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.

Thanks hunker - I'll search for your thread.

And I am one of those people who really didn't stop and think about what formula was made of.

Thread's here, Margo - I'd be interested to hear what you think.

If companies follow the WHO code on marketing as a minimal ethical standard, they don't have to stop all marketing - it just has to be done in a way that protects the (often fragile) choice to breastfeed, and does not mislead or under-inform mothers who use formula.

It's fair enough for healthcare professionals to know about changes in formulation, for instance, and they need to know about them. Same goes for parents. But these changes should be health led so we don't get additives and processes for primarily commercial reasons, and the changes should be closely monitored and researched, with years (not weeks) of follow up after a change. There should be a system of reporting back (as there is with medicines) so side effects and problems can be monitored. Isn't it astonishing that there isn't? Currently, HCPs and mothers swap anecdotes about brand X causing wind, brand Y causing constipation, brand Z bringing babies out in a rash....and there is no consistency. Maybe these anecdotes have some basis in fact, and if so, someone should be collecting the information so it can be disseminated.

There needs to be some centralised control, with manufacturers making minimally-branded, non-commercial formula, with ingredients independently compared, and with the product widely available at a consistent low cost. If it turns out that one of the new ingredients is important for the health of ff babies, then it should be in all brands.

Everyone knows formula exists. The availability of it does not need to be advertised. People who need to use it because their babies are not breastfed, or not fully breastfed (for whatever reason), should be aware of the health effects of using it - not to feel criticised or undermined, but because we all need to know the effects of anything we use with babies in order to decide how much, how long, and if, to use it.

Formula manufacturers should not be permitted to market themselves or their products to pregnant and new mothers, as the cumulative effect of this is to undermine breastfeeding. There is no one single aspect that would 'change someone's mind' - so the celeb, the DVD, the ad, the pretty pack, the spurious sloganising, the 'baby club', the gift of a piece of branded tat to the health visitor, the 'care line etc etc all combine to work with each other, in a way that breastfeeding promotion can never achieve. It all needs to stop.

If an independent "reporting back" system was to be set up, Tiktok, would that be useful?

I'm thinking initially of a thread on my blog, I'll be honest...!

hunker, I don't think a blog system would be good enough, to be honest...though it would be an interesting start.

It really needs to be done as a properly constituted project.

Definitions of 'wind', 'constipation', 'diarrhoea', 'colic' and all the rest have to be agreed on, for a start.

I'd be interested to know what the medicines system is - I think docs have to fill in a 'yellow alert' or something, if they suspect a side-effect or adverse reaction of a medication, and these alerts are then looked at by some independent body. There are docs on mumsnet - maybe one of them will spot this and comment.

Perhaps a system whereby you can report adverse reactions to formula to the Food Standards Agency, similar to the way in which anybody can report an adverse drug reaction to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

Just looking quickly at the MHRA page it looks like anyone can report an adverse drug reaction.

No, I realised it wasn't going to be the best way to do it as a longstanding thing, more of a way to raise awareness initially.

Agree that subjectivity of response to that sort of set-up would render it fairly useless clinically, but it would act as a starting point to raise the issue with politicians.

In fact, it would be an amazing thing in some ways to be able to flag with politicians - mothers powerless to report baby health problems so have had to rely on blog to leave their feedback.

Maybe?

Go for it, hunker

Would be quite timely with the Heinz Betapol stuff in the news.

Heinz - we promise to listen to mums

Disingenuous baboons.

Please retract that terrible slur against baboons

Sorry, baboons.

Clearly they'd do a better job.

Except possibly during blue bottom showing season.

The difference between KA and NMA is that KA is ?helping? people choose between products that someone is making money out of. That someone is lying about their product and being deliberately misleading. NMA is encouraging people to do what their bodies do for free, showing people how to find help if they?re having problems. Where is the bias? It comes from any mother?s body for free; there isn?t a choice which mother you choose to feed your baby. If you choose to BF then there is only once choice and it?s free.

I need to LOL very loudly at DoH paying someone to promote breastfeeding! I am about to start work for them doing just that and I really wish I was being paid!

Advertising formula is unethical because they?re not honest about their products and they never will be because they will always want to look like they?re the best if they?re going to sell and they will try to undermine breastfeeding like C&G(?) are doing in their latest advert. If Maclaren say ?We make the best pushchair? it?s not going to harm your baby if you believe it and there?s probably not that much in it anyway but you can also open a copy of P&B and read what their panel thought of Maclaren compared to Graco. But we?re not talking about a luxury item or accessory, food is far more important than that and we?re talking about the sole food of a child for 6 months.

?Anything that gave us Mr Dreamy, Michael Portillo, should be celebrated?

Wouldn?t that be Mrs Portillo?

?How would formula companies "market" their products if it became illegal to advertise it??

Change the word formula for cigarette then answer the question yourself. I?m not comparing formula to cigarettes, just one unadvertised product with another.

I've skipped the last few posts, so apologise if I'm repeating anything.

Have Which ever been asked to look into this?

Is there any way of signing up to support the stop of unethical advertising/lack of unbiased technical sound information (but not stop the formula)?

Is there no such thing as a BS or ISO on baby milk production?

I should declare my interest here: I am a bfer. With dd1 struggled at about 3 months, thought ff would be the answer, sent MrP out and he bought some (have absolutely no idea how he made that choice). It didn't help (she was a needy clingy baby) and went back to ebf after 3 days of ff. dd1 and dd2 both bf for 12 months. ds is now 17 weeks and ebf, but if something happened that meant I couldn't feed (lack of sleep making me rather irrationally pessimistic), I would like to think that MrP (or whoever was responsible for looking after my little man) chose the very best possible for him. At the moment, I really am not sure how they would do that.

Oh, look, Kirstie's C4 deal ends in 2008 [cynical]

She really is empty-headed

"Now Kirstie, a 35-year-old mother-of-one, is turning her scarily competent attentions to new mums, fronting a DVD that tells them what to do after "blast-off".

"Babies don't come with a manual," she says. "It seemed a fun idea to make one.""

Twit.

Note how SMA get a plug at the end of the piece.

It's sad to read about her mum with breast cancer (now bone cancer ). No one has explained to Kirstie that not breastfeeding means both mothers and their babies are more at risk of developing breast cancer - she mustn't know this, surely, or she would have declined to front the DVD

(as a side issue I just wandered onto the Heinz site to read their 'Betapol' fluff and was confronted by the clickthrough popup starting

"Disclaimer

Before you view this information about Heinz Nurture baby formulas we would like you to read this important message:

Breast-feeding is best for your baby and a healthy, balanced diet is important when breast-feeding."

ffs

does make you wonder sometimes if these 'celebs' think how what they utter can be taken.

someone at mumsnet hq should invite her around for an online chat

I'm sure this has already been thought of, but would there be any benfit in (someone) producing the ultimate breastfeeding myth busting list? Along the lines of "Breastmilk and Formula are not the same", "Although it's important for your general health to eat a good diet, the quality of your breastmilk does not depend on it", "Stress does not affect supply", "You can drink while bf", "Your baby will feed a lot in the early days - it does NOT mean you don't have enough milk" etc

I tried...

Will do a more professional job though - like "you do NOT have to eat fish with heads on in order to produce quality bmilk" - complete with link to "bfing diet" pic.