for expressing and feeding sometimes difficult
• eventually starting to latch about 3 weeks, but for very very short periods initially
• still doing the regime, but for a day or two dropping the topping up because I thought baby had gotten hang of it. Ooops, big mistake - baby gets ill, loses weight, back on to formula. Turns out that a tongue tie is diagnosed (at 5 weeks). Advised to keep trying on breast to do what she manages, topping up and expressing in meantime
• tongue tie fixed at 8 weeks, no quick improvement
• back to the BF clinic, told that we should have seen an improvement, an up in the amount I express and a decrease in the amount of top up. neither happened. Recommended to ask Dr for domperidone as there must be something wrong with my supply (suggested that there was perhaps something hormonally wrong). Had already mentioned this to Dr but she was reluctant and just advised rest. Another Dr said she would look into it but never got back to me
• mother has a bit of a breakdown and stops trying so hard to BF because it's too stressful and no end is in sight

Errrr, sorry if I've hijacked this thread...

Truthsweet and TikTok, I know you are both knowledgeable BF people. What do you think? Am I an example of bad care, or just loads of bad luck?

Re making up FF properly - in the Ready Steady Baby book by NHS Scotland there is info on how to make it up, what's not given is guidelines on how much to make up for your size of baby or how often to feed (apart from 'on demand'). I think mothers need clearer guidance on this.

I am quite surprised that so little info is given out re safe formula making. I'm in NI and have exclusively ff 2 babies (5 and 3 now!!) When I was pregnant with dd1 I received a leaflet from Health Promotion Agency on formula feeding (temp of water, safely making up feeds etc), at first scan etc I was informed of the importance/reasons for breast feeding, told them I would be ffing and they gave me the leaflet.

When midwife came out to see us (first day out of hospital) she spent a good 15 mins discussing how to correctly make up formula, in fact she had to tick a box to say that she had done it. With dd2 the same thing, and she made it really clear that guidelines re storing, making up feeds in advance etc had really changed in the intervening period. I am 30 weeks pregnant with dc3 and at booking appt I was asked how I fed older girls and had I given any thought of how I was going to feed this one, when I told them. They replied "there are two ways to feed your baby and we will support you in either"

I believe it was around before my DD1 was born (March 06) but that didn't stop the MW congratulating us on bringing in 6 bottles with cool boiled water in and formula in little tubs in the bottles (TT Nuby bottles) to mix up at room temp for our jaundiced and evicted early baby (was induced at 38 weeks because I have epilepsy my subsequent babies went to 39w 5d). It was such a good idea to feed an ill baby non sterile food I shudder to think what could have happened to her and am grateful it didn't.

No-one talked to us about how to bottle feed (except to insist newborn DD1 had 2oz every 2 hours) or told us that you didn't need to throw out colostrum after 1hr in a bottle. I threw out 2oz of colostrum as DD1 was too ill to drink it and it still makes me want to cry (DD1 is now knocking on 5).

Sorry for the off load

:( theborrower

Indeed, nursing supplementer....though to be honest, these are dreadfully fiddly, and I would suggest not appropriate at all for day 0/1....the other things on my list are easier and people whose job it is to support new mothers should know about them routinely 'cos none of them require specialist knowledge (skill at helping a mother express should be part of every midwife's toolbox whereas I would not expect a supplementer to be there). However, I see from your post your switch to ff was done later than day 0/1 - it was more gradual. Supplementer might have helped , though I would say your probs with poor care began straight away (sorry, said I could not comment on you individually!).

Everything in your post underlines this poor care - there is no need for delayed cuddling/skin to skin after an EMCS (assuming you did not have a GA), though I know lots of places for some reason wrap babies up like sausages for no reason.

Manhandling and lack of sensitivity when 'helping' you is the biggest crime, in my book, though. Babies cannot cope with this - and it's horrible and invasive for the mother, too. The whole thing becomes stressful.

The harness is bad luck and will not have helped at all - but this would not have been crucial. Tongue tie - possibly a factor, might have helped to diagnose and treat earlier. Poor care.

You had very poor care, theborrower. Poor care, and poor you for beating yourself up with stress :(

theborrower - it sounds like you did everything humanly possible to bf (short of inventing a time machine and going back and slapping some sense into the manhandling mws/the drs who didn't prescribe dom [if clinically advisable]/the HCPs who missed the tongue tie for weeks).

Ideally, the EMCS would have ended with baby put on your chest for at least 2 hours of skin to skin and baby checked for tongue tie on the first day and snipped asap. But unfortunately without that time machine you did all you could for your child with what little support you were given. I really feel sometimes HCPs could care less which way a mum feds her baby (not in a which way the mum choses but if a mum is trying to bf and struggling).

In short I think you (and your baby) were let down terribly by those supposed to care for you. I can only hope lessons were learned by the HCP involved in your care.

theborrower, toddlerwrangler and other FF mums that I may have missed out.

I had a mixture of bad luck and bad care 3.2 years ago with DS.

I like to point people in the direction of information about formula feeding as there is such bad info/no info from many HCPs .

First you may find reading this blog quite healing - particularly the Friday posts where people explain what led them to use formula.

I find on MN on this board that many of the people who are passionate about BF can post things which hurt for someone like me who desparately tried to BF and could not.

((I must say I do not include tiktok in this - as she is often the only one to say - yes some babies do required supplementing - and would have no matter what - and once a certain set of circumstances have occurred - it is important that a baby is fed to build up strength etc)).

I am "glad" formula was available for my DS but I am pretty certain that if we weren't living in a FF culture then I would have had the knowledge/family support/NHS support to suceeed in BF DS.

So that's why you'll see me simultaneously attacking the FF culture whilst providing information on safer FFing and trying to support anyone feeling sad about FFing.

I must say though that mental-health wise lurking and posting here as a current or ex-FFer is not great. .

This board is a little oasis of knowledge and support in particular for BFing mums and if being here are reading the debates into on BF is making you unhappy - I would ask you why are you putting yourself though this.

Despite what some of you say about the "breast is best" message being hammered home - the real world out there is predominantly a formula world. There are vast swathes of people who see formula as entirely normal and who are not beating themselves up for using it or wishing they had different care etc.

So what we have is a formula feeding culture in which BF is of course promoted but not supported which leads to a category of people (which includes me) becoming very very messed up about the whole issue.

You absolutely do have to get over it in what ever way you can. My way is not the best way as it involved repeatedly hanging around here and posting things about formula. .

There is a very good UNICEF leaflet about formula feeding which covers info about formula types and how to feed etc:

It is here - click on the one for HCPs for more info.

DOH/FSA bottle preparation leaflet for HCPs

WHO leaflet on formula preparation.

Enjoy FFing your precious babies.

Realise the above a bit of a tangent from the thread...

Re Ed Milliband - honestly I think this shows he is a bit of a prat. Why would he try to point out any product whilst being filmed for a news item. He obviously had no clue about the advertising ban on formula and no clue that picking up the pack contributes to the normalisation of formula.

Good post, tabluleh.

I think at present, we have a bad situation - pregnant women and new mothers see many messages reminding them about breastfeeding and if they say they plan to breastfeed, they will even get 'praised' by midwives and others - 'ooh, well done!'; 'good for you!'; 'fabulous - it's the best!'(cringe - don't 'praise', please. If you have the power to praise, then lack of praise = criticism. So midwives - don't do it!! You can encourage and support without the icky praising, right?).

Then reality hits. For whatever reason, bf is difficult and needs help - the help is either not there or is so inept it makes things worse.

The mother who wanted to breastfeed then feels terrible - she feels it's her fault, sometimes, and she feels alone, and she feels people are criticising her as a mother.

This is not universal. In many sectors of society, it's the woman who is bf who feels alone. She's castigated for being 'selfish', 'disgusting', 'weird', 'hippy', 'starving the baby' and everyone around her breathes a sigh of relief when she stops!

Whatever.

It's not fair, it really is not :(

Thanks for the comments, ladies, it helps me feel a bit better about things. I'm the first to admit that I'm not over it, and as you say tabouleh, hanging around here probably isn't helping, although thanks for the link to that blog In fact, whenever DH sees me on the internet he gives me that 'look' as to say 'why are you on there?'. I initially came on to MN ages ago for BFing support, and now as a failed BFer I feel I want to help other woman who are struggling but feeling awful about it or struggling with formula, as I still believe at the end of the day that what's more important is a happy mummy and baby.I guess I'm not really qualified to do so, though, and I should really take my own advice though

tiktok - you know, I think as mothers/women we just can't win, whatever we do :(

"The mother who wanted to breastfeed then feels terrible - she feels it's her fault, sometimes, and she feels alone, and she feels people are criticising her as a mother.

This is not universal. In many sectors of society, it's the woman who is bf who feels alone. She's castigated for being 'selfish', 'disgusting', 'weird', 'hippy', 'starving the baby' and everyone around her breathes a sigh of relief when she stops!
"

Why separate them tiktok, often there are the same women. I know I was and that I am not alone in that case either.

theborrower :( :(

Don't take this the wrong way....but you can't help other people when you are still wrapped up in the experience yourself. It's not fair to them or you. When you have a bit of distance (time and emotions!) from your own situation, then you could be fantastically helpful, because often people can take a lot of heart from the voice of someone who has 'been there'.

Reading threads in this folder is like picking at a scab - doesn't help healing.

No one who really understands the issues surrounding infant feeding would disagree that the relationship between the mother and her baby easily over-rides breastfeeding/formula feeding - but too often I hear that used as an argument for ordering someone to stop the struggle with breastfeeding, failing to recognise that the moment of deciding to stop may need careful thought, and that the mother does not automatically become 'happy' with her decision. More typically, feelings are very mixed!

Sorry, mamaloco - not following you.

I meant that a breastfeeding woman from families and circles where breastfeeding is rarely/never done may feel criticised and alone - she is expected to formula feed.

And the mother who formula feeds in families and circles where she is expected to breastfeed feels criticised and alone.

I suppose it could be the same woman, with a mixed circle who had mixed expectations....is that what you mean?