Still being subjected to the cow and gate ad.

[LookingForwardToSummer]

Grrrrr. It's so annoying! Is there nothing we can do?

Mumsnet really warms my heart! I was disgusted by that ad (poor DH had to put up with my rant about it), and it is really good to see I am not the only one. I only dip in to Mumsnet now and then, but I am always impressed at the intelligence of the ladies on here.

LFTS - I'm sure I won't be the only one posting on this about your comment re. drugs - yes they are regulated and there is a Pharmaceutical Grade for ingredients; but you won't always get a full list of ingredients nor yet know that the drug is of the highest possible standard, nor can you trust that it will be good for you.
I carefully avoided mentioning drugs before on the grounds that it is one of my pet rants and I didn't want to get sidetracked but I couldn't let that pass, sorry

LookingForward - you can do more than "just" feed in public and challenge your families' narrow-minded views!! Look here!

Thanks suburban, I was thinking about going to the cambridge one, but a bit shy about doing that sort of thing on my own!

thumbwitch - do you mean that drugs are regulated or formula is? Why can't there be a list of ingredients? I like to know what's in stuff! For example in cosmetics - i've done a bit of research and know which ingredients I'd prefer to avoid. I'm not saying that my reading has covered every paper about every chemical but I've found enough out to know which might be dodgy. I'm not saying that all drugs are good, just making the point that formula should be very well tested and all relevant info in the public domain.

i agree with your principle but just not with the example you used. And I also agree that we should know exactly what is in everything, even if that doesn't mean much to everyone.
Sorry, I think it may be that drugs DO now have to list every ingredient but it certainly used to be that they only had to list the active ingredient - state secret commercially sensitive information or something.
Formula - see my response on Tiktok's comment re. national milk.
Also, the last tin I looked at of formula (i bf, this belonged to a friend) was one of those extensively hydrolysed protein formula things (their DD has CMPA) and it seemed to have a huge list of ingredients - as it is a food stuff it is regulated as a food and therefore has to list all ingredients (except for those whose content is a minute trace). I'm not sure that sending it down the pharmaceutical regulation pathway would be better.

One of the biggest problems in drugs/cosmetics/food etc. is not so much the action of the individual ingredients, but their unknown cocktail effect. This does create problems with the safety issues - see the hooha about food aditives!

I have a suspicion I might be rambling slightly, thanks to a persistent tugging at my arm by a hungry DS, so i will leave it here

"formula should be much more stringently regulated and tested - to the standards of a drug "

But aren't drugs tested on humans?

And how could you test formula on babies, who cannot give informed consent?

Obviously don't test on babies!!

But testing on adults is pointless as they are physiologically different from babies and are unlikely to respond in the same way to the introduction of novel ingredients into their diets.

Formula is tested on babies, of course it is. You can see studies on PubMed. However, it is not tested for very long - the babies may be in the study for no more than a few months.

I have speculated before how they recruit - I mean, how do they say to mothers, 'we have this new ingredient we are adding to formula, but while we think it is safe, we have to check it out first in this study. Can we recruit your baby?'

They will give the formula free, I would guess.

It worries me that they might be exploiting poverty by doing this. I mean, how many parents would be happy to permit their baby to be used in this way?

I see the C&G advert as reinforcing the idea that formula milk is as good as breastmilk - and parents believing that is one of the reasons why women so readily switch over to formula feeding when they first encounter problems with BF.

I see the C&G advert as saying a big F-YOU to the breastfeeding advocates - "So you say formula fed babies have worse immunity - do I look like I care about other people's germs and sniffles? You say formula fed babies have more gastric problems? Does my tummy seem unhappy?"

It sort of appeals to the "Am I boverred?" "Talk to the hand" sentiment.

And that baby being fed from a bottle in the lying down position may be over 6 months old but it's certainly on the small side and looks more like a 4 or 5 month old.

Oh hurrah, I am so on side with you all, that ad is absolutely shockingly inappropriate and is a big F U to the breastfeeding supporters/promoters. If anyone knows who we can complain to, or details of a petition going round let me know and I'll sign in 100pt flourescent letters. Really poor decision to advertise in this way. Has anyone read The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre, I think this touches on 3rd world babies being test fed a formula that is not safe. And was it last year that a large number of babies in China DIED because the formula they were fed was not nutritionally adequate? Breastfeeding is best, nothing changes just cos a baby reaches 6 months and to say otherwise is irresponsible - although I do support everyone having the right to choose.

Crikey! They do test on babies! Presumably they test the 'novel ingredients' in other ways first?

www.nutritionj.com/content/6/1/8#B23 This is a paper which I found with a quick google which interestingly enough references a number of other studies of formula.

You can see that in this study the new ingredient was tested on a small group of 20 infants, for a period of on average, a few weeks.

The growth of these babies was monitored over this period and found to be the same as the infants in the other group of 18 infants who were on formula without the new ingredient.

A third of the infants dropped out of the study, giving an even smaller group.

The researchers recommend larger trials. However, this formula is on wide sale throughout Europe.

Go figure.

The test for novel ingredients is the test on the babies - I expect they will do lab tests on how well it mixes with the formula, but how can they test it if they don't do it with real babies?

Experimental babies, huh?

Still, it must be better than testing on those poor doe-eyed puppies and mice......

I'm sorry, but I cannot hide my contempt for the ignorance that continues to be shown regarding the underhandedness of the formula companies and that people are more offended by folk who show disdain for the formula companies than they are offended by the formula companies' willingness to dupe them and ultimately gamble with so many babies' lives.

And I cannot hide my contempt for those who are happy to attack a lady who works tirelessly to help parents feed their infants, and who fights for more support and better information for these parents and their children. They attack over and above the formula companies with whom they blindly support, when any fool can see that these companies are In It For The Money. I mean, how thick can you be?

ITA.

I don't understand the contempt either. What are people really bothered about? Whose side are they on? They sound very against womankind.

The Formula companies are motivated by money. They don't care about the best nourishment for babies. Their aim is to have fewer and fewer women feeding their babies themselves in order to maximise their profits further.

For all those who cannot understand or do not wish to understand WHY women/men could be against the formula companies' aim - do they wish for that same outcome? Do they side with the Formula companies and hope that one day women feeding their babies with their own milk will become extinct.

This ought to be an issue for ALL women to concern themselves with and to come together over.

I can honestly say that the adverts do not bother me, I seem to be missing the "believability" gene which seems to mean that people are swept up by adverts regardless of what they know.

My experiences with feeding children is minimal, I have only had one child. I had never really thought about how I would feed my child when they arrived.

I met with the community midwife for the "booking in" appointment and was given good advice re breastfeeding, leaflets etc. Nothing about formula. Fact sheet on "did you know that breastfeeding..."

At the hospital, I had a section. Midwives asked how I intended to feed my baby, they helped me feed in recovery.

A very nice midwife sat with me for hours helping me work out how to get baby onto the breast, and helped me feed DD by a cup with my expressed milk when she started to get a bit jaundice.

I had several community midwives come see me during the so-many-days after the birth when they come check on you, checking my latch, asking if I had any questions.

I had experiences which would not make me reach for formula, even if the advert with the laughing baby said "formula feeding makes your children genetically perfect".

But I am aware that not everybody has the same experience as me. I know of other mothers who have had horrific times breastfeeding. I know mothers who have given up (even though they have WANTED it to work) and turned to formula.

IMO, banning adverts is a further slap in the face to the women who use formula and feel badly that they do.

"IMO, banning adverts is a further slap in the face to the women who use formula and feel badly that they do"

And don't the Formula companies know it!

Please can you explain why the banning of Formula adverts is a slap in the face to women who feel badly about using formula... I don't get it.

Why is banning and advert a slap in the face for the end user

I dont know what your experiences are with regards to breastfeeding, but I do know somebody who could not breastfeed, she tried with both of her children, and both times she had to turn to formula.
She had PND with the second.
If formula becomes something that is swept under the carpet, (God forbid it can be in the presence of the sucessful breastfeeding mothers), can you imagine what that could do to her already low self esteem?

I know not ALL women who formula feed even try to breastfeed, but that is not down to advertising.

Elf, no one needs a believability gene to be affected by marketing. There are a number of posts on here which explain quite clearly the role that advertising plays, and how it is not necessary to believe ads for them to succeed.

I think you have been duped, to be honest. You think the ads are necessary to help mothers who feel bad about using formula - in fact, you go further, and say the removal of these adds would be a 'further slap in the face for them'.

That is so infantilising, and actually quite insulting to women who use formula and feel bad about it. What they want is good information to enable them to select a formula on health and nutrition grounds, not on cuteness or packaging or spurious health claims. They don't want cute ads, but the sort of help you had with breastfeeding with their next baby - you don't need to be on mumsnet for long to realise that many people are not as lucky as you are.

I guarentee, that if there was no unethical formula marketing, if it all just stopped, we would not miss it at all. Many things are not advertised, for all sorts of reasons, not always ethical, but economic.

Safety pins, for instance - I've never seen an ad for them. Do I miss them? No! Do I need to see ads to remind me that safety pins exist? No!

What about ads for formula that claim to support babies' immune systems? Will they make mothers who have chosen a formula that supports brain development feel guilty? What about organic formula? Does this make mothers who use non-organic stuff feel guilty? I don't know....I do know it is all unethical and contributes to undermining breastfeeding and is unhelpful to women who genuinely want to make an informed choice about which formula to use.

You don't need a believability gene to understand any of this, but you do need to open your eyes a bit.

No-one wants to sweep formula under the carpet AT ALL. We just dont want companies making a profit out of parents for such a fundamental issue, and using spurious claims and ingredients to achieve that. We dont want formula advertising because it is detrimental to b/feeding. It really is.

"I know not ALL women who formula feed even try to breastfeed, but that is not down to advertising." What is it down to then, in your opinion?

Not being given enough information from midwives

Not having enough dedicated people in the hospital / afterwards to help establish / support breastfeeding

An older generation who possibly ff / were told crap by their health visitors who do not understand why their off spring want to breastfeed their off spring.

I was lucky, in the beginning I had lots of support. The longer I breastfed, the harder it was to find support, which can switch people from breastfeeding to formula.

Those points refer to women who wanted to b/feed and perhaps couldnt, or, as you say, they "switched" from breastfeeding to formula. They dont explain why women dont bother to even try. Why do you think that there are women who dont bother to try?