Why do midwives work for formula companies?

[hunkermunker]

For instance...

Isn't it against their terms of registration, or something?

Because its a cushy job and they're paid more money.

Subliminal advertising is very powerful and SMA are not talking about breast-feeding to give themselves a nice warm fuzzy feeling.
It's the same reason they give out "freebies" to midwives and health visitors - diary covers and gestation/age calculators etc. Although these days they don't put their name on the stuff so often BUT those colours, that pattern on the stuff all identify the company with ease. I was sent a diary cover with a circle motif on the front easily recognizable as Milupa even though Milupa is written nowhere on the cover. The cover is blue (Milupa colour) and equally all the growth calculators I am sent or given have the colours of whichever baby milk company sent them.
Parents with young babies are BOMBARDED with advertising and recognize these images all too easily. A midwife or a HV carrying these images around gives almost tacit approval of the company involved so that when breast-feeding fails (often because of scant support) and the parent goes to the supermarket for formula they pick the one which has become familiar - the one which has been advertised unwittingly by the HCP.

Yeah but the subliminal advertising for bf is everywhere!
You can't go to see a mw without being bombarded by the breasts they have inside their uniform! HVs too usually have them when you go to see them.

Oh yeah... in our society we seem to have forgotten that breast actually are for feeding not just sexual attraction!

The paed that I used to take ds to had a visit from the formula company rep after ds's appointment. A very shrewd choice by the company (who made specialist lactose free type formula), lovely jolly mumsy type that looked like she'd just made a tray of biscuits.

There are lots of mws like the ones described above- tired, burnt out, stressed out. It's sad and horrid.

But I firmly firmly believe that it is morally wrong to work for an formula company as a mw. It may be easier and more financially rewarding to do so but the easy road is not always the right one.

I know a graphic designer who left her agency because she couldn't live with herself making adverts for cigarettes and army recruitment. She now earns around a third what she did - but she sleeps at night. However she has no children to feed...