Still being subjected to the cow and gate ad.

[LookingForwardToSummer]

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

Sabire - It would be very easy to circumvent the evolution thingummybob if only a few women had the "ugh" sensation. The other women who did manage to successfully nurse their babies would take up the slack, as it were.

Again, pure speculation.

kiskidee - I so agree with you about the impact of our birthing practices on breastfeeding.

yes me too, i just wanted to be left alone, not hold ds4 or anything. DP moaned at me saying 'they are going to think you don't want him'...and i replied 'i don't'.

It was an horrendous birth and i had to continue on the drip for an hour after because i bleed so heavy, so was still having cramps.

Sooo glad the midwife was stearn, and made me.

my sister never wanted to bf, she had the urgh feeling very strongly, BUT she did want to express her milk for her DD - she had to have an emCS in the end and when she told the MWs that she wanted to express, they told her not to bother as it would be too much hard work. So she didn't and neither her 1st nor 2nd DD (also CS) got any bm, not even the colostrum.

thumbwitch - interesting to speculate what the midwives actually said!

Thumbwitch's sis: 'No, I don't want to breastfeed direct, but I think I could maybe express and give it in a bottle....

Midwife: gosh, that's quite hard work, you know...

Thumbwitch's sis: OK, then, I won't. I'll just use formula.

Point being, the midwife's response (if it was like that!) is perfectly valid - anyone talking about expressing instead of bf needs to know it is not an easy option.

Sounds as if your sis really, really, was not keen on any type of bf. Has she ever shared why?

tiktok, you could be right. Tho I had badgered her about the importance of colostrum so I think she really did want to give it a go, but to be fair to the MW it IS hard work, especially if you have a CS.

My sis just had ishoos with the whole sucking on her boob thing - and in her antenatal class of 5, another 2 of them felt the same, said they didn't want to feel like cows!! I could have said much at that juncture but if she felt that strongly about it, there wasn't any real point without upsetting her.

Some sad stories.

I'm glad the conversation has returned to a more reasonable discussion.

It is interesting that in this country for most of history babies were bf and yet now it is 'normal' to ff, when did the change happen? And why - advertising and 'fashion' presumably! It seems to me that many of us have parents and inlaws who were having babies when formula was actually seen as better. I do find it difficult to explain why I want to bf without appearing to criticise their choices which I don't want to do!

LFTS - ask mothers who had babies in the 40s and 50s and 60s...when formula really took off. This was the period when mothers started to give birth in hospital in great numbers, and when institutionalised practice undermined breastfeeding. Babies and mothers were separated - babies kept in nursery - and mothers were told/only allowed to feed on a tight schedule. This is the death knell for breastfeeding a lot of the time and mothers had poor supply, mastitis, miserable babies - and they switched to formula because bf was not working well.

Formula - branded, powdered infant milk - meant mothers did not need to prepare bottles from ordinary cows milk (which they boiled, diluted and sugared) and the mass advertising of this product as suitable from birth began in the 60s. It makes me smile wryly when people talk about formula as a life saver and say that their babies would have died without it because they could not breastfeed....no they wouldn't! They would have had boiled, diluted cows milk, just as non-bf babies did before!

So, the introduction of, and the advertising of, infant formula goes hand in hand with maternity ward undermining of bf.

Sorry, am at work. Thread seemed to die a death before I switched off last night.

TodayToday on Mon 07-Jul-08 20:48:27
"Is that what you understand this issue to be about ElfontheShelf? Breastfeeding mothers being offended by the sight of formula milk? Really?!"

No, that was a flippant comment, of course. But there are people (I am not saying on mumsnet before I am asked to point out who they are) who are very anti formula and get offended when it is advertised / moved to a more promiment shelf in a supermarket which seems a little hysterical imo - my opinion ONLY I am not asking anybody to agree with me.

I am not saying that formula is the right (or wrong) way to feed a baby. It isn't MY experience of feeding my child, and hopefully wont be my experience of feeding a second child (when I eventually get lucky enough to have one).

But I think the adverts are not the only reason why people chose to formula feed, and I do not think that banning the adverts would increase the breastfeeding rates, what is missing is the other side of the equation, the promotion and education about breastfeeding, the consistent approach from HV's and midwives in their help, advice and teachings. It is clear from many threads on mumsnet that parents are often told things such as "they are not gaining weight, you are not producing enough milk, you need to ff/top up" and this needs addressing - these are the people with the day in day out experiences of babies and you trust them to know what is best for your baby.

"But I think the adverts are not the only reason why people chose to formula feed, and I do not think that banning the adverts would increase the breastfeeding rates, what is missing is the other side of the equation, the promotion and education about breastfeeding, the consistent approach from HV's and midwives in their help, advice and teachings. It is clear from many threads on mumsnet that parents are often told things such as "they are not gaining weight, you are not producing enough milk, you need to ff/top up" and this needs addressing - these are the people with the day in day out experiences of babies and you trust them to know what is best for your baby.
"

Elf, did you see me saying about articles in parenting magazines being biased in favour of formula (and certainly not giving a true representation of breastfeeding) because the magazines are funded in no small part by formula advertising?

Can you see that the two issues - formula advertising and breastfeeding support - are intrinsically linked and that if you keep formula advertising, you ensure that whole swathes of women have midwives and HVs who believe the stuff from adverts they see in their journals, etc?

Breastfeeding support won't improve significantly whilst formula is still advertised. I certainly am not offended by the sight of formula, nor am I anti-formula - that's missing the point of what those of us who campaign against formula advertising want.

Tiktok - one of the friends who ended up ff actually got help from people at the formula companies (probably reading from fact sheets but still).
Her child had an allergy to dairy and was struggling to keep formulas down, she rang several of the companies and was given good information about what type may be best for him given the ingredients in their milk (I want to say they talked about protein strings but this was two years ago so I may be getting mixed up!) and she found a formula that he could keep down.
Yes, I know they are all after profit (what company isnt) but it wasn't very difficult for her to do the research.

Elf, I suppose you do read threads on this, don't you? So how come you say

"But I think the adverts are not the only reason why people chose to formula feed," as if it is some sort of revelation and insight? No one here thinks ads are the 'only reason'.

"and I do not think that banning the adverts would increase the breastfeeding rates,"

This is an unknown - but ads are clearly undermining to breastfeeding support and do not give good information to formula feeding parents. They are unethical, as I have said before.

"what is missing is the other side of the equation, the promotion and education about breastfeeding, the consistent approach from HV's and midwives in their help, advice and teachings."

Again, a totally non-revelatory statement This has been said many times. Often, people who are aware and concerned about unethical marketing of formula are the same people that work very hard to support and inform mothers about how to have a better bf experience.

I feel that ads for formula make my work as a breastfeeding counsellor harder.

Elf, you said, "Tiktok - one of the friends who ended up ff actually got help from people at the formula companies (probably reading from fact sheets but still)." This would be in answer to my question 'how would a ban on advertising help mothers who ff?'....yes?

Your story makes my point for me. Of course a mother should be able to get information about formula, but she should not have to rely on someone selling a product to get it. This information - the most suitable formula for a non-breastfed infant with special dietary needs - should come from an independent source, such as an informed health visitor or doctor. Your friend is unlikely to have been told 'there are 3 products on the market suitable for a baby with [name of dietary need]. They differ in the following ways, and as your baby has a particular need, the evidence is that Product B, made by our rivals, is better for him than Product A, made by ourselves.'

National Dried Milk was powdered cows milk, smallwhitecat, made to government specifications and sold at clinics from the war years until about the early-60s, when commercial, branded formula took over. NDM was a sort of formula, but unless my informers are wrong, it was not on sale in shops and it was not advertised. Many mothers continued boiling ordinary liquid milk for their babies' bottles for a long time.

Yes, she rang around to find out details about formula from the different formula companies.

I agree, she shouldn't have had to ring around, but a company still has a right to advertise within the boundries set.

You wouldn't expect the company I work for providing information about our product but saying that a rivals product is better. But you can get this information from places such as money supermarket etc. Would that be an agreeable thing? Or is it still the fact they are able to advertise?

Elf - yes, the company has the right to advertise. This is what we are saying should not be permitted.

I think it is a disgrace that a mother with a sick or ailing infant has to ring round consumer helplines to dig out information in this way and then try to judge which one of them she believes the most. You, on the other hand, clearly think it is acceptable to do this, because it is not actually illegal.

There is no way of finding out which is the 'best' or most suitable formula because the information is not available...to moneysupermarket, to Santa Claus or even the tooth fairy. Manufacturers guard this information, and actually play one of their own brands off against another to expand market shares (by packaging them, pricing and marketing them differently. The opportunity is there for the DH to do this, over a few years, but the precise recipes are not in the public domain (bit like Coca Cola).

Now, I don't give a toss if manufacturers want to do this with soap powder or indeed, Coca Cola. They can colour the packets to make it look funky, convince me with slogans and ads that using Brand X is trendier, or makes my knickers softer or whatever....But when it comes to the sole source of nutrition for our most vulnerable consumers, who have no voice at all, and who (as in your friend's baby's case) may actually be ill as a result of using the wrong product, then I think it matters. Why don't you?

Bracket missing in my post - I meant the DH could commission research to see which formulas are best, and to ascertain their long-term effects and compare, but the exact recipes for different formulas are not in the public domain.

"who are very anti formula and get offended when it is advertised / moved to a more promiment shelf in a supermarket which seems a little hysterical imo"

Do you think people get animated about formula advertising and promotion because they PERSONALLY don't like the stuff?

Really?

I can't believe you've read this whole thread and yet you are still failing to understand why people object to formula advertising.

I'm wondering if it's because you've got some major blind spot, or you haven't properly read and digested the very clear and salient posts that Tiktok and Hunker et al have made which explain the ethical objections to formula advertising.

It does matter, Tiktok, hugely.

Shame people are told they're being hysterical for caring about it though, eh?

Sabire, I don't think I would like formula much, actually. Not on my organic muesli, anyway.

Thank you though - it does always make me roll my eyes when I get "anti-formula" accusations levelled at me. As if!

NB I don't eat muesli, organic or otherwise. Pigeon loft scrapings, imo.

Not just hysterial hunker, but 'anti-formula'.

Whatever that's supposed to mean.

Oh yes - you're one of those women who thinks formula is the piss of the devil, 'evil', 'wrong'.... etc etc.

You know.

You probably have hairy leg too. And weave your own sanitary towels out of lentils.

X posted ha ha

I am obviously missing something very fundumental here.

Thread says adverts are wrong.
Thread says information should be made free and avaiable (for what is in formula)
I agree information should be widely avaiable.
I do not see why companies cannot advertise (if information avaiable)
Thread seems to say it is not advertising but lack of information that is the problem.
So are we not on the same page...?

And FWIW I have never criticised anybody of the poster on this thread, in my previous name I have been in support of Hunker/Tiktok and the advice they give here, I have benefited from it here.