Haiti - F*****g Nestle is at it already.

[foxytocin]

here now what can I do about it?

OK enough of this distasteful little exercise for me.

before you leave can you answer the points that have just been made to you? or not?

i havent had time to read all this thread so sorry if someone has already said this

can you honestly tell me that if you were in there situation and you were for example looking after your sisters baby cos she had just been killed and you didnt have any way of getting breast milk so baby was starving to death and someone offered this formula to you you wouldnt take it

its very easy for us to say its the wrong thing but till your in that terrible desperate situation those poor people are in how can we possibly understand

nestle in the Dominican Republic.

scroll down about 1/3 of the way. lovely codebreaking calendar of nestle's down there.

Well yes, MrsS, on that we agree.

good point dustycups, and it's for exactly that reason that it needs to be controlled.
Plus, as others have said on the thread it's a very different culturee to the western world. Bf is seen as normal and easy. So it might not be the case/

Wow, a calendar with a dubious picture!! Just the same as forcefeeding starving orphans formula when their grandmother would rather breastfeed them

None of us like Nestle. I don't like Nestle. I don't however object to them donating formula, which is needed in some cases, along with cash, plus other foods to an aid agency which adheres to protocols on breastfeeing. The religious affiliations of aid organisations is another thread and as slim says we should perhaps have that debate in a few months when this current situation is as much in hand as it can ever be .

I just re-read all my posts and stand by everything i've said.

I understand the maths, thank you little carrot for your concern, but I still think that aid workers ON THE GROUND are best suited to make the decisions that you are discussing here.

I do wish they could set up lactation clinics everywhere, but I am not deluded, I know it is not a priority in the next hours and days.

I still say, better they have the formula handy if they need it for immediate relief than object to formula being sent at all.

Am just being completely realistic considering the scale of the disaster. If any of you think there will not be many more deaths from water borne disease, you are deluded.

They will be fed formula and will get sick from contaminated water just as adults will drink the water and get sick.

Am just as devastated as you are to know that it COULD be prevented BUT IT WILL HAPPEN anyway.

It is the sad but crude reality right now.

Oh FGS....you don't need a 'lactation clinic' (western-centric, again). No one will be setting up a 'lactation clinic' in these immediate post earthquake days.

Safe infant nutrition will be (or should be) seamlessly integrated with all the other stuff needed for health and medical care of mothers and babies, and it will include not specialist clinics set up in the rubble, but knowledge on the part of staff about the risks of formula and about how to support the existing bf culture.

This is to avoid the need for formula, which risks increasing death and disease and which uses up so many resources.

My experience of working and researching mother and infant health projects in a post-disaster zone is that formula is indeed available to HCPs working with mothers and babies - but its distribition is carefully controlled for the sake of health in the immediate and short term.

Sarcasm about the code-breaking calendar is western-centric, too, mrss.

Nestle does far more than issue code-breaking calendars, as we know, but visual imagery is a huge part of their marketing in the developing world, where women may be illiterate and in any case not have access to written materials about feeding.

Pictures are very important as a marketing strategy which is why illustration on packs is covered by the WHO code - pictures of chubby infants are not permitted, because they are so powerful in 'educating' people to the 'benefits' of formula.

I am not a Nestle supporter - but since the stuff they are sending is being sent to a Relief charity - World Vision - to distribute, will they not do it according to safe protocols?

I had understood that it was coming from the Dom Rep, over the border, so can get there v quickly.

Very grrrr that Nestle will award themselves some good PR over this, but in the face of 2 million newly orphaned children, I would have thought that aid, responsibly distributed by a proper relief agency was preferable to the average stricken Haitian than wating for an alternative supply to arrive in the one runway at port au prince?

It's also very 'western' to assume that breastfeeding in third world countries is seen as normal and easy.
It isn't the case that all the women are comfortable about breastfeeding and all doing it successfully as I mentioned before.

But as mrsruffallo says. There's no need for this debate now.
The OP seemed to be saying that 'Nestle are offering formula and must be stopped'.
But actually, I think we all agree that there might not be babies with access to lactating women and that aid needs to be properly organised according to protocols from lessons learned.

TikTok, yes, absolutely about long term aid v short term solution - but where formula and other supplies are needed to meet an enormous demand, if the supplies, (to be reposnsibly given out by experienced agencies) happen to come from Nestle, and waiting for more ethically acceptable supplies would cause death in the meantime, well then...Nestle it would be in my book.
Until the Hipp Organic arrived.

But I wouldn't be surprised if you told me that that is now owned by nestle, as they have bought up so many familiar brands of everything.

Ticktock, also you never answered my question about Abbott, enfamil? what is the history here, as from your post it wasn't good.

"It's also very 'western' to assume that breastfeeding in third world countries is seen as normal and easy."

only going on what i read on here but it seems bf is normalised in a way it isn't here. i.e. normal!

I have never said breastfeeding is 'easy' anywhere, paisleyleaf.

Don't put words in my mouth, I thank you.

But if almost 100 per cent of women start breastfeeding and most of them carry on, if not exclusively, for months and years, then it is certainly 'normal'.

Breastfeeding may not always go smoothly, wherever you are in the world.

I never mentioned Abbott, LittleMrsHappy. You are mixing me up with someone else.

All formula manufacturers break the marketing code - Hipp is no better than any of them, Blu. Nestle is a persistent offender, and the longest standing offender.

that was to me - i meant in comparison with ff

Slim22 - If an adult is looking after an infant who is being formula fed in a disaster situaton, due to said disaster, and both the adult and the infant ingest contaminated water who do you thnk has a bigger chance of survival?

The adult who will have some protecton against disease or the infant with a fledgling immune system?

Don't forget the infant is fighting possible infection from 4 different sources - contamination from unsterile formula powder, unclean bottles/teats (if the drinking water is contaminated so will the water used to wash the bottles), the contaminated water used to make up the formula and any infection the person making up the feeds might have.

The best hope an infant in a disaster zone is for someone, anyone, to breastfeed it. Even if only a small amount of milk is made at first by a woman relactating (putting baby to her breast and letting them suckle NOT spending time pumping and taking drugs as we would in the West) then that is better than ingestion a full days requirement of contaminated formula. It doesn't matter how much formula you feed someone if they have diarrhea and expel all of it and then some of their body's reserves as well.

It is difficult for us to comprehend how much of a struggle it must be to collect firewood and the water to boil for sterilising bottles and making up feeds, walking to collect formula from distribution centres, keeping the milk safe from insects, rodents, etc, etc when all we do is boil the kettle, put the bottles in the microwave and get Tesco to deliver formula to our door.

How can anyone say they wouldn't nurse a stranger's baby if that was the only SAFE way to feed it? I couldn't in good conscience put any squeamish feelings over wetnursing I might have above another's life. (Disclaimer this is not directed at any one person in particular.)

I see, SPB....indeed, formula feeding is more difficult than breastfeeding in these situations. It is not western-centric, paisleyleaf, to say this. Formula feeding is difficult to do safely, costly, risky and unsustainable.

Bf isn't.

TikTok - if you were a member of a relief crew working for a properly regulated agency and needing to supply hungry, dehydrated orphaned babies for whom no wet nurse could be found within the next few days, what make of baby milk would you use?

the Hipp comment was flippant - but if they ALL break marketing codes, then what do you do, in that situation?

I wouldn't care about what brand it was, Blu.

Sorry it was foxytoxin, tiktoc.

Who was the links for foxy? as I am very aware of the Nestle stance in most African and their worldwide despicable behaviour and distribution of FM.

If your comment was to me, how is that relevant to what I have put forward to the debate thread?

I am in very much agreement with the majority of what has been said, I just have a different view and prospective than some. some people seem to me to be coming across and very condescending, and seem to think that "your" (general) way is the best course of action for Haiti people, and that other peoples opinion is neither here or their,or lacking in intellect and neither do some want to see it different point of view!

If we all had the same opinion of things, this world would be dire.

formula is needed, whether we like it or not, from the reasons I have gave, and the reasons some have gave also, Nestle is not just giving formula, they are also giving $1, million worth of water and also calorie foods for adults, (its irrelevant how it gets their)

Breastfeeding is a priority, anybody who has half a brain will know this.

Another thing to remember about your wet nursing and re-lactating, is that Haiti is the caribbean's most affected by AIDS/HIV, so its not just as easy as 1,2,3 and some of you are making it out.

As I said previsouly their is loads of ammomilities to be considered.

Feed the children! For goodness sake - where is the debate?????

read the thread, doris.

I did, you are all mental - if the children may die anyway, why debate what they get - the point is that they get SOMETHING, and have a chance of survival. End of story!