Guest post: “Formula milk companies are getting in the way of parents’ decisions”

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

#breastisbest, #fedisbest? Society seems intent on pitching mothers against each other, but there’s no need to take a side. Whether you breastfeed, bottle-feed, or mix-feed we know parents are simply doing their best. Working for Save the Children I see that first-hand from parents all over the world. Yet when it comes to feeding your baby, formula milk companies are getting in the way of parents’ decisions. They’re putting babies at risk by putting their profits first.

Last week Save the Children published Don’t Push It, revealing the scale of the formula milk industry’s aggressive marketing and calling on them to clean up their act. Six companies spend the equivalent of £36 on marketing for each baby born worldwide - amounting to £5 billion every year. Their marketing routinely violates a World Health Organisation code set up to stop aggressive marketing to new mums. Parents are bombarded with advertisements including false health claims and social media promotions, while doctors report receiving gifts and incentives to promote infant formula.

Why does this matter?

An estimated 823,000 child deaths would be prevented in low and middle-income countries each year if almost all babies were breastfed. That’s nearly one in seven of all deaths of children under the age of five, globally.

This is because breast milk is a baby’s first immunisation. It offers the antibodies a baby needs to survive lethal diseases like pneumonia, which kills more children under five than any other disease.

In situations where clean water isn’t available, mixing formula with dirty water can be dangerous and life-threatening. And when parents can’t afford enough product and have to dilute it, or don’t have access to safe preparation instructions, babies’ lives are also at risk.

What about mums who can’t breastfeed?

Our report does not deny that formula milk has a positive role to play in the right conditions. There is a recognised medical need for some infants to be formula-fed, and for several reasons it is a decision made by parents around the world.

We found that even where mums want to breastfeed they face pressure to choose formula. In Yangon, Myanmar we met La Min and her daughter San Sundari. She told us that she thought it wouldn’t be a problem if she didn’t breastfeed, because she could afford to buy formula. She made this decision after being told by the nurse that helped deliver her daughter that it would improve her baby’s IQ. So pervasive is the belief that artificial breast milk substitutes are better than the real thing in Myanmar’s healthcare system, that La Min even recalls doctors shouting at her when she decided to switch to breastfeeding instead.

What needs to change?

The time has come for companies to enter a race to the top to become the most ethical formula company, putting mothers’ and babies’ health as their priority and leading the way for others to follow suit.

We’re calling on:

• companies to publicly commit to upholding the code and agree to meet targets set to achieve full compliance
• investors of formula companies to consider their ethical investment policies and urge their formula companies to align with them
• governments to adopt the code into legislation, as the evidence is clear that legislation is the strongest motivator for these industry giants to play fair

All involved in this industry must put babies before profit.

Hannah Greer, a Campaigner from Save the Children's International Development department will be responding to questions and comments on this post later this week.

Photo credit: Chloe White/Save the Children

As a new Mum in the UK I never felt any pressure to breast feed. In fact formula was suggested by midwives on day1!! I felt pressure in baby groups not to breast feed "she'll sleep if you formula feed etc". "Why don't you make your life easier" and GP shocked by me breastfeeding at six months.
I understand that some mums feel pressure to breastfeed but have genuinely never come across it and nor have people I know.
Varied picture in the uk I think. And I still think how low our rates are is shameful.

Just to give a different perspective, I felt no pressure from companies who produce formula. What I did feel is huge guilt which was hugely exacebated by the comments from some people around breast feeding. I could not breast feed after 3 months and was made to feel as if I was not doing the best for my child.

A question for Save the Children:

Is it possible to name and shame the worst offenders? Are there any formula milk companies that have some morals and aren't doing this?

A campaign to switch from one formula to another would be very powerful.

The author of this post needs to clarify what exactly they want UK consumers of formula milk to do. What actions do they want parents as consumers to take?

I think this is totally the wrong way ; more like mothers are pushed to breastfeed , Breast is best etc

it does not always work for some. They might not be able too bad experiences dreadful rude midwifes says it all really don't blame them for not doing it. Madness in this world.

No to formula on prescription - let mothers decide when to use it if they need it (and any baby not fully BF needs formula, wherever in the world we are talking about), and to be informed on how to use it safely. This choice - wherever in the world we are talking about - should be one made unaffected by unethical marketing.

Everywhere, substitutes for breastmilk should be cheap and affordable, with the price uninflated by the costs of marketing or profiteering.

This should go alongside non-moralising, non-judgmental infant feeding support, tailored to the individual but clear that the physiologically preferable option is to breastfeed where possible. Other aspects - mother's mental health, comfort and life - matter too, which is where the tailored to the individual support thing comes in.

If formula is at a consistently low price in the Uk, we might see less of the offended outrage at lack of loyalty points, too, and fewer mothers feeling this is some sort of attack on their formula use.

I'm glad charities are speaking up about unethical distribution of formula - well done, Save the Children.

The formula marketing rules are there to protect formula fed babies. They are not about 'pushing breastfeeding'. I find it really sad that a discussion about child health gets polarised into 'mummy wars'. It's important to look beyond our personal experiences to a wider discussion about public health.

And while a refugee camp is no place to prepare a bottle there are also families on low incomes in the UK who really struggle, too. Other family members may have to compromise their nutrition to pay for formula; it is a source of financial stress.

roseanne your most powerful voice is as a consumer. Baby milk action report code violations here: www.babymilkaction.org/monitoring-uk

Boycotting companies that violate the code is an easy thing to do; better still write to them and tweet etc to tell them why. You could also challenge children's centres, maternity wards etc who use formula sponsored materials (especially if they are supposed to be 'baby friendly'). I've also reported violations of the code by supermarkets etc, and also told supermarket managers where they have pulled out special promotions or displays.

Yes, @tiktok I agree prescription formula is not the way to go.

In the UK it is not possible to say which is the most 'ethical' brand, as none of the companies that sell products in the UK abides by the WHO Code and subsequent Health Assembly resolutions (and as our UK law, which doesn't completely implement the Code, is poorly regulated, they infringe that too on a regular basis). Baby Milk Action has details of 'What They're Doing in the UK' on its website and this is regularly monitored/updated.

Since the composition of all infant formula in the UK is tightly regulated, the differences between the products are extremely small (if something is shown to benefit babies, it has to be in all formula. Extravagant marketing claims are made for optional ingredients, which don't stand up to scrutiny). So you can choose based on price, what you can get locally/easily and what your child seems to prefer. First Steps Nutrition Trust has brilliant in-depth guides to formula on the UK market.

To the poster with a 10mth old wanting to make an ethical choice - I would suggest staying with your infant formula until 12mths and then switching to a non-formula product (whole cows milk or other unsweetened milk) rather than continuing to line the companies' pockets by buying unnecessary follow-on/toddler formula!

I think it's a terrible thing not to try to breastfeed

Nobody gives a fuck what you think about how other women use their bodies.

This is an odd article. It's not immediately clear what it's for, as remainoptimistic says. Do STC just want us to know what they're doing, raise awareness? Or are they looking for donations, or support for their campaign? It reads like there's something been missed off. A pp has suggested STC are trying to get UK consumers to pressure the formula companies, which they could be, but in that case it would be useful to actually have some information on that.

It also won't really do for posters to just say that UK women need to look beyond our own experiences and think about what's happening elsewhere. Simply because you cannot magic away a cultural context. There is even some reference to this even in the first paragraph of the article with the 'society' bit, which suggests STC are aware of the way many British women feel about pressure to breastfeed. I do think unfortunately for them they're going to struggle with this because of that- which is a damn shame because they're highlighting a definite problem.

It didn't come across to me that this is about pushing breastfeeding, rather that it's about using the UK consumers purchasing power to make formula companies more accountable for their practices in developing countries. Although it's not actually explicit in the original post, as it talks about the companies themselves rather than what parents can do.

Oh I don't think it's pushing breastfeeding either. The problem is that it occurs in a cultural context where many women feel pressure, hence there are responses about that.

But I don't think there is one 'culture' in the U.K either. What one person experiences as pressure others experience as support. Some people are upset by struggling to breastfeed others intend to formula feed at the outset. Different family/cultural backgrounds make a difference.

Responses to a thread like this are a self selecting group. You're only going to get people who feel strongly about it for whatever reason posting. I think in practice people can say- yes I wanted/needed to use formula but I understand why aggressive marketing tactics should be curbed.

We are agreed it is important anyway. It plays into the marketeers hands to say it's too sensitive to discuss. I hope STC continue to raise it (with some more concrete actions!).

some people on here are absolute cu*ts. Not everyone wants to breastfeed and that's ok. Using this post to push your breastfeeding bullshit isn't ok.
Maybe we need to be working on providing safe water, educating about sterilisation and prompting formulas to reduce costs in developing countries rather than start a slating ff post AGAIN.
You couldn't pay me enough to bf again, absolutely awful process. Mastitis, leaking, engorgement, swollen boobs, burning let down, baby biting me, no sex. Fuck that.

Thanks for highlighting this. It’s an abomination that formula companies still get away with such unethical marketing both in the U.K. and across the globe. All babies and parents should have a right to accurate scientific information when making feeding choices, especially if parents are paying their hard earned cash to these companies. I’d like to see a lot less of the unnecessary products they market on the shelves in the U.K.

Well if not culture then backdrop, context, whichever word you think would be most appropriate there fish. I will defer to your preference. We are a society where it's common to find women who feel they were pressured to breastfeed. It comes up a lot. That obviously co-exists with other situations such as women who don't feel they got enough support, which also comes up a lot, but neither of these things need to be the whole picture to be significant.

I agree with you that this shouldn't be too sensitive an issue to discuss, just it's not much use to simply say women should be able to separate their own experiences from what's being talked about here without any critical examination of why that might be happening. As was happening upthread.

@mamadrummer nothing about the original post is pushing breastfeeding bullshit. Or do you mean subsequent responses?

The whole point of Save the Children's campaign is to address the issues caused by formula companies in developing countries.

@AssassinatedBeauty no I completely get the original post, although it seems slightly redundant to post it here as the title implies we have those issues with formula in uk.

I've boycotted Nestle for 25yrs now but assumed they'd pretty much stopped this crap. And they haven't. It's criminal.

I can’t believe the amount of premmie babies fed formula without consent! I had the opposite experience when I had my first son who was born 8.5 weeks early, straight after I gave birth a nurse sat with me to help me express milk for him to be given immediately and I was given a pump to take home. They were really supportive and we left hospital exclusively breastfeeding. It was the reassurance and support after that wasn’t really there and I stopped feeding him at 5 months.

They're the same companies though, in the UK and in developing countries. Hence the desire for pressure to be put on them by consumers in developed countries. I guess the hope being that they might address these issues if it is shown to be important to their customer base here.

Nobody cares what you think either.

@Glassofredandapackofcrisps what has that got to do with this thread about formula companies and their bad practice in developing companies?