Q and A with Mike Brady from Baby Milk Action

[RachelMumsnet]

We're inviting you to send in your questions to Mike Brady, Campaigns and Networking Coordinator at Baby Milk Action.

Mike graduated in Electrical and Electronic Engineering and has worked in Africa as an engineer and science teacher. At Baby Milk Action, he monitors the baby food industry and campaigns to hold them to account.

Baby Milk Action is a non-profit organisation which aims to save lives and to end the avoidable suffering caused by inappropriate infant feeding. It is the UK member of the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), a network of over 200 citizens groups in more than 100 countries.

Baby Milk Action's slogan is: "Protecting breastfeeding - Protecting babies fed on formula". It is perhaps best known for promoting a boycott of Nestlé, but also works with national governments and international bodies on regulations and marketing standards.

Mike was seen earlier this year outside Nestlé (UK) HQ in the guise of [[http://info.babymilkaction.org/emailnestle
Mr. Henry Nastie]], explaining Nestlé's marketing practices.

Send your questions in to Mike before midday on Friday 9th December and we'll link through to his answers from this thread later the following week.

mike I will get flamed for this. But, how do you get people to understand that furrin babies are still babies? It's not so much actual rascism, but a total lack of understanding that some (many?) people have of how different life is in developing countries. I think that this leads to a lack of understanding of what it actually means to have to choose between, say, fuel or baby milk, or feeding older children (or yourself) and baby milk. I mean, people in this country who struggle on benefits think it's bad. Which it can be. But you know just what actually living on the edge means and it's quite different to anything people really encouter here in the UK.

Do you think that this lack of understanding gets in the way of your message, and if so how can it be tackled?

mike you will note a several people asking here how they can help BMA (presumably more than being a member and buying items from the BMA store). I would also like to ask this question. I am just starting a basic peer BFing support course with a view to then going on to the full BF counsellor training. That's because I want to have as much knowledge as possible to enable me to campaign more effectively. Is this the best route? I am not sure that BMA realises the potential resource it has from its enthusiastic and capable followers. I've searched your website looking for ways to help, other than fundraising (which I already do), being a member (I am) and buying from your store (parcel delivered from you yesterday) but how about coming up with a way to use this group of people who are all desperate to "do something" but know not what you want?

Good post, organic.

I can't bear the sneering at the Nestle boycott - people are free not to take part, but to dismiss it as somehow anti-formula feeding, or irrelevant because Nestle does not make formula for sale in the UK, or as some sort of comment on what they did with their babies (how self-centred can you get?!)is selfish and short-sighted.

The Nestle boycott is the largest, longest-lasting consumer boycott in the world and it has certainly changed things. I am not especially bothered about Nestle's balance sheet (Feefsie's point) - they are a massively rich company and are likely to remain so. If they stopped making and distributing formula tomorrow and switched to widgets they would still make billions. The boycott is concerned about the company's behaviour - the consumer boycott gives a voice to millions of people throughout the world that brings attention to unethical practice.

Hope that was ascerbic :)

As a twin mother sorry the assumption that you just produce gallons of milk and feed twins easy peasy is total,utter rubbish.

I have twins,my sister has twins,my best friend has twins.All 3 of us were committed to bf,well educated etc.All 3 of us struggled considerably and got no further than 6 weeks.All 3 of us have many twin friends in the twin community and many,many twin mums struggle. It's very common.

Now I have plenty of pics of my twins seriously dehydrated and ill due to bfing,I have some horrendous pics of my dd in SCBU due to bf. Sorry but I would never allow anybody to use such pictures,it is manipulation at it's worst. Obviously nobody would want my pictures as formula saved their lives and it just wouldn't do to highlight that.

None of us know how desperate the mother involved was or how much money she'd been offered to use the picture. Either way it was totally wrong to use the picture.

Mila - no one will manage to bf twins if they are told to bf one and ff the other from the start 'cos they won't have enough milk.

That's the point of the picture.

It's just not helpful to persist in assessing a situation in a developing country through the lens of Western experience and expectations, or to assess a mother's own choices to share her experience against your own perfectly-justifiable dislike of sharing your own pictures.

So what exactly do you do if there are no wet nurses available,let them starve?

Twins can deteriorate rapidly,they're often smaller,weaker and one can cause the other not to thrive if you have a voracious eater and a weaker eater.

We don't know the exact story or how much money the mother was offered,we weren't there.

The fact is in the Western world feeding twins can bring up problems which are hard to handle and ensure exclusive breast feeding,the problems don't go away just because the twins are African.

Sorry but it's still unhelpful and pointless manipulation to show such a picture.

tiktok Ascerbic as always .

mila I'm so sorry to hear about the problems that you had. However, sadly again you are reading posts about specific issues and (to give you the benefit of the doubt) not understanding them. I have read this thread from top to toe and see noone saying anywhere that "you just produce gallons of milk and [to]feed twins [is] easy peasy".

A picture tells a thousand words, and the "twins" picture encapsulates all that is wrong with incorrect ff in developing countries. It is not a picture which is relevant to the ff issues in this country and should not be taken as such.

Bf is different in Pakistan (where the postcard is from) and in Africa and India. Cultural and social differences, and hospital practices, in the West make some problems more likely.

It would be very rare in the UK for a mother of twins to bf one and ff the other - but this mother was told to do it (and the reasons are explained at the link). She, too, was beset with social and cultural factors that impacted on her bf, and we are, too (just our factors are different).

I know several twins who had 1 bf and 1 ff in this country.

My best friend for a start bf her girl twin and ff her boy twin. Plenty of twin mums choose to do this,so you feel at least you're doing the right thing by 1 instead of half a job to both. He just wasn't interested,she had a screaming baby who was. The physical difficulties of the bfing grip for twins is hard enough even more so if 1 isn't eating. You can't sit around and wait for the non eater,you instinctively want to feed the hungry baby so do.

I had the same scenario as did my sister. I cup fed my non eater to begin with(didn't work)which would throw up hygiene problems in other countries I imagine.

Feeding twins is not an exact science,you are dealing with smaller,weaker babies,more so in a non Western country I'd imagine without the high level of pg care twin mothers get in this country.

Just to add: no one suggests babies who cannot be bf or obtain donor milk should starve.

It is so annoying when someone suggests that this is what bf supporters think - how utterly ridiculous.

Appropriate and safe formula feeding will always be needed in this world, everywhere.

It's inappropriate and unethical marketing and the misunderstandings that come with this that are at issue.

It's crazy to suggest there is a 'breastfeed at all costs even if the baby is desperate' notion here.

Also don't forget most twins are prem,maybe this twin was too weak to bf ie wet nurse.

I didn't say that's what bf think but asked a valid question,what do you do anywhere if a baby is too ill/weak/small to eat/bf?

MilaMae, I have (I dare to say) come across directly and indirectly more twin mothers than you have.

It is rare for mothers in the UK to deliberately choose to bf one and ff the other from the very start - sometimes things end up that way for a myriad of reasons, which would not include favouring the boy (or the girl).

Everything you post throws up indications that you are talking from a position of not knowing - it is far more hygienic to cup feed in a place where hygiene is an issue than to give a bottle, for instance.

You are right that feeding twins is not an exact science. I don't understand the point you are making there. However, deliberately not bf one baby and then ff the other in the adverse circumstances experienced by the mother in the photo is, scientifically, a sure way of risking the ff baby's health.

When babies are too ill/weak/prem to bf, there are plenty of ways to get breastmilk into them (not always easy). The mother in the picture's story was not that her ff baby was too ill etc, but that she had followed the instructions of her MIL not to bf.

But you know this thread is not about this.

No, that wasn't the case - the girl twin was picked to have formula by the MIL as she was a girl. The girl twin was given fm because it didn't matter if she died and in fact almost perferable if she did (sorry but true in this kind of rural society with limited resources).

This explains why the boy twin was chosen to have bm.

"We don't know the exact story or how much money the mother was offered"

Am I the only person who finds this statement (inadvertently) offensive?

just sayin'.

"Almost certainly she could have fed both herself" I take great issue with that.It's simply not the case. Of course it's possible to bf twins but there are many factors that make it very difficult with twins so nothing is "certain" with twins.

The picture tells you nothing,there are very few details in the article,in fact it looks very staged.The ff baby looks very sick and weak,no fit state to demand food. Why is she feeding them at the same time there is no need to?She's not even supporting the ff baby which I find very strange.We know practically nothing about the story.

Sorry I'm very uncomfortable with this picture being used.

Another question for mike

Given the controversy that may surround the "twins" photo, do you think that it's presented correctly and best used?

That's not to say that one person's misunderstanding makes a controversy.

Mila, it is a staged photo. It was planned to be a staged photo. She is not trying to breastfeed and bottle feed at the same time. She is illustrating her story.

It doesn't illustrate anything other than she had twins(if indeed they are twins) and one thrived,one didn't.

In every country this happens but the difference is with clean sterilsed formula you get 2 thriving twins. In Pakistan they clearly don't have access to said clean sterilsed formula so you end up with a weaker twin not thriving.

There are very few details(names,medical history)other than a staged photoif it was a story in this country more info would be demanded. You can't claim anything from it.As it is the people using the photo have made false claims re feeding twins so who knows what else could be incorrect to push the cause.

What I find particularly heartbreaking is the poor mother isn't even looking at the camera. She should never have been put in that position,she just looks like a pawn being used to push somebody else's argument.

I sspect we've now missed the boat on questions for Mike, but I look forward to reading his responses.

I would just like to thank you, Mike, for coming to answer our questions. You of all people will be well aware of the controversies which have thrown themselves up on this forum and sadly may get in the way of your amazing and selfless work. I was, however, encouraged to note the overtone of support and positivity shown here for BMA and I hope that you can take away from it the knowledge that there are thousands of invisible supporters taking the BMA message out into the world.

I know I should walk away, but:

"push somebody else's argument"

I fail to see how this can be MORE her argument given that it's her sweet, precious baby that died.

Vulnerable people can get manipulated in the most awful circumstances how ever unpalatable that may be.

at least she got some money though eh, mila?

It's not an reasonable question to ask given that so few details have been given.