You know the way advertising formula is banned...

[Tatties]

...well is there anything to stop the subtle promotion of formula feeding in other ways - like this for example? The story has nothing to do with feeding babies so why show a picture of a baby with a bottle? On the news this morning there was a story about women who have babies earlier missing out on their careers (different issue...), and on the clip it showed newborn babies in hospital being fed with little cow & gate bottles!

I honestly dont see the fuss over using a picture of a baby using a bottle. Okay, so the picture bore no relation to the article. But why get het up at a picture of a baby with a bottle? If the bottle had juice in it, would it be such an outrage? (Probably, seeing the juice for babies thread the other day).
Seeing a picture of a baby using a bottle would not make me give my daughter formula, in the same respect that seeing a picture of somebody smoking would not make me go out and pick up a pack of fags.
By saying these pictures should be banned because they may promote formula, it implies that we're all lemmings with no brain power of our own.
Also, the soaps, so what if they dont protray a picture of a mother breastfeeding. They're not realistic anyway - a woman has a baby and they're on their own (usually are in soaps), they hardly ever have to look after the child (Eastenders for example, when did you last see Aleesha, and dont you only ever see Freddie on the odd trip to the shop and when he's got an ear infection? Little Mo's at work in the pub, Stacey and Mo on the stall and Charlie in the potting shed with the other men, who is looking after him then?!)
I can think of a few programmes where breastfeeding has been portrayed - in Friends, both Carol and Rachel breastfed. In Home and Away, Sally adopted a baby but the birth mum expressed breastmilk. Obviously the British soaps are a bit behind, but aren't we always?
And as for painting a "bad" picture of breastfeeding becuase soaps showed mastitis / leaky boobs, why not? Isn't that reality? Who hasn't had leeky boobs at one point or another? I regularly have to swim out of bed as I've leaked that much

Yep Hunker I agree the fact that it could be EBM in the bottle is nothing to do with anything. I don't think anyone is being smug about breastfeeding, but you can't win really. If you don't BF you're a bad mother but if you do BF and dare to talk about it you're smug and holier than thou... (in case it needs clarifying I don't believe either.)

Like I said this really is not breast v bottle, I am not a bottle-basher, but I think that we have a long way to go to improve support and encouragement for BF. Why should we not do all we can to support breastfeeding just because some people (the majority I hasten to add) choose to bottlefeed in the end? And it's not just "let people make their own choices" because judging by some threads on here, people often end up bottle-feeding not through choice, but through necessity when they have not had appropriate BF support. Let's not belittle the effect that images in the media have on us and the extent to which they influence our attitudes.

I am not saying that this picture is to blame for everything! But that kind of thing is a contibutary factor to our attitudes. Of course you don't see a picture of a baby with a bottle and think "oh I'll bottlefeed"; the images around us work on a much deeper level. I don't see that it makes much difference that the baby in the picture was well past newborn. I think there is more stigma about BF an older child than a newborn.

Whilst I don't think anyone here is proposing a ban on all images of bottle-feeding, couldn't it be argued that we effectively have an unofficial ban on images of breastfeeding already?
A bottle is so often used as a very symbol of babyhood - for example on the door to a baby changing room. Yet we only ever seem to see an image of a breastfed baby to illustrate a feature about breastfeeding itself. If there were a news item about children, say, we wouldn't expect to see a picture of a child eating something unless food had something to do with the story (e.g. school dinners, childhood obesity etc). I think our mute acceptance of this situation should be challenged.
To go back to the very beginning of the thread, I think Tatties has it right that the unthinking use of such images promotes the use of infant formula, although I doubt that there are many cases where that was the actual intention behind their usage.

The picture in the link has changed btw.

Did someone make an official complaint? Spooky....

Tatties said at the start of the thread that she has emailed them.

had

Well I made the suggestion to Corrie St about Claire Peacock breastfeeding her new baby when it arrives and this is the reply;

"Thank you for your kind e-mail regarding Coronation Street

It is good of you to take such an interest in the programme and to take the time to contact us with your ideas for future storylines but I regret to say that we are not open to contributions of this nature from outside sources. The writers and storyliners contracted to work on Coronation Street originate all story material.

As I?m sure you will appreciate we receive literally hundreds of scripts and story ideas sent in by our viewers, because of the complicated copyright problems of merging their ideas with story-lines generated in-house we cannot, with the best will in the world, manage both. It is for these reasons, we do not accept any material sent to us.

Once again many thanks to you for your e-mail and interest in Coronation Street and I do hope it continues to give you many more hours of pleasurable viewing for years to come.

Yours with Best Wishes, David Nugent, Coronation Street, ITV Productions."

Oh well it was worth a try I suppose...don't watch the bloomin' programme anyway!!!!

I don't think for one minute seeing this woman feeding on Corrie will convert the masses but so many people believe that the characters are REAL and that their situations are really happening that it could show people bf in a more positive light, and balance things out a little, rather than programmes like "Extraordinary Breastfeeding" which ,makes all us bf seem abnormal and weird!! I'm saddened by the Corrie comment re: the 13 yr old but it's going take a damn sight more to chsange the culture in this country. As far as i can see one of the ways that more women will bf is if they see it more often..in public places and within their own family.
Think i'll stick to the Tweenies cos they always show new babies bf "and Fizz's bro having mummy's milk" and having bottles...very balanced Good on yeh BBC! Actuaaly there has been the odd one on Holby too although not very realistically...think her boob was on her collarbone!!!

lol @ bfing as a "storyline" . Can't soap characters, y'know, just breastfeed their babies?

The issue of whether seeing bottlefeeding in soaps affects our perceptions reminds me of the way lots of childless people assume labour starts with your waters breaking in the supermarket or some other public place, while you clutch your bump, grimacing, and shriek "the baby's coming!!". We get all sorts of ideas and assumptions from TV and films, whether we realise it or not.

There's breastfeeding on The Archers... very discreet - I've not seen a nipple yet.

Incidentally, I emailed the BBC and got this reply from the (male) assistant editor, science and nature:

"I have no particular view on this matter but the female staffer who
authored the page is inclined to change the picture.

With thanks for your mail, time and interest."

Not sure the feet are relevant either, but at no one can have an objection to them (surely...?!?)

Yes why is breastfeeding a "storyline" but bottle feeding isn't?

Message withdrawn

Oh i so hate the old "holier than thou" chestnut.

B/feeding should be, at the very least, equally promoted by the media as bottle feeding currently is.

I can only vouch for the fact that my DD thinks its totally normal to pick up a doll or teddy bear and put it to her chest to "give teddy milk" as an example of how much seeing b/feeding makes an impact.

The more normalised b/feeding is made the less likely women will be put off doing it on the basis of it being "disgusting/yuk/abnormal" - however few a number that is.

Can we stop the feminist attitude about a "male" assistant editor - so what get over it!! Very short and curt response so he obviously feels its not as big deal as made out. They are changing picture just to make you happy!

I say it again - big deal!

No - soap characters cannot breastfeed their babies as ITS NOT REAL! and the REAL mother of the baby in the soap is just off screen somewhere and wouldn't like I would hope and expect to see her baby latched on to some actress for the sake of being authentic and trying to increase publicity of breastfeeding.

Can we please just let people choose what they want to do. How much support do you want from the people on the street abbout breastfeeding - everyone who you come across to whoop and holla shouting "you go girl!".

Feminist attitude? Where? Bottlelover, you do miss the point so spectacularly each time, don't you?

What is it you need to see being done for it to be "real"?

they are "actors" after all arent they? They manage to improvise a great deal in casualty....whats the difference? Why SHOULDNT they? Really?

BL - do you honestly believe that buttonMoon is suggesting a baby latches on to an actress?

BL, you're missing the point pretty spectacularly.

Pruni, excellent post - very good point about getting to 27 and bfeeding never appearing on your radar.

Snafu, great minds

Unless you also object to the blood and guts on casualty too?

I don't want praise for bf!! and as for showing bf they don't have to use a real baby just a doll wrapped in blanket which is what they use most of the time anyhow with dubbed on sound effects. No one in my family bf and i would never have considered it hadn't my best friends at work did it. Seeing it both in rl and in the media (as well as\in family life) is the only way it's gonna change. balance is the key here surely!!!??? my dd bf her dolls too!!

I love breastfeeding and will promote it until the day I die. I am not a fan of bottlefeeding in fact I hate it and will fully support mothers who choose not to bottlefeed.