Baby milk firms to drop nutrition claims

[Nip]

here

I guess those who bf this is a good thing, but i didnt bf and this now makes me feel like cack!

These are some of the additives commonly used:

Maltodextrins, skimmed milk, demineralised whey powder, first cold pressed vegetable oils (olive, rapeseed, sunflower), palm oil, tricalcic phosphate, magnesium chloride, calcium carbonate, potassic phosphate, potassium chloride, vitamin C, iron lactate, zinc sulphate, vitamin E, copper sulphate, vitamin A, potassium iodide, vitamin D.

The thing about follow-on milks though (at least what I've been told) is that up until 1, babies still need breast or formula milk as a large part of their diet. It is after 1 you can give cow's milk, isn't it? Therefore, if you aren't breastfeeding or stop breastfeeding which a lot of mums do if they go back to work, then follow-on milk is a bit cheaper that the from birth infant formula so a lot of people use it (I did, when I stopped breastfeeding at 6 months)

But that wasn't the main issue here was it...outrgaeous rip off was the claim..not freeze dried reconstituted crap...

Two arguments...?

Well, I think the original issue was the wording used on the packaging of infant formulas.

"outrgaeous rip off was the claim..not freeze dried reconstituted crap..." I think it is both. Very expensive and unnecessary product (although I get the point about it being cheaper for 6 - 12 month old babies).
IMO (and it is just that - an opinion), a baby is better of avoiding highly-processed foods where possible (as are all us us).

Well...she does have organic jersey milk in her porride and her cereal. I fhs ehad wanted to BF longer I would have done..but I honestly thought she was better off having this Aptamil Follow On milk than going straight on to basic cow milk.

You ave given me something to think about, although where my dc's are concerned cost alone would never be an issue for not giving them something i thought was a better option.

I object, in principle, to giving money to formula companies per se so mine is probably not an objective view . I think that their product is not an appropriate one for maximum commercial exploitation. I also think their methods leave a great deal to be desired.
I think it would be extraordinarily hard to justify the high mark up on that growing up milk comapred to cow's milk in any nutritional sense. I would be fascinated to know the profit margin on those little bottles...

HC - I have that problem too (not wanting to give money to them) and even went as far as getting nestle banned from our student union shop when I was at Uni because of their actions regarding formula in the developing world.

I am now faced with the going back to work when DD is 8 months old and am going to have to buy from them.

Are there any that are more ethical than others I wonder (might start another thread)

I suspect it's around 95% harpsi.

Its good news, but, as has been said already, its all very well removing marketing misnomers, and getting rid of the competitive and active 'selling'. However, it is of little benefit to anyone if HV's, GP's and MW's are still actively recruited with freebies in order to 'recommend' a product. After all, who is it that Parents look to for advice on feeding?

NSF, are you bfeeding now? How much are you going back to work?

I am b/f now (well - not right this second, usually you don't get capitals or punctuation from me in those circs) - that and BLW is it. Tried bottles of expressed but not much success (though we have been quite lazy about it - must get back o nthe program!).

I am going back 3 days a week

Start a thread, NSF and I'll see what I can think of. My hugest tip would be "stockpile ebm" - express a bit each day till you go back to work.

NSF, I went back to work 2 days a week when ds was 5 and a bit months old. I perservered with expressing (found that despite his age he could only ever take a fairly slow flow teat) and managed to express a bit in work (not easy being a teacher!) and at weekends etc.

As he gradually dropped feeds, the expressing became easier, and I could be more flexible with his feed times - so I sometimes expressed only a small amount for a feed at roughly 3, then topped him up myself at 4.15ish while also expressing.

Now he doesn't feed at all during the day it's easy, and I'm really glad we made the effort.

Ok here I am

Though this thread could do with some better input than I produced too

here

It worries me that the manufacturers will be prevented from making claims that are actually accurate. If the claims are true why not let them say it?

Personally I'd always rather have all the correct information available before I make up my mind and I think it's dangerous for the Gvt to be allowed to say we shouldn't be told stuff just because it might lead to us making the "wrong" choices.

Yes, but claims like 'Persil - ten times better than Tesco Value Non Bio' are true as well, and advertisers still can't use them in the UK.

And think of lines like 'Half the fat of regular crisps!' or 'Only one gram of fat in ecah Jaffa Cake!'
Strictly they're true, but are not especially helpful - the crisps are still very high in fat and the Jaffa Cakes are crammed full of sugar, but the messages try to make them seem 'healthy'.
This sort of manipulative advertising definitely has no place on formula.

IndiaJane - which ones are accurate?

I don't really see why we can't say that Persil is better than Tesco's own (if the manufacturers are happy enough to back it up)

Personally if I had to choose a formula - and luckily for me I'm able to breastfeed, I'd want to know which ones have got... for example

"Omega 3 LCP's long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids"

It's all about informed choice and I dont think the Gvt should stop us havnig information because it doesn't rate our intelligence highly enough to think that we're able to process it.

I'm not saying that any ones in particular are accurate, my point is that, according to this article, even if the manufacturers could substantively prove some of their claims to be correct, they still wouldn't be able to show them.

Unless I've misunderstood it - which is always a possiblity!

Sorry, what I meant was that (rightly or wrongly) current advertising laws in the UK don't allow 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth', so the new regs for formula aren't a huge departure.

NB 'omega 3 long chain fatty acids' etc will still be listed in the ingredients so you can choose the formula you want - what they can't do is advertise any (real or supposed) benefits of said ingredients on the front of the box.

Isn't this just a little bit nanny state though? I mean I'm totally in favour of banning advertising junk food to kids etc as they can't be expected to make rational decisions.

And I'm totally in favour of breastfeeding over bottle (if you can do it - no worries if not).

But preventing accurate information just seems to be.. overkill I guess for want of a better word.

It's so tricky .
Providing accurate information is important, yes.
But I can't quite get myself to accept that the best people to provide us with that information are the companies who stand to make a huge profit from us believing them over their competitors...

it's the accuracy that's in question though. not least for the fact that there is more than one formula claiming to be closest to breastmilk.

I've just read the first few posts at the mo and I have my doubts about this one. Presumably there are some formulas that are closer to breastmilk than others - obviously not equivalent, but closer - I wouldn't ever have used SMA for example - I can't see why the formula companies shouldn't advertise as such in that case. I was certainly influenced in my choice of formula by the nutritional information, once it was clear that I had to use one of them. I found it slightly reassuring that I could at least choose the least bad option. I definitely wouldn't ever have given up breastfeeding on the basis of such information - surely anyone with a brain knows formula is second-best?