Why are formula companies allowed to target advertising at pregnant women?

[levan]

I've been looking at a copy of Mother and Baby magazine, and noticed advertisements from two formula companies both inviting pregnant women to join their 'clubs' and receive information, advice etc. I know they are not directly advertising formula, but surely they are exploiting a loophole - if it's illegal for them to advertise first milks why is it legal for them to target pregnant women?

What do others think?

Tiktok, it's hipp organic first milk, and the instructions are slightly different to the other brands.

Lulu - can you think back to why you chose to formula feed and what brand you chose?

The research shows that women make a decision to bottle feed first (that is, not to breastfeed....it's often more of a rejection of breastfeeding than a positive choice to formula feed). They then select the brand.

This is what lies behind the very similar 'me too' sort of packaging and 'message' behind formula promotion - all of them claim the same things, more or less, in the same way, more or less. So they have to create a relationship between the consumer and formula feeding, first of all, because if they don't do that, they can't possibly create one between the consumer and Brand X.

There is a slight segmentation of the market. Aptamil is definitely upmarket, and is promoted (to midwives and health visitors) as the formula for breastfeeding women. SMA is more downmarket. But honestly, the stuff in the pack is pretty much the same.

Well I never! I used Aptamil - I didn't know I was upmarket..

I never even saw any adverts or promos for it, dp just grabbed the first thing he came across when he went to the shop in a hurry after I gave up bf. And we stuck with it. I bet that's how it happens with a lotta wimmin actually..

Tiktok, could you look at Smallwhitecat's thread please.

(girlfrommars - she's sorted, now, isn't she? Don't have anything to add )

PuppyMonkey - that brand of formula had to be there in order for your dp to buy it. You will not find Aptamil everywhere. He also made a choice - he wasn't blindfolded. He may have heard the name somewhere, or maybe he responded to the slogan, or the colours, or the logo, or the fact it is usually a little more expensive than other brands (expensive = better to some people). Would you describe yourselves as middle class? Were you breastfeeding? If yes, then he has been targetted demographically. It may have been luck, of course, obviously.

with DS, who is now 8.5, i was 23, only had one friend who;d had a baby. she bottle fed, i had hte attitude of wanting my body back after 9 months i chose SMA because it was widely available and came in cartons too...i also wanted DH and my parents etc to be able to feed the baby too.

with DD, who is now 2.9, i was 30 , so bit older and wiser, i had been researching VBAC and read more about birth and breastfeeding. I also gelt strongly i wanted to breastfeed as i would not be having more DCs , so wanted to experience it all.

bought a steriliser, bottles and formula again , just in case, but also bought nursing bras.

towards the end of pregnancy, i started to hvae doubts about breastfeeding, but could not put my finger on why.

anyway, when she was born, my mum said are you going to give her a feed, and i said i had no urge to put her to the breast. so DH gave her a bottle in retrospect . when my milk came in, as i think i have recounted before, i was desperate to breastfeed, and got absolutely no advice or help or information AT ALL. so i tried and failed.

so i bottle fed her like i would have breastfed, skin to skin, eye contact etc..

and i still regret it. and still have the odd dream where dd is breastfeeding. the irony is i had loads of milk and a brilliant let down.
do you think i should have a 3rd DC so i can breastfeed

i used the same formula as i had for DS as it was what i was familiar with, i then swapped to hipp organic after SMA changed their logo to look like a breastfeeding mother, IMO.

oooh, i chose the down market formula
i will relinquish my ponce status forthwith !

Thanks, Lulumama - interesting. Generally speaking, we are most comfortabe with what we are familiar with - and that, in your case, was ff.

I don't think breastfeeding should only be for the committed, for the 'desperate' to breastfeed, for the certain ones. I think it could also be for the waverers, the doubters, the 'not really sures', the 'I'll give it a go' people, the ones who think breastfeeding might be lovely, but are not sure if it is actually, really, something they could do.

Those are the ones who are targetted by the formula manufacturers, who highjack the imagery of breastfeeding (the logo - something you spotted yourself) and the desire of mothers to do the best they can for the health of their babies (hence the emphasis on health in all formula ads) and the relationship aspects of feeding (exploited by SMA in the 'I'm a lovely dad' TV adverts).

You've got to be quite brave, and certain, and confident, to get over barriers to breastfeeding - and you need the right information and support from everyone around you. That can be quite rare, to get all that together - and into the gap, jump the formula ads.

tiktok, i am actually quite ashamed that i did not put much effort into looking into this before i had the children, certainly DD, when i was researching birth in such huge detail. i like to think i am reasonably intelligent, i am well educated and proactive, yet, researching how to nourish my children did not occur to me.

until after i had them!

i vaguely knew 'breast is best' but had not actually assimilated what that meant, and that if something was best, the other (formula) would be second best / inferior.

i hope the feeling of regret does fade

Tiktok, I reckon he chose it cos it's always on the top left hand side of the shelf at tesco and he's a tall bugger, so it would have been the first thing he saw. I would ask him, but I know he will just say: "I dunno, can't remember!"

I bet they have to pay for a premium spot on the supermarket shelf don't they?

Moi middle class? How very dare you...

Lulu, you are not alone...I think a lot of mothers don't see beyond the birth. You may always have some regret and I have spoken to people (because when people hear you are a breastfeeding counsellor they sometimes come out with all sorts) who look back with sadness after decades....no exaggeration.

But you will gain perspective and you will forgive yourself....we all do/don't do things as mothers that we wish we could change, and feeding is only one of many things you could pick among the long list of topics!

I think it's great you 'bottle fed as if you were breastfeeding' - this is a lovely gift and so important for an infant's emotional health and development (that vital stuff you can't really measure!).

PM, yes, they do pay to be in particular spots.

Middle class people do tend to be taller, as you know

Working class made good, both of us!
We both grew up on council estates - so lord knows how he got so tall!

LOL @ middle class people tend to be taller

tiktok, thank you for your kind words, you always know the right thing to say

if you are ever in merseyside, i would be honoured to take you for a cup of tea and a cake!

I had a baby at 22. I never considered anything other than breastfeeding. I was avidly reading NCT leaflets from about the age of 14. I don't think I know a bottle fed baby either which is amusing and perhaps shows what a class divide there is voer infant feeding in the UK and yet in the 1920s my father was very modern and rich because he was bottle fed and they even had a special healthy cow ear marked on a farm for him from which he was fed the milk I think.

There are new regulations coming out on 26th May I think which make some interesting changes to the whole of advertising and marketing law and it might be fun to see what use can be made of them against the baby milk companies.

lulu, thanks for the cake offer

Xenia - your cow story is interesting, and yes, this is what happened....fascinating, as it showed that it was well-known that what babies ate was important and special

The new regulations have been deferred until 2010 (if you are talking about the same thing) - the formula industry took the government to court to delay compliance.

No, I'm just talking about some general new regulations which apply to all industries about misleading advertising and will be in force on 26 May. Unfair consumer advertising regulations or some name like that. The final version is on the BERR/DTI web site. They are causing a problem in lots of sectors including for mediums and healers apparently who need to be careful they don't after 26 May claim to be able to cure you!

Xenia, Just had a quick look, are you referring to either the 'Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008' or the 'Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008' both coming into force on the 26th May 08 from here

I think the first one might be more problematic for Formula companies, they have to back up all claims made about their product.

Message withdrawn

pruners, there are 2 surveys done in the past couple of years (one of them was MORI, the other was carried out by the Dept of Health, IIRC) , each of which found that something over a third of parents questioned believed that formula was 'the same as' or 'almost as good as' breastmilk.

Formula has never been advertised or promoted in these terms at least not within living memory, but the idea persists - it's partly rationalisation, I think, and reluctance to believe anything else, but it is certainly enhanced by the slogans and the packaging, too.

i think the point that tiktok makes about women not thinking beyond the birth is so true.

i know i couldn't bear to think beyond the labour, not because i was frightened of it because i wasn't particularly, but because of an almost primal fear of jinxing the safety of dd's birth by thinking too far into the future.

i'm not the only person who felt this way, i've discussed it with my friends, so i'm sure that marketers will be poised to take advantage of it. just as bfcs ad midwives in hospitals should be, but aren't.

Message withdrawn

pruners, I take your point about rationalisation being something people sorta consciously do...I think I agree with you that there is an assumption that people make without thinking; maybe it is a sort of unconscious rationalisation, if you know what I mean. Something so many people do every day, and which is on sale everywhere, and which appears to do no harm, must be as ok as the other thing (ie breastfeeding).

I have not seen any survey, but I know from experience and observation that lots of people don't know that infant formula (or 'baby milk') is made from cows milk.

In my mum's campaign to stop me bfing she threatened to get me formula and said to me "but it said 'closest to breastmilk'" this is from an intelligent educated woman Obviously people DO take notice of these slogans.

people say that all the time to me wrt weaning, actually. 'but they wouldn't have stage 1/2/3 if it wasn't necessary, would they?' there is an implicit trust i think, that formula/baby food manufacturers will do right by us. because how could they not? that would make them wicked.

third world