Stop baby milk promotion

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tiktok - fair point in your first para. I was just going off people I know with babies. Perhaps it's just the people I know or maybe they are not telling the truth when they say they have not used follow-on milk. As you say the fact they are still on the shelves means there's a market for them.
Out of interest, are there any statistics about detrimental effects of formula relating to ff in this country? What problems are arising from ff-ing?

From your link -
"Net sales rise by more than 13 per cent across the year."
Would that 13 percent be a switch from users of other formula brands or are you saying that the 13% are new ff users who would have bf?

juuuule: the question of whether these mothers would have continued to breastfeed is one that's impossible to answer. You're asking 'if it wasn't for this campaign, would they have simply used another brand?' ... we don't know and there is no way of knowing. The reasons why mothers switch from breast to formula are very complex - we do know that a third of mothers believe there is no difference or very little difference between breastmilk and formula (maybe you are one of them?), and this belief is well-served by the way formula is promoted. Writing 'breast is best' on the tin goes no distance at all compared to the bigger picture.

The health impact of not breastfeeding on babies and mothers is well-documented and there is a large amount of evidence that more breastfeeding, and longer breastfeeding, would improve health and reduce health inequalities. This isn't the thread to discuss these aspects, though. In any case, most women want to breastfeed, and they need help and support to do it - advertising of formule undermines this choice, and also makes it harder to decide which formula to use if they decide to stop bf.

"we do know that a third of mothers believe there is no difference or very little difference between breastmilk and formula (maybe you are one of them?)"

Tiktok - I think this is a huge issue. Fyi, I have bf all 9 of my babies. The last 6 for around 15m, exclusive until 6m. My personal feeling is that breastmilk is best in the majority of cases.
However, I can understand why mothers believe there is no difference between bm and fm. When you look around you couldn't pick out a ff child from a bf child. I was ff and have had no health problems (so far). And the formula I had wasn't the modern version either. I have been questioned for bf and genuinely asked why I think it's better. If I had a good answer then maybe I could have put a good case forward. But people can see other babies thriving and being healthy regardless of whether they have fm or bm. It's a tough one.
"and this belief is well-served by the way formula is promoted. Writing 'breast is best' on the tin goes no distance at all compared to the bigger picture."
It isn't just the way formula is promoted. People see no difference as I said above.

"The health impact of not breastfeeding on babies and mothers is well-documented and there is a large amount of evidence that more breastfeeding, and longer breastfeeding, would improve health and reduce health inequalities."
I know this isn't the thread for this but could you point me in the direction of evidence of this for the uk.
"In any case, most women want to breastfeed, and they need help and support to do it -"
I am not entirely convinced by this statement. Of mothers I've known who choose ff, most of them say they wanted to bf but couldn't but in actual fact they didn't and the truth only comes out later in confidence.
Some genuinely have no choice but others really don't want to. They can't see any benefit in going through the pain, the restrictions that they perceive bf would put on them and all for what benefit (not my view but one that has been put to me).
I think a huge shift needs to be made to convince people that breast really is best. Advertising formula is a small part imo.

Oh and I entirely agree with you that more support should be available for mothers who want to bf. I'm sure that would make a huge difference to a lot of mothers.

Can I just echo Juuule's personal experience that women who breastfed but gave up early may say "I wanted to continue breastfeeding but I had to switch because X/Y/Z" in public but will will admit privately that they were happy to give up breastfeeding as they weren't enjoying it.

I think the statistic of "90% of women who gave up breastfeedidng early said they actually wanted to continue but....." is formed from what they said as the politically correct public answer to the question.

I think there is plenty of support for women who want to BF. I am however disgusted by the state-sponsored ostracision of women who want to FF or cannot easily BF

"I can understand why mothers believe there is no difference between bm and fm"

There is no good evidence of any difference.

Fedup - the question women are asked in the Infant Feeding surveys every five years is ' Which of the following best describes how long you breastfed for?

I would like to have breastfed for longer

I breastfed for as long as I intended

I breastfed for longer than I intended'

Then there are further questions which ask about the reasons for this. 90 per cent of women who stop before 6 weeks say 'I would like to have breastfed for longer'. In fact, at every stage of stopping before 6 mths, a majority of women say they would have like to have breastfed for longer.

I think it is demeaning to women to suggest they are deliberately answering this question wrongly out of 'political correctness' - they are not asked 'did you enjoy your breastfeeding?' and the reasons they give for stopping make it clear that for most, the experience was not a good one. That shows that we need to ensure the feeding experience is better for more women, if we are serious about increasing breastfeeding stats.

You can be happy to give up bf because it was a miserable experience, and still wish you could have done it for longer.

Ink - where are women ostracised for formula feeding?

Can you find one example of where a mother has been told to leave the premises for formula feeding? Or prevented from doing her job because she is formula feeding? Or hassled in a public place for exhibitionism?

etc etc etc

Juuuule - you are right that in a western context, it can be hard to 'spot the difference' between bf and ff kids, and this is partly because ff babies grow adequately so you can't point to the skinny, runty ones and say 'aha!'

It's also hard to judge when you have a small sample - in a western context, again, you need hundreds in a study for the differences to show up, as you need to control for socio-economic status, pre-term birth, inherited illness and whatever else, so you know you are comparing feeding method alone.

Fortunately, we do have a lot of evidence, from western countries, that across a wide range of health factors, not breastfeeding increases the risks.

You are never going to get a randomised controlled trial for this, obviously, so the best studies look at lots and lots of babies, to overcome this difficulty.

In the UK, there are a number of good cohort studies. We also have studies which only look at babies in the developed world, as there are different factors in places where the water isn;'t clean, for instance.

Here are some links

pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/119/4/e837?etoc is the Millenium cohort study in the UK, which shows the difference between bf babies and ff babies in terms or diarrhoea and hospitalisation.

www.ahrq.gov/clinic/tp/brfouttp.htm is an overview of studies done in the developed world.

adc.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/91/1/39?ct more serious illness in this case coeliac disease in ff babies

adc.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/92/6/483 another good cohort study, this time looking at asthma, coeliac disease and obesity.

I hope these help answer your question.

I'm not really following what you are saying now, tiktok.
"I think it is demeaning to women to suggest they are deliberately answering this question wrongly out of 'political correctness'"
I am not suggesting, I know people who have done it. They would say they wished they could have bf longer because they feel that on an official form it would make them look like bad mothers to say they didn't want to bf and if they say it wasn't their choice to stop, then it wasn't their fault, for example.

"You can be happy to give up bf because it was a miserable experience, and still wish you could have done it for longer. "
I don't understan how advertising or not would affect this. If someone doesn't like something enough, then usually they stop doing it if they have an option and the question then is why would they wish they could have carried on doing something they didn't like.

People who ff do come up against problems,too. Such as shops, restaurants who will not warm a bottle of milk, although this is not as common as it was. I think that negative reactions can be found to whatever method of feeding you choose and most of it is related to how the person doing the feeding feels in the first place. Perhaps I have been fortunate but I have never had any negative reactions to feeding my babies and I have fed whenever and wherever they needed feeding.

I'll have to have a look through those links - Thank you for them.
But my first off impression from what you posted is that there isn't really much difference in outcomes for ff babies and bf babies. I've not read the links yet so I may be wrong. But for the majority of people who don't want to trawl through research etc that is what would come across.
As I said before I was ff and up to now have been healthy and I'm surrounded by lots of children and adults who were ff who don't seem to have any major health issues which could be directly related to ff.
If the health differences are so great then surely the NHS should be shouting these from the rooftops. Once the implications were accepted by the general public then surely no amount of advertising would matter. If the differences are negligible then isn't it down to personal choice?

By the way, I'm looking for something I could take into a discussion which could possibly persuade someone that breast really was best which is why I keep coming back at you with some of the arguments that have been put to me before now. I'm hoping you have better answers than I have been able to come up with in the past.

Oh my god I want to swear but not sure if I am allowed to (new to this site) have I lived in a bubble for the last 5 months regarding bf V ff - I tried to BF but due to the incompetience of my specialist and not knowing the effect my anti szr drugs would have on my baby she became unconcious and we could not wake her for 48 hours the hospital put her into special care and she was nose fed whe chose a formula at random and have stuck with I have had mothers look down their nose at me a lot because I am not breast feeding but I do not choose to explain why I just get my own back by showing off my re-usable nappies and watch their faces drop as they chuck yet another disposable into the bin in a baby room is it really such a big issue?????

speaking of Cow and Gate...

In the supermarket yesterday they had a 'taster' stand for Cow and Gate.

They had a masked 'Leading Brand A jar', and a masked 'Leading Brand B' jar, and a Cow and Gate jar of food.

I walked past, gave a cursory look and went to walk on. The lady on the taster stand then said "Would you like this leaflet on Infant feeding and Weaning?" whilst thrusting the leaflet in to my hand.

I replied "Certainly not, thank you" and walked off.

But, you get my drift.....

nope - don't get your drift.

@ tiktok

"Ink - where are women ostracised for formula feeding?"

When you go to any kind of ante or post natal service at an NHS facility and you are confronted with posters, leaflets, and propaganda trumpeting the doctrine that you have made an inferior choice. When your MW or HV refuses to discuss FF with you if you are asking whether to consider it.

When your MW lets your baby's weight decline 15% over 4 weeks before they will change their advice that BF is best and any mother can do it and persevering is the only forgivable choice--that's bordering on criminal negligence IMO.

My conclusion from own experience is that the government is not interested in objective information and acting in the best interests of all parents and children. It's interested in manipulating statistics.

Jo71, sorry to hear you had such a terrible time with your baby. Did your consultant know you were taking anti szr drugs? A friend of mine was told that she couldn't bf while taking them before she even got pregnant. But honestly I don't think there are many people on this thread who would judge any individual for ff. It is the marketing techniques used by formula companies to convince people that ff is as good as bf that I and most others would take issue with. Good for you, using cloth nappies. They're very addictive, aren't they?

"Can you find one example of where a mother has been told to leave the premises for formula feeding? Or prevented from doing her job because she is formula feeding? Or hassled in a public place for exhibitionism? "

None of those 3 things for me - but I was openly criticised at a NCT baby group for my reasons on giving DS2 formula.....I was made to feel very uncomfortable (much more so than when I was BF'ing DS1 and fed him absolutely everywhere) and consequently left before the end of the session and never went back.

QoQ: that's horrible and no one should feel criticised in that way. No one would defend that. You will find ignorance and rudeness everywhere, sadly, though I think what you experienced is fortunately rare. Most people are sensitive to the feelings around infant feeding.

Ink: you say your experience is that 'when you go to any kind of ante or post natal service at an NHS facility and you are confronted with posters, leaflets, and propaganda trumpeting the doctrine that you have made an inferior choice. '

Here, you are describing the NHS involvement in health promotion. It is your 'spin' on it that describes it as 'propaganda' and 'trumpeting doctrine'. Why would anyone object to posters promoting and/or describing breastfeeding? What on earth is wrong with that? You will see similar stuff on immunisation and other health-related parenting decisions. I don't recognise the scenario of an explicit 'inferior choice', sorry. Perhaps you have seen something I haven't?

"When your MW or HV refuses to discuss FF with you if you are asking whether to consider it."

You are describing poor postnatal care, and of course you are right to object to that. I hope you have written complaining about it.

"When your MW lets your baby's weight decline 15% over 4 weeks before they will change their advice that BF is best and any mother can do it and persevering is the only forgivable choice--that's bordering on criminal negligence IMO. "

This is poor care again - and ditto with the writing and complaining. It sounds as if the poor care began from birth, if the weight was a continual decline. This has nothing to do with the examples of 'ostracism' I asked you to provide.

Jo71 - that's a dreadful story, and I hope you might write to them as well (maybe you have).

No one has the right to make you feel uncomfortable for using formula (nor have you the right to do the same with your nappies to them, of course).

Juuuul - please read the links before giving me your 'impression' of them from the URL only!

Here's a quote from one of the abstracts:

"Population-attributable fractions suggest that an estimated 53% of diarrhea hospitalizations could have been prevented each month by exclusive breastfeeding and 31% by partial breastfeeding. Similarly, 27% of lower respiratory tract infection hospitalizations could have been prevented each month by exclusive breastfeeding and 25% by partial breastfeeding.'

So - more than half of all babies who are admitted to hospital with diarrhoea would not have needed hospital treatment if they had been exclusively breastfed. More than a quarter of babies admitted to hospital with chest infections would not have needed hospital treatment if they had been exclusively breastfed. Partial breastfeeding gives significant protection against both conditions.

This does not mean that in an individual baby's case, formula feeding leads to anything in particular. But on a population level, and in public health terms, it all adds up.