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?

maybe because its soobvious

if someone says milk then surely anybody thinks it comes from a cow

first off?

i mean its not going to be goat or buffalo or human breast or soya unless its a special product

I don't get your point Tiktok? No advert for anything clearly tells you all the ingrediants. why does it matter what actually goes into ff? I know that is a strange question? It could be made of almost anything, and the manufacturers would still be slated.

Therre is always going to be a market for ff - they have a right to advertise. Perhaps a way forward would be for b/f to be advertised. The NHS could surely put together advertising for support groups, information about the positive effects etc... The best way to counter the ff marketing is to market bf.

I ask people when I do classes what they know about formula and its ingredients. I also ask them what they know about breastmilk. I am not doing it to scoff at their ignorance if they don't know (FGS)and people certainly do speak up in my classes and they certainly do challenge and discuss what they hear.

Most of them do not know that formula comes from cows milk. It is not 'obvious' to them because of the word milk - after all, we often call it 'formula' without the word milk in, for a start.

I think this is curious, rather than shocking, to be honest. Mostly, people have an idea of what goes into common, everyday foods (which formula is) - I mean they will know beer comes from hops, and bread comes from wheat and sausages come from pigs and so on and on. But they don't know (on the whole) that formula comes from cows....and for some reason, that's the way the formula manufacturers like it.

OK well my formula (Aptamil) says "Best Infant Milk" in big letters. Ok bypassing the "best" bit, as that will obviously set off another argument, I personally think the word "milk" is a bit of a giveaway. When I read "milk" I presume cow's milk, as if it is any other kind people normally say "goat's milk" or "soya milk" or "breast milk" etc.

It doesn't exactly hide that it is cow's milk.

Strangely enough , my Tesco Organic Whole Milk that the rest of us drink doesn't specify that it comes from cows either.

I think it is usually a given assumption that unless specified, milk normally means cow's milk.

i would have imagined that more people assumed that milk usually came from cows than beer from hops tbh

but i am prepared to be astonished i guess

shrinking, my point is that it's odd that people are not aware...I am not (as I say) shocked by it, but puzzled.

Marketing of formula should be carried out ethically, that's all.

This discussion takes place in various threads and is ongoing at the moment. The international code on the marketing of formula has been in place well over 20 years now and is law in some countries, but not here. It does not prevent all marketing, but it restricts it and aims to make it ethical, both to protect breastfeeding (which is socially fragile) and to protect babies fed on formula milk (whose care-givers need decent, non-commercial information).

There will never be enough money in the NHS to advertise breastfeeding at the same level as formula milk. And to use public money to try to match the multi-national formula manufacturers' huge spend is not a good use of my taxes, thanks very much!

Look, I am not making this up. I ask people. I don't 'assume' or 'guess' or use my own experience and knowledge as a guide to what others think.

im sure you dont its a revelation how thick people are

tiktok my post was not directed at you, or anyone in particular. Just giving my point of view. In all honesty you are the one I would turn to with any bf questions I have, I think of you as the "font of all knowledge" when it comes to bf. Just wish I had been on MN when I was struggling bf-ing DS1.

But when you tell them that its cows milk - do they care? Its the stuff you have to use to feed a baby if you can't bf. Does it matter whether it is made by alchemy or by processing cows milk?

And very good point about the grown-up milk in the fridge - it doesn't say where its from either. Hmm, maybe Tescos are hoodwinking me and its actually bat's milk?

Kiskidee - about milk for preterm babies. Firstly it was what the paeds told me when we knew ds2 was going to be in NICU and I would probably be in ICU and unable to express. Initial discussions were at 23 weeks pg, later discussions at about 30 weeks when I managed to still be pregnant! He was born at 33 wks.

Anyway after they said that I went hunting on medline etc and found stuff that convinced me they were probably right (I tend not to just accept what the docs say, and I had time on my hands and an internet connection from my hospital bed!). Unfortunately after I got home from hospital I deleted all the baby-related stuff on my computer (in my "I'm not doing that again" phase).

But there was some research came out in Feb. There is a thread on it on here somewhere. I'll look it up later - right now I have to go and feed my baby some denatured bat's milk.

I agree, Fio - any NHS promotion of bf has to be done alongside decent training and support. What is the point of encouraging mothers to try it only to let them down when they do?

@ Egg.

FioFio, I agree. All those posters everywhere in hospital about bf'ing. And then you have to stick big notices on the baby's incubator saying "no formula; mum is expressing" or "do not tubefeed until mum has tried to bf" or something to stop them filling the baby up before you get there. Agghh.

I was very, very vague about what was in formula before I attended an ante-natal breastfeeding class. I was completely focused on being pregnant and giving birth. Feeding a baby belonged in that far distant world of actually having a baby. I have to say that for me the major draw with breastfeeding was no washing up. I knew that I had been completely formula fed so correctly or incorrectly assumed that if somehow the great washing up avoidance strategy didn't work, formula would be OK.

Just to be devil's advocate, presumably some formula doesn't contain cow's milk, all formula does contain chemicals and it is designed in a lab. Doesn't breastmilk contain chemicals too?

Having said all of that, my breastfeeding advisor was absolutely brilliant. I hold her completely responsible for my successful breastfeeding of DS and DD, and the information that she gave me was invaluable. Its just that I am not surprised that formula ingredients are off the radar for people pre-baby - even pregnant people.

What to feed very pre-term babies is not clear, and yes, fruitful, there has been a recent overview (in the BMJ, I think) which called for more research. Pre-terms need to grow and to grow rather faster than they would do in utero - the growth factors in donated human milk are not sufficient (because the milk is produced for healthy, term, older babies). However, there are anti-infective properties in donated breastmilk which are not present in pre-term formula and these may well boost the immunity of pre-terms to a potentially fatal disease called necrotising enterocolitis (NEC).

This over view pointed out that the research showing donated milk lessened the risk of NEC was done not on very pre-terms.

So....it may be that the best nutrition for very pre-terms is donated breastmilk plus a fortifier (special cows-milk-based booster). Or it could be that initially at least, pre-term formula is better, with donated human milk (or of course, and better, the mother's own) being introduced later when the very pre-term is a little older.

I don't think it is clear cut, and the research should be on going. I don't think our support for bf should blind us to the fact that some babies are not 'designed' to be outside the uterus and that when they are, they may need artificial feeding (at least at first) in the same way as they may need artificial respiration and so on.

Re: marketing of formula, I think the closest I would have come to information on formula would have been perhaps reading a pregnancy and baby magazine. My thoughts would have been baby feeding blah blah blah, flick, flick, flick, now where are the BIRTH STORIES. Even if you are mad enough to get sucked into Discovery health while pregnant, almost all the programmes are about giving birth

Tiktok, the overiding message from my discussions with the docs while I was in hospital before ds2 was born, was "um, actually we don't really know, this is our best guess". . Plus they were advising me about choice of formula/dbm for a few days until I was able to express, not for weeks. So I guess that makes a difference.

Sorry, major sidetrack!

Nasty things, chemicals. I do like a bit of sodium chloride and acetic acid on my chips though ...

er, where did I say I had made an error of judgment

And to throw a cat amongst the pigeon did you know that powdered formula is a manufactured in a non sterile environment... I find a lot of women are shocked by that!

That's sad FioFio, the body knows when a baby has come to early and adjusts the milk accordingly, just like it does for any situation - like when there's a cold around. It really is the best milk for any baby. I think this what fruitful was talking about - term milk isn't adjusted for the baby.