Annoyed with the price of formula

[pigletmania]

I am mixed feeding, after a rocky start bf and ds not latching found myself having to express and supplement with formula. The formula is over 10 pounds a tin, and the tin is never full up. This is an essential product if a mum is not able to bf, or chooses not to. There should be an upper limit on price, and formula should be unbranded.

Couthy, the dietician at the hospital suggested that Oatly was a 'better' substitute than some of the others. I don't want to give large amounts of soya to DD, my brother has health problems related to having it when he was so small, you can get an enriched version so there's a calcium and vit d content and its in the UHT section of most supermarkets, you can also get a lovely chocolate version, and they do a 'cream' too.sorry I sound like an ad for oatly lol.

We use it for cereal and cooking instead of milk, so it might save you a tin of formula :) I wanted to avoid the formulas because DD reacted to the first one they gave us, so I started looking for stuff I could do myself instead. The thing is, I don't think it needs to be expensive, but people dint share enough ideas, for example, we use stork in the gold foil NOT the tub, it doesn't contain dairy, but doesn't advertise as dairy free, for cooking. My mum thinks this is hilarious because she always said it was the best thing to use anyway! Bourbon creams are mostly dairy free (not asdas anymore sadly) and lots of supermarkets stock dairy free chocolate, which is drives prices down too (sadly only sainsburys do chocolate which is also coconut free!)

AThing - In that circumstance I was referring to it being manufactured for the public sector. i.e. NHS/government.

I don't know whether generic medicines are made directly by the public sector, or whether they are commissioned (probably the latter?) but this was the kind of thing I was thinking of. There would still be production, ingredients and research costs involved of course but it would be lower cost in terms of branding, marketing etc.

As I said in that post, I'm not sure whether this would be the best solution, or whether a tighter regulation of commerically made artificial milks (type of branding allowed etc) would be better.

I realise that political ideas come into some of this, and others prefer the 'free market' situation (either as it exists now, or even more open in terms of advertising). I don't. I don't think its good for women and babies for many of the reasons laid out in 'The Politics of Breastfeeding - When Breasts are Bad for Business'.

It is true, though, tiktok - to an extent. In the first three months of breastfeeding I could barely stop eating.

generic meds are made by pharma companies. The reason for the lower cost is because once a product is off patent then it can be made by anyone, so the price falls as the original company doesn't have a monopoly anymore.

Ta rookanga. I think I've heard that before, just couldn't think of the exact situation when I posted.

So maybe what I'm thinking of isn't the same thing. :)

G1nger- you may have been more hungry but you did not need to eat more to produce milk- you still would have been able to breastfeed without the extra calories. You have to be really starving for your milk supply to suffer. This is why women in 3rd world countries who struggle to get food are still able to BF.

EauRouge it uses up to 500 calories a day. That's how I've managed to lose nearly 2 stone so far without even trying. Not everyone has as much weight to lose or wants to. So yes, we do need to eat more. My baby was putting on 1lb a week for the first three months - weight that only came from me.

And some babies in 3rd world countries survive on practically nothing, and some women in Africa have bodies that give up everything to nourish their infants.

We aren't in the 3rd world.

I was starving when I was BF and also downed gallons of milk (no idea why) - no I didn't "need" to eat, but I'm sure that satisfying my needs contributed to me sucessfully breast feeding.

I was hungry all the time when I was breastfeeding but if I'd eaten everything my body was telling me I wanted to, I'd be the size of a small bungalow by now.

I'm currently back in work and hungry and craving comfort food all the time just because I'm sleep deprived and knackered. Sometimes our bodies lie.

Not read all the posts bad MN'er!

Its a horrible state of affairs but the companies are well aware that They can charge pretty much what they like for formula and people have to just suck it up because it's that or the baby starves.

I BF for a million and one reasons but looked at the price of formula in the supermarket when pregnant with DS2. I was absolutely staggered. DH is good with numbers and worked out it would cost us roughly £100 a month; money we do NOT have. When the growth spurts got really bad I just thought of all the things I could spend that extra £100 a month on!!!

talhotblonde true, true. But the difference for me is that with the breastfeeding cravings (which I still get, but to a lesser extent) I would get low blood sugar if I didn't respond to them. That's really not something I get as part of my normal diet.

Well it's probably more like £50 month for most ff babies (each tin of Aptimil makes 200 oz, so around 5p per oz- at 35oz per day that's £1 .75 per day or £52 per month- of course this is when baby is a few months old, will be less than that at first).

If using ready made the cost is approx double, 10p per oz. As I have mix fed twins I thought I should work out the cost and moved to powder!

Nappies/wipes are about £1.30 per day or £40 per month. So ff twins using disposable nappies cost £180 per month, and CB is £135 for two children. Almost makes me want to use reusables but not that much

Can you tell I am also an accountant, get me!

Ah, interesting Spirited

"I don't know whether generic medicines are made directly by the public sector, or whether they are commissioned"

Neither, AFAIK, they are made and sold for profit but are cheaper because there are no patents.

There are pretty strict rules about advertising drugs, so maybe that makes a difference to price.

Do you mean formula made for the public sector by a private company (so not bought or sold at cost) or that there would be a national formula company (never going to happen in this climate, is it? :o )

If the figure of 500 calories extra a day is accurate then that puts a woman who wishes to maintain her current weight on roughly* 2500 calories, according to the NHS That sounds a lot, doesn't it?

Except, the same website lists the recommended daily allowance of calories for a man who wishes to maintain his weight at roughly* 2500 calories.

So really, we're talking about the extra calories to sustain a baby pushing a woman to the same level of calorie intake as a man. Its hardly unreasonable. Presumably male couples already spend this much on groceries. I'm not saying it would be totally unnoticeable to a family that lives on a tight budget, but its not an onerous extra amount of food.

And that's if she wants to maintain her weight... I'm kind of hoping that this baby feeding will help my weight loss efforts...

*Obviously it varies from person to person based on activity levels, body size etc.

spiritedwolf I don't know whether you get sugar cravings like me, but if so then just a few nuts with spooned honey on helps enormously :)

My bf cravings were for high calorie sugar loaded crap of the expensive variety.

I could wolf down a gianormous bar of chocolate and it wouldn't touch the sides.

Also craved muffins, cakes etc.

Pints and pints of milk everyday.

And I have it all to come again.

AThing, hmm... either, I don't know. :) Although it wouldn't be sold 'at cost' if commisioned, the NHS wouldn't be adding the mark up required for branding, advertising, profits, etc. In my defence, I did say that I didn't know exactly what would be the best solution and it might just be tighter regulation of the existing marketing standards required of companies (like, no advertising of 'follow on' milks - which are ridiculous, as they claim not to be a breastmilk substitute to get around the rules, but they clearly are, and after a year most babies can have cow's milk anyway).

My cravings were all for cake too at the start. I could eat a whole pineapple 'instead' and end up eating the cake too! Try my advice for nuts with honey above :)

G1nger- me too, I replaced my daily kilo bar of Dairy Milk with a couple of handfuls of nuts and found that my blood sugar level didn't go on a roller coaster like it used to.

Will try the Oatly then, still on an indeterminate length waiting list waiting for DS3's appointment with the dietician, so will take all the advice I can get!

Have added it to my shopping list for next week.

I haven't been though the whole 8 pages of posts so apologies if this has already been said....
The price of the formula isn't just for how much it costs to manufacture it, it needs to include how much it would cost to develop that formula, including meeting the changing requirements of levels of nutrients for different areas e.g. US vs Europe and different groups, performing the required testing so that claims can be put on the boxes which can be long and costly, - because they can't say something that hasn't been proved statistically. and most importantly proving that the formula is SAFE to give to infants.
I just think that there is more involved in getting approval to market a formula- it isn't as stringent as exerting approval for a pharmaceutical but it does still need supporting evidence and statistics to prove that it it does as it says.
Children with special requirements e.g cow's milk allergy, PKU etc get formula on prescription....

Are nuts the answer to being a fat, troughing piglet when breastfeeding?

I'm determined not to eat such a huge amount of shit this time.

I'm pretty sure I'll hold onto fat reserves until I give up, but I definitely don't help with all my cake eating.

athinginyourlife nuts with honey helped me to control my cravings such that I could start losing weight while bf'ing. I'll use it again next time but not before enjoying the initial troughing which is great! :)

If it isn't necessary to increase your eating whilst breastfeeding than why was I nagged to eat more by Health Visitor when ds's weight gain was dropping off?
Obv accept it doesn't equal cost of formula which is now a shocking price.

felixstowe you were nagged by your HV because she was badly trained and simply did not know that increasing your own calorie intake would have zero effect on your baby's weight :( :(