Can you help with stopping birth registrars giving out formula promotions?

[Lisanova]

Parents all over the country currently receive marketing materials which undermine breastfeeding when they register their babies birth. This information comes along with their babies birth certificate, in a folder which contains a range of leaflets - some official government ones, along with a leaflet encouraging parents to join Hipp Organics online group. through this group parents will receive free samples, coupons, expert advice etc. they also receive a leaflet for pregnacare's breastfeeding supplement for mothers.

Some of the parents register their babies with a registrar who visits the hospital, this means that the hospitals rules about marketing materials an compliance with Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative are undermined.

These birth registration folders are provided by Lifecycle Marketing, who also produce Emma's diary.

At the moment there is a break in the supply of the Lifecycle wallets, so now is the time to take action!

There is an alternative folder that registrars can use and this is distributed by civil ceremonies, this can be provided along with a wallets for death certificates.

So.. What Can you do?

Please check if your local Registrar uses a folder to present birth certificates which is produced by " lifecycle Marketing". If they do, Inform them that some of the leaflets contained in this folder undermine the WHO code (and Unicef baby friendly accreditation that the PCT/Hospital may be in the process of obtaining/ have obtained) and to point out that other alternatives are available.

So do we just check by ringing our local registrar?

yes! The two companies which provide the folders are Lifecycle and civil ceremonies
civil ceremonies have no marketing in them so are ok

you can get through to the registrar through the local council.

And it would be great to hear about the response!

OK, will try to give them a call when I get a minute.

That's not on at all!
Are Baby Milk Action ont othis?

Does anyone know if this is the same in Scotland?

They don't do it in leeds as I didn't get anything when I registered him, except birth certificate.

No I won't help.

Sorry, but I think mothers need to know that there is a choice. Or you end up with mothers like the one who posted here, feeling like she failed her dd cos she ff & is already tying herself in knots about 'having' to breastfeed her son.

IMO removing all associations of ff is leading some women to think that it is wrong & unacceptable. Therefore causing babies to become low weight & their mothers to panic. Not good.

What's wrong with choice? Honestly, if I was determined to bf, a leaflet wouldn't (and didn't) stop me!

rather than telephone - email, it wil be far more visable to have several emails in the in box on Monday morning or over several mornings.

gogle your local county council webpage "devon county council register office"

and get this type of page and scroll right to the bottom

customer email is at bottom.

in the heading of the email put

REGISTER OFFICE

so that they pass it on to the correct department

voila - get emailing and asking is this what they do?

can someone put together a quick email outlining the question so we can copy and paste

For the attention of the Registrar of Births Deaths and Mariages.

Please could you tell me if you use folders/wallets produced by a company called Lifecycle Marketing Ltd or any other marketing materials when presenting Birth certificates to new parents?

If you do, could you please describe the marketing literature/samples including the company/product they promote

---

If no joy from the registrar this could be sent as a FOI request through the website www.whatdotheyknow.com/

I think it is the same in Scotland, In wales the Chief Medial officer wrote to all registrars asking them to stop. It's always worth asking - you never know what you might turn up!

differentname - this is nothing to do with choice, removal of it or anything.

It's to do with inappropriate marketing of formula.

No one objects to information about the use of formula given to people who want/need it.

But encouragement to join a formula manufacturers' online group is marketing.

I don't think that they give out those folders where I am (bit hazy...).

differentname -as Tiktok says, it's about marketing, not information. I happen to think that mothers who formula feed actually deserve better information about the products, and the differences (or not) between the two. But marketing doesn't give people information, it sells them a brand. People still think Aptamil is 'closest to breastmilk' because of all the advertising to health professionals.

This wasn't the case where I am either. I thnk we should be more focused on education around bf, and by that i mean in schools as part of sex ed/development.

But surely by the time you register your baby you have decided to BF or FF.

If you FF its still prob useless info, if you BF put it in the bin.

I don't understand why people get so wound up over these things!

"But surely by the time you register your baby you have decided to BF or FF."

Not so sure about that. The majority of women do start off BF, and a fairly high proportion stop in the first 6 weeks. Most of the women who stop, report that it was earlier than they wanted to.

The thing is that this kind of marketing is just one example of a drip-drip-drip normalising of FF. It all contributes to the big picture, where women are giving up BF before they or their babies would like.

Advertising is not the same thing as information.

Am I missing something here?

Hipp Organic provide various baby foods, not just formula - so does this support group/ coupons specifically relate to formula? Pregnacare breastfeeding supplements are (presumably) vitamins for a breastfeeding mother to take which presumably encourages breastfeeding.

I am very pro-bfeeding, but I can't see an issue here -correct me if i'm missing something.

But FF is normal for alot of womean! Its normal for me, If I had a baby I would FF, I wouldn't even try BFing this time round.

Nothing to do with advertising.

If anything the advertising FOR breastfeeding well outweighs the advertising for formula feeding.

We have a society where FF has become the cultural norm, but its not physiologically normal.

I don't know your reasons for FF, and you say it is nothing to do with marketing. Fair enough, I can't pass comment on that.

But why would the companies spend money on the marketing if it didn't have an effect? They want more customers - the only way to increase their customer base is by undermining BF rates.

No, it doesn't. FF has something like £17 spent on promotion for every £1 on BF.

It is undoubtedly commercially helpful that formula manufacturers connect with parents at a time when they may have started breastfeeding but are hitting problems and a lack of confidence with it - stats show that huge numbers of mothers switch in the first weeks (when they may be registering the baby's birth).

This marketing of formula has nothing to do with persuading mothers to decide to formula feed rather than breastfeed - as has been said, the decision on what to go for has already been made at the time the baby is born.

Disenchanted - the amount of money spent on marketing of formula is massive. It is advertised in healthcare professional journals, it is advertised in consumer magazines, on TV, and on the web, with huge amounts of money awarding HCPs sponsorship, developing clubs (like the Hipp online club - but they all have them). You may not see all of this.

Breastfeeding needs protecting. No one makes money out of promoting and supporting breastfeeding, and it will always be the 'poor relation' in advertising terms for that reason.

I still don't see how these particular leaflets are promoting formula or undermining BF.

I'll just never understand how some people can bang on about healthy eating and organic fruit and veg etc when they didn't even try bf and gave their baby a highly processed milk from another animal!

I remember seeing the Hipp Organic stuff in my birth reg pack and thought it was for solids. I binned it as DS2 was only a month old and thought it was too early to get signed up for all that kind of stuff. Like nigglewiggle, did I miss a key bit of information/marketing that was about ff?

I am bf'ng him so maybe I didn't notice it?

Forgot to add during the time of registering his birth I was having serious doubts about BF due to issues and still I didn't notice it as ff marketing.