why do tesco not give you clubcard points when buying sma formula

[pud1]

i have noticed that formula is not eligable for club card points. is this to incourage breastfeeding. i have emailed them to ask but have no reply.

right. i thought you meant birthday cards.

I think as parents we always feel guilty whatever our choices are.

I am sure that if formula milk was completely free to all mothers then mothers will still feel guilty about using it instead of human milk.

Breastfeeding is clearly better for babies, but its a balance between the mother's health and happiness and that of the baby. In someways I think that bottlefeeding mothers are harsher judges of themselves than anyone else.

pud1, do you really have issues with the fact that you cannot claim clubcard points on formula? Or are your issues more deep seated?

its not the points. i just feel that its the wrong way to encourge breastfeeding. i dont think i have put my point across very well. i have breastfed dd and plan to bf number 2 and i have made that choice by reading the benifits of bf and the help of midwives while in hospital and people on mn. surley energys should be used for more of this type help than laws about giving loyalty points on formula

i also would not have chosen to ff if formula was advertised in every paper or tv station as there is so much information out there on the benifits of bf

It's not to encourage bf-ing, it is so they aren't encouraging formula feeding, the manufacture of which is done for profit. .

I personally think they should manufacture formula very cheaply, with no branding and sold at cost through pharmacies and health centres.

Banning advertising of formula is not about stopping people from buying it, it has other effects.

Advertising is generally misleading - think abotu the beauty ads, "model is wearing false eyelashes/ hair extensions/ touched up in post production" - there is no way that formula could be truthfully advertised.

Formula advertising will help to normalise formula which will discourage more women from breastfeeding.

Plus many more reasons which I'm sure others will post but my baby brain is in action today!

?Over a third (34%) of women believe that modern infant formula milks are very similar or the same as breast milk.? (Source: Myths stop women giving babies the best start in life. Department of Health, 2004)."

(that was on the leaflet/pdf Anarchy posted)

Imagine what the percentage would be if companies were able to directly advertise formula?

Surely having formula advertising banned keeps the cost of formula down for women and babies who need it.

These points schemes are really a bit of a scam, you pay for your groceries once way or another

It's against the WHO code.

"i also would not have chosen to ff if formula was advertised in every paper or tv station as there is so much information out there on the benifits of bf"

But pud, you are lucky in that you have access to that information. Not everyone has and if formula was allowed to be advertised it would increase the number of people who thought that formula was as good as, or even better than breast milk. I agree with island, it should be sold at cost, it is a necessity and the cost should be kept down as much as possible.

I was totally sucked in when expecting dd that formula was almost, if not as good as breastmilk. Besides, breastfeeding is so difficult, I would never be able to cope.

I remember reading an SMA sponsored full page ad in a baby mag all about babies immunity and the benefits of whatever ingredient they were pushing at the time. They were prosecuted over that ad as it didn't make it clear they were talking about follow on. Of course I only found that out 2 years later.

I'm pretty intelligent, have a degree etc etc but I had no knowledge of babies, I was a marketing man's dream.

"These points schemes are really a bit of a scam, you pay for your groceries once way or another "

You tell my DS's that after we went to the Sea Life Centre on holiday last year - a treat I would never had been able to afford without my Clubcard Vouchers

I used to think I had heard everything.

Then today I read that not giving club card points on formula is making formula feeders feel guilty.

How utterly ridiculous.

How personally do you want to take the issue of flippin club card points?

Listen - it's not about you or about individuals, or even about an individual mother's feelings, sensitive and finely-honed as they no doubt are.

It's about marketing and ethics - allowing promotion, of any sort, of formula milk works against public health, by permitting an incentive to choose one brand over another - you can be sure that manufacturers would engage in the normal deals with Tesco and offer 'double points' on one brand rather than another ...and a mother might be encouraged to switch, or even top up while bf, on these grounds. Decisions to ff, and which brand to use, should be made for reasons other than which brand has been effectively promoted that week....wouldn;t you agree?

pud1 - you say "you dont get points on cigarettes and they are not advertised as they are really bad for your health and put a massive strain on the health service. this we accept but i dont see that choosing to ff is as bad as choosing to smoke" But there are loads of studies which show how ff babies get lots more stomach upsets, ear infections etc that require hospital admissions. It is well documented that bf babies suffer significantly less of this type of problem and therefore put less of a strain on the health system.

no they don't "categorically" suffer less of these things - the risks of them getting them are reduced.

Hold the front page.

TPHW proves the research wrong. Forget the population studies in the UK and elsewhere, clearly showing an increased rate of illness (not 'risk' of illness - that's applicable to individuals, who have an increased 'risk', but rate of illness) among ff babies.

TPHW's kid has not experienced any of this.

So the research must be wrong.

Seriously, even if you dont care about the illness suffered by other people's kids, you must have some ethics, surely. Ethical marketing benefits all of us as a society.

but hang on Tiktok - on a thread (a loooong time ago) on here I mentioned the fact that my DS1 (BF until he was 14 months old) was constantly sick with chest infections and other illnesses, and I was told that BFing reduced the risk of him getting those things, didn't just mean he wasn't going to get them.

I also used the anecdotal evidence of DS2 (FF exclusively) who is rarely ill

and the anecdotal evidence of DS3 (mix-fed until 4 months) who is occasionally ill.

DISCLAIMER YES I KNOW THIS IS MORE ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE NO NEED TO MAKE SARKY COMMENTS AT ME.

I missed your point there FAQ, sorry? (Not being sarky, I promise) Could you re-state?

When you look at kids on a local basis it might seem like some get sick, some don't. But when you look at thousands of kids who get sick and compare them to which were breast and which were formula then you have numbers that prove a point.

I'm sure people think that studies are as anecdotal as the stories that people post on MN!

"research is questionable" - but that's precisely the point. If you look at a piece of research which is badly constructed, and you can expose HOW it was flawed, then of course you can question its validity.

But by the same token, if a study takes large enough numbers and controls for confounding factors, and is statistically robust, and peer reviewed, then you can't just dismiss it out of hand without looking like you are dismissing the truth because you don't like what you hear.

If I flip a coin and it lands heads up 5 times in a row, it doesn't follow that the probabilities of 50:50 must have been wrong does it? It just means I beat the odds on this occasion.

The more I flip the coin, the more likely I can predict wth certainty that the total tally will be 50:50.

The same applies to good research, and large population studies.

When you dismiss ALL research as questionable, it's kind of an unfounded prejudice based on ignorance. "Research-ism"

Some is bad and can be demonstrated to be bad. But plenty more research is good and can't be dismissed so easily.