I taught a bf class today of 12 lovely clever smart people and NOT ONE of them knew what formula was made of

[harpsichordcarrier]

not single one of them knew that formula is made from cows milk.
in fact they looked very surprised.
and in about four weeks time about half of them will probably give some to their babies.
weird, isn't it?

yeah, because if they were allowed to advertise unrestricetdly the first thing the mfrs would say is 'Formula - it's cows' milk we've messed with'

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I don't think that is surprising. Before I had ds I didn't know because I never gave it any thought. If I had been asked I suppose I would have said "cows milk with added vitamins and chemicals and stuff".

After deciding that bf was not working out I can remember bursting into tears when I was in Waitrose and looking at the cartons because I didn't really know what I was feeding ds and the message on the cartons that formula was no subsitute for breastmilk made me feel that it wasn't really something I should give him. But I had no choice so I just had to go with it.

I don't think that peoples lack of knowledge regarding formula is due to how formula is marketed. I can't see how the formula manufacturers stand to gain by pretending it is not cows milk, surely it is a good thing that it comes from cows? As opposed to being a completely synthetic made up invention.

I think that until something is of concern to you you don't give it much thought, well I don't anyway.

Butn why should they know if they want to ex bf? If they want to make the decision to ff then they can check the contents then.

I have to admit that with dd1 it didn't enter my head to check, my view being that myself,brother,cousins, friends were all fed ex on formula and have suffered no ill effects Except the screw that most people on MN think I have missing LOL

Formula milk manufacturers have to notify the Food Standards people of any novel ingredients. They do not have to supply the public domain (and hence their competitors) with a 'recipe' - in the same way that Mr Kipling has to list ingredients on his cake pack, but doesn't have to publish the exact way the cakes are made.

In addition, information on the packs of formula does not say where the prebiotics and other ingredients come from in any great detail - maybe there's not enough room but even on their websites, you won't learn exactly what the source of prebiotics (for example) actually is. You can hunt around elsewhere on the web and discover it. Hunker's thread shows you that the development and addition of prebiotics has been commercially-driven, on the whole.

Food Standards have to be satisfied that novel ingredients are safe (no babies are poisoned by them) and do not affect growth (they have to show that babies on formula with the novel ingredients grow at the same rate as babies on 'standard' formula). Manufacturers do not have to prove any health claims. They then permit the formula to be on sale in the UK.

However, the number of babies who are tested is small and the length of time the formula is tested is short. This is what lies behind some of the concerns about novel ingredients elsewhere - and in some countries, permission has been withheld.

Comparison between different formulas has been done elsewhere, and actually, I don't know why it has not been done in the UK. It could be done by analysing the formulas themselves, and not actually testing them long term on babies, and that would be a start. It would take up lab time, and I am not sure who would pay for it - the manufacturers wouldn't.

tori, why do you think they all intended to exclusively bf? that is far from being the case.
in the main, people intend to start of bf but top up or mix feed or switch to formula.
I would say a very very small % of people coming to classes either intend to exclusively bf and never give formula, and the number of people who end up doing that is vanishingly small.

If someone had asked me before I had babies (or since, actually) I'd probably have said

"milk with something done to it to make it ok for babies".

My gran used to dilue Carnation so its just an extension of that really. And if you can't bf, then its what keeps your baby alive. Why the shock and horror?

So tell me, what's in breastmilk then? Anyone? Umm, is it kind of -

"like cow's milk only a bit different to make it ok for human babies"?

[runs away very fast]

sorry Fio, what sounded like a quick flippant answer in my head didn't quite come out that way

Interesting point about the cows - not one of the mainstream manufacturers draws attention to the fact that their infant formula comes from cows. If you looked at the packs you'd think it came from, well, I don't know....some sort of soft and fluffy magic spell?

Even Hipp, which is organic because the flippin cows are organic, has no cows on its pack and on its website talks (euphemistically??) about the milk coming from 'farms'....and it only gets round to it after several paragraphs. You'd as soon think the milk came from Hippos (ha!) as cows.

This cannot be accidental. This has to be to distance people from an understanding of what they are giving their babies. I agree with reethie - what's inherently wrong with it coming from cows? Why is there not a jolly 'toon of a mummy moo-cow scampering over the packaging? But clearly, reethie and I are in a minority. For some reason, it's a marketing no-no....which is why we have bunnies and teddies and polar bears instead.

The only bovine thing that remains is Cow&Gate and I wonder if they wished they could change their name??

Fio - the mum you saw at the clinic is misinformed. She will get healthy start vouchers, exchangable for a wide range of fresh foods including milk and including formula, whatever her feeding decisions.

There was a scheme somewhere in Scotland which attempted to encourage bf by giving some other vouchers, but that was a few years ago and I am pretty sure it was very local and ended soon after.

Sherby does she want you to put your breast in a jug of boiling water like you do a bottle?

they thought it was made of "chemicals" and "artificially in a lab"

Isn?t that worse? A scary thought that they are happy to give their children chemicals made artificially in a lab!

Chequers considering TikTok also said that her classes rarely know what it is, it sounds like a lot of classes are going to relate to this thread.

MamaChris I was the same, I knew it was cows milk but I didn?t have anything in or look into FM because I didn?t want to put any barriers in. I saw Tink when she was 5 hours old. They said the same, I told them I didn?t know and he said ?shall I just give continue to give her Premium?? they?d had to give her something in those five hours. I wasn?t well enough to care TBH.

sprogger, I wish my brain worked like that, I soak too much in and have no idea how I know it most of the time!

Fiofio, the requirement for tokens doesn?t change depending how you feed your child (who would know?) it is means tested and it?s up to you to use them ? milk and fresh fruit and veggies or milk for baby.

"they?d had to give her something in those five hours"

I suspect if we all knew more about formula and how it's made there'd be more political pressure to provide milk banking services so that when bf isn't possible, parents have a choice. At the moment there's no political pressure because the majority of people think formula is made by men in white coats in high tech labs, and full of scientific wonderfulness (or as Tracy Hogg said in the Baby Whisperer "Chock full of nutrients...." )

The hospital I'm at is involved with milk banking, I wanted to donate but I'd had enough of expressing by the time we'd left hospital! There isn't a lot of milk going in and I think they probably save it for the sickest babies and Tink really was far from being the sickest, I wouldn't even say she was sick she did so well. But in those five hours they weren't able to get my permission to give her pool milk as I wasn't well so they had to get the quickest thing they could into her.

It surprised me how many mothers refused permission for pool milk preferring FM!

Can I just give a word of warning to all of the people on here who really don't think it would be impossible to identfy Harpsi in RL?

I had to change my name recently as I was "outed" - it wasn't a particularlry nice experience, and I thought I'd been careful about not giving too much away etc etc. Unfortunately, as you type into MN over time you do give details of yourself away and sometimes you do get caught out. Unpleasant if you've been giving away the minituae of your daily life, but actually quite serious if you could be considered to be breeching the confidentiality of an environment where people really need to feel like it's ok to not know all the answers and to ask lots of questions.

Harpsi obviously knows this - Hi Harpsi, we knew each other in a previous life! - hence not giving away the true details of the class, althought that's not clear from the OP so nothing wrong with challenging that IMO.

If you search Harpsi's "previous" you can see where she lives, number and sex of her DC, even see pics of her DC on her profile. Sometimes, you can be identified by the little thing.

As common as it might be that people don't know what formula is, sometimes it's the little things that give stuff away. I recognised someone on MN from another message board the other day, simply because she had lost the stopper on her birthing ball! So, by all means have a healthy debate on here, but don't be so certain you can't be identified.

Essay over!

oh I know I can be identified!
so if you are in my classes, you are all lovely and please don't search the archives

TinksMum - I asked for ds2 to be fed preterm formula rather than donated ebm. The best milk for a preterm baby is it's own mum's milk, which will have a different composition to bm from a mum with a fullterm baby or a 6mo baby. The majority of donated bm is from mums of older babies so it isn't necessarily the best thing for a preterm baby. I knew I was having ds2 early and I would be in ICU so had plenty of time to research this. Sadly most of what I learnt has disappeared under the baby-fog.

[whispers] Formula is not, actually, the Word of the Devil, you know. Sometimes its quite useful ...

Some posters have mentioned that if people are intending to bf (ie attending a class) that they don't need to know what's in formula but a lot of people start off breastfeeding and switch to formula after a few weeks for reasons such as wanting to go away for a weekend without baby or getting pissed at Christmas (2 people I know). Perhaps if these people were told that formula was "denatured, chemically processed, freeze dried, reconstituted...." cows milk they wouls have carried on for longer. Perhaps not, but who knows.

I knew formula was made from dried cow's milk plus vitamins and minerals and other stuff. I knew this before I had children but I am not sure why, maybe because my Mum fed me diluted Carnation so I assumed it was an improvement on that???

Having been raised in Canada I still carry the overwhelming dairy industry propaganda that cow's milk is a health food, and anything with added vitamins and minerals is a good thing too. So formula must be fabulous..........for baby cows .

I am therefore quite shocked that people don't know where formula comes from, but also shocked that people seem to prefer something that is completely synthetic rather than from a cow. I was horrified by the soya milks more than the regular formula tbh.

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Pinkspotty - or perhaps they would think that formula was horrible disgusting stuff, and feed their babies nice fresh untampered-with cow's milk. Which wouldn't do them much good, would it?

Why are you all so down on the processing that goes into making formula? If it wasn't processed, it would damage the babies. It is processed in order that the babies can feed on it and live. The processing is a good thing!

fruitful - before formula, mothers who did not breastfeed used ordinary pasteurised cows milk instead (people can ask their grandmas!). They boiled it, diluted it and added sugar - they 'processed' it. In the days before fridges in every home, this was neither convenient nor terribly hygienic. Some people used evaporated milk from a tin (like Carnation) which they also 'processed'.

Formula is processed, as you say, to overcome the inconvenience of messing about with stoves and sugar and everything, and the lack of hygiene (especially in summer) which meant you could not really store your baby's milk safely. That was the main plus point over home made formula.

In fact, the end result is not all that different from what mothers produced at home. It's probably better, but not massively better (IMO). The protein structure is modified, which is probably a good thing for most babies. Would be interested to see a nutritionist's view on this.