What do we think of Kirstie Allsopp's link with SMA?

[hunkermunker]

I am slightly less than utterly unimpressed You?

And yes, of course, it's her decision, yada-yada, but what a shit decision it was.

Kirstie, I knock walls down in your general direction.

God bless SMA...

I AM a woman... I really really am. I was being, I dunno, sarcastic cos I wasn't really sure what point Dottoressa was making about whether I was a man.

I wonder if Kirstie has or is planning a parenting column in a publication somewhere? Surely with the property market tailing off, she's got to find herself another niche?

Be very handy for SMA to have already associated her with their product then, wouldn't it?

ilovemydog - "Why people may need to use formula is a personal decision, and in my opinion a private one."

On an individual level, no one needs to feel they have to share why they have used formula, you are right. It can be as private and personal as they wish.

But if everyone felt that way, we are not going to get much breastfeeding promotion done...we need to know how infant feeding information is shared, what people's beliefs are, where the lack of postnatal support with feeding is worst, and so on.

Hunker, is 'leper' a new one, too??

nelliesmum - is it a good thing for SMA to advertise direct to mothers with this DVD, do you think?

wilf isn't a man, she's a monkey.

"I said that I did not consider the advertising of formula to be any more unethical than the advertising of most other things."

I think you mentioned thing like buggies and possibly cots. Yes they are marketed to propective parents and grandparents.' They are also subject to rigourous independent testing. formula isn't.

Babies will grow up happily without a cot or buggy. They cannot without being fed. How come we have access to independent unbiased reviews of such baby bumph but not of the stuff that so many babies' lives depend on?

still think formula and buggies are on equal ethical par?

I thought you'd say that.

Nope, leper gets wheeled out on occasion, iirc. Quite rare though.

Kiskidee that quote's from me and I didn't mention buggies or cots.

you're back, Nance. did you see my question about the stupid and the criminal?

If the comparison wasn't made by you and you don't agree with it then apologies. It was made by one of the marketing apologists on this thread though.

So, if you don't think the marketing of formula can be equated to buggies or cots, then would you share with us what you think that its marketing is equivalent to?

Yes I did thanks. But don't want to keep repeating myself.

oh, i see you have already said:
"It's no more unethical than the advertising of any product."

any other product. so by this statement of yours, it seems like the marketing of formula is equivalent to the marketing of buggies, cots, spot cream, toilet paper...

well, you didn't answer it, just continued your spat with tiktok. would you, please?

lol. you don't want to keep repeating yourself while poor tiktok keeps repeating the same old question which you are refusing to answer just once.

how funny.

But you haven't really said anything of substance yet, Nancy - go on, give it a go.

Why is it OK to market a product designed for society's arguably most vulnerable members - a product that's inferior (by the manufacturers' own admittance) to one that can usually be obtained for free, given the right support and information?

And why is it OK for this marketing to suppress information that would empower women to make informed choices, not ones that amount to tearful "fuck, I have to feed this baby something"s?

By ExterminAitch on Sun 13-Jul-08 20:58:50
"My point was that the continued and aggressive campaign to completely ban all advertising of formula treats women who do want to FF as stupid or criminal."

can you explain that more clearly, nancy? in what way are women being treated as stupid or criminals? i genuinely don't understand. i ff, and am clever enough to know now that i was sold at in wickedly smart ways when i was absolutely at my most physically and emotionally vulnerable. this resulted in me spending a quid per box more than i ever needed to, on a product that gave my dd the shits for a year. i'd like to have been protected from that, just by having some clear information.
Contact the poster Contact mumsnet about this post By Nancy66 on Sun 13-Jul-08 20:55:38
Sabire - no I didn't say that at all. This thread (and you) are really boring me but I don't want to be misrepresented. I said that I did not consider the advertising of formula to be any more unethical than the advertising of most other things.
If you've interpreted that as me saying that new mothers should feed their kids Cherry Tango, well good for you.

TikTok I did not say that Kirstie Allsopp not doing her wretched DVD would make FF mothers feel like criminals. My point was that the continued and aggressive campaign to completely ban all advertising of formula treats women who do want to FF as stupid or criminal.

Here it was, you never did answer it, if you look. my question came immediately after yours, however, you responded to tiktok (some jibe about her parenting classes) and then left the thread til now.

Tik, my HV told me last week why more women don't breastfeed: because it's 'rammed down their throats' in hospital...'

Right - like so many mothers just have an urge to rebel

But there is a valid point here. There is a dichotomy between lip service and practical advice.

I am pro breastfeeding, and only now am starting to know what I don't know, after 2 babies, or rather know the questions to ask.

"I wonder if Kirstie has or is planning a parenting column in a publication somewhere?"

If i were her agent i would advise her to do an OK spread a-la-Jordan. no?

"There is a dichotomy between lip service and practical advice."

AMEN, ilove. amen.

Please excuse me for being thick.

How would formula companies "market" their products if it became illegal to advertise it? By that I mean, would campaigner like there to be no price variations between makes? Just the ingredients and product names on the packet?

I'm curious to know what the ideal would be. Are there any links?

different people think different things. personally, although it could be fraught with difficulty, i'd like formula to be handed out by the NHS. unbranded, same price or free etc.

but that's never going to happen, obv.

what i would like, and should be achievable, is that the formula companies stick to the current rules re not promoting their product for babies under 6 mos. which, it would seem to me... a 'your baby's first days home from hospital' dvd heavily branded with SMA would seem to contradict.

Margo, that's interesting - my ideal would be no companies competing to make profit out of formula - because then the important thing necessarily becomes the profit and not the formula.

If you've seen the Novel Oils thread I posted recently, the manufacturer of one of the additives in formula admits it is dubious whether it affords any health benefit to infants - in fact, research suggests it can give babies diarrhoea and upset their stomachs quite badly - it's all about profit and giving the companies who add it to their formula competitive edge in the marketing stakes.

Quite apart from that, if advertising were to be outlawed, parenting magazines would be able to have more honest articles about breastfeeding and formula within their pages, which is not the current situation, for fear of formula advertising being pulled.

So my ideal would be decent research, freely available for all to peruse, more awareness of what formula is (see Harpsi's thread in this subject about 12 intelligent people in her antenatal class not knowing that formula's made from cows milk) and more effort made to actually make formula the best stuff it can be, rather than adding ingredient after ingredient and using a load of old flannel to try to get people to buy the milk so the shareholders have a nice fat dividend at the end of the year.

And probably other stuff too, which will occur to me once I click post...!