Oh dear Oxfam have made a bit of a boob (or actually a bottle in this case!)

[mawbroon]

Have a look at this. Especially around 2 mins when Mel B makes an appearance

If you understand why this is a big blunder on their part and feel strongly enough to complain, then you can do so here

so given that breastfeeding isn't actually all that natural, that it doesn't come naturally because you have to work to build up your supply, and given that women in the 3rd world really don't have the time to sit in bed with their babies for weekends at a time stimulating their milk supply, how exactly are women in the 3rd world expected to bf effectively?

they carry their babies around with them all the time.

I envy your eloquence Beachcomber.

It's only "us" who think we have to put them down in bouncy chairs, under baby gyms, get them in their own bed/own room from a nearly age...

beachcomber your analergy would work if she had been writing on a tin of SMA gold. But she was writing on a bottle. A bottle could equally represent expressed milk.

but millions do and are

"A bottle could equally represent expressed milk. " Well, not equally because I bet of you did a survey in the street, the vast majority would say "formula milk"

i can't say it better

By noonki on Wed 01-Oct-08 08:43:47
sorry MAwbroon,
You lost me,

I used to volunteer for baby-Milk Action, (the anti-nestle campaign group) and I most certainly do not find the image of a bottle offensive.

What is offensive is the disgusting way in which baby milk is advertised/distributed in the developing world, causing the death of numerous babies as they are contaminated by bad water.

Sales representatives posing as health visitors handing out free samples, nestle threatening to pull out of countries that allow pro-breastfeeding infomration programmes to be shown, doctors being paid to advice the benefits of milk powder

now that is worth campaigning about,

This advert is aimed at the west (to raise money and awareness), do you really think that the communities that don't have clean drinking water are all looking at youtube?

I think making sure the mother gets enough food and nutrition to ensure she can breastfeed (yes, I know it's not quite that simple) successfully is the key. Yes, the baby might get all it needs, but at what expense to the mother's health? Sort out the water, educate the adults, make sure they have food, no need for formula.

Simple as that

I watched the 'slideshow' of stills from that campaign (couldn't get video to run) and there's a still of MelB sitting there with 11 or so bottles, and a caption saying 'I promise to do all I can to wipe out poverty' or some such. I think some people are getting a bit silly here, but I think the words 'wiping out 3rd world poverty' with an image of baby bottles, is not a good message.

Wannabe my analogy works.

I knew someone was going to nitpickingly post something along the lines of 'yeah but it wasn't a formula tin was it'.

In fact, I nearly used the image of a cereal bowl in my analogy but didn't as I thought it wasn't necessary to complicate things.

I kind of assumed that people would try to get the point I was making rather than try not to get it.

So I'm interested, those of you who seem to think that pictures of baby bottles shouldn't be allowed to be shown anywhere, exactly what would you like to see happen with regard to bottle feeding?

Would you like formula to be banned? available only on prescription to women who have a medical need for it? what exactly?

Because if you feel so strongly that breastfeeding should be seen as the norm, and the only acceptable way to feed babies, then surely you must have an opinion re what happens to formula?

Yes, Fio, but I bet they wouldn't mean EBM.

Agree with OP, tiktok et all.

The video is very slick and every image has been carefully chosen for most impact. So it is opened up to questioning. Notice the AIDs symbol woven into the footage. So why did they use a bottle as a symbol of motherhood when it is responsible for millions of infant deaths in the developming world? And regardless of breast or bottle feeding, what I find bizarre is the missing baby!

Although breastfeeding is well represented on MN, it isn't always so in RL, and it is under- and mis-r represented in British Media. See here if you disagree. This Oxfam video is just one more positive association with bottlefeeding and a missed opportunity to 'normalise' breastfeeding.

Wannabe, wanting breastfeeding to be seen as the norm is not the same as wanting it to be the only acceptable method of feeding a baby - very few people would want that.

FGS are you all barmy, firstly Mel B is not responsible for the third world poverty, but you are all desperate to have her hung, drawn and quartered for daring to hold a bottle Secondly It's a babies bottle FGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Some of you seriously need to get a life!

really?

Then why do we see threads on here complaining about someone bottle feeding a baby on eastenders, or casualty, or this thread? In fact I even saw a thread once complaining that a playmobil baby came with a bottle.

Bottlefeeding is obviously not as natural as breastfeeding but it is certainly just as normal and I don't see anything wrong with that.

Maybe we should be questioning why women are so reluctant to keep breastfeeding rather than questioning why they are so happy to bottlefeed.

By the way, I agree that this video in itself is not hugely damaging. As tiktoc said earlier it's about the drip-drip effect.

This video, plus that ad, plus an article, plus, plus,plus,plus is what is damaging.

Doesn't change the fact that it is in extraordinarily bad taste and that Oxfam should definitely know better.

Formula feeding in developing countries kills lots of babies. Formula is generally given in a bottle. Therefore bottles in a certain context are associated with dead babies. The fact that bottles are not ONLY used for formula but also expressed breastmilk, juice, water, etc does not remove this association.

do you purposefully seek out things to give you the hump and misconstrue them.a bottle-so?

did the intended mesage move you or were you too incandescent about a perceived subliminal message

I would associate lots of things in the 3rd world with dead babies.

If they showed a picture of a well would that be wrong too? because the water in the well would undoubtedly be contaminated.

In fact maybe we shouldn't be seeing pictures of the 3rd world because lots of what is in the 3rd world is associated with extreme poverty and death.

Actually for once I agree with Scottishmummy.

I am also wondering how many people watching the video will actually take it in, that, the few seconds it is shown, it is a bottle.

But formula is seen as the norm at the moment. A lot of people think you're some stinking hippy for wanting to breastfeed. Crazy!

Wannabe I don't think that we are saying that there shouldn't be pictures of feeding bottles anywhere. Just that such images are inappropriate and crass when used in a symbolic fashion in a video that is supposed to be sensitising people to poverty in developing countries; countries where formula feeding using bottles is a cause of death for reasons relating to poverty.

This is a very particular aspect of formula feeding that doesn't relate to the experience that you or I might have had.

not my experience of bf?people were nonplussed as they should be