IAMP - of COURSE they do it for all sorts of reasons - and a major one of those reasons is that formula is so heavily marketed to HCPs and to pregnant mums and, well, to society in general.
Look at the way women bfeeding any child over the age of - well, doesn't have to be very old for some people - are treated. "Why can't she express and give it in a bottle?" - the more socially acceptable way to feed a baby.
It doesn't need to be advertised. At all. As Tiktok often says, you don't see adverts for coathangers or clothes pegs - and nobody thinks any the worse of people who use them, nor do they wonder what they're going to hang their garments up with - they just know of their existence. I guarantee you that if formula wasn't advertised, people would know it existed.
And if it just "exists" and the companies that manufacture it don't market it disingenuously and cynically by targetting vulnerable women, trying to persuade them there's no difference between breastmilk and formula, then telling them that nobody should make them feel bad for giving formula (which they DON'T want to do, in many cases) - when, actually, it's fine to feel bad about doing something you don't want to do, course it is - then surely that's better?
And the very people who are meant to be doing the supporting are the ones who see the most advertising for infant formula. Of COURSE that has an effect on the support they give, however subconsciously!