Should formula milk advertising be completely illegal

[Reallytired]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6933188.stm

I think so. Mums who need to use formula, are better off getting advice from health professionals rather than advertising.

Reallytired - what place does the alcohol question have on a thread about formula? Whats the relevance?

Current medical advice is that women should not drink in pregnancy. Being tee total for nine months is not much fun. Many pregnant women do drink and infact get drunk occassionally and their babies don't necessarily develop fetal alocholic symdrome.

In the same way there are some people who smoke in pregnancy and their baby appears totally and utterly unharmed.

Do mothers who smoke and drink deserve to be made to feel guilty? Giving up smoking can be extremely difficult. Where do we find the balance between not upsetting the feelings of mums who smoke and telling the hideous truth that they are hurting their babies.

Other countries do look after people better than our own. Rather than worrying upsetting bottlefeeding mums why don't we copy other European countries who have better breastfeeding rates than our own.

Ultimately there is a difference between a sucess story like Norway and a sob story like areas of Glasgow where breastfeeding rates are so poor. I don't think the difference is the mothers, but the governant support.

Nope - still dont get it.

Is this a comparison or are you just going off on an unrelated tangent?

huh ?

Still not really getting it ?

I would have thought that the evidence against drinking and smoking whilst pregnant was far more convincing that the data that suggests that b/f may lead to your baby having greater immunity against various illnesses.

We all know that smoking is bad for us pregnant or not and that excess drinking is harmful. Giving up smoking and drinking for 9mths of pregnancy isn't that restrictive is it and it actually makes the mum to be healthier too, a win-win situation so I can't see that it's comparable ?

I agree with some of the sentimenst expressed here. My wife felt pretty rotten when she had problems with breastfeeding and had to stop cos of the problems it was causing. She was in real pain and crying through the emotions of it all - feeling like she was letting down the baby.

The 'breast is best' brigade really hade her feel like she had to keep trying and she had failed if she stopped. I hated it because of everything else that had gone on - this was making the whole experience even more stressful and upsetting.

We found out that it was because she was doing it completely wrong, was out of the hospital before she had practised enough, and recieved very little time or instruction. The second time was a lot different because of this issue and we made sure we hassled the midwives loads to make sure she was doing it right.

It seemed strange to me that there was this image driven home to women that breastfeeding is the best way, but the support shown was lacking. I think she just assumed that the baby just knew how to do it from birth - but that just isn't the case.

I don't think baby milk should be banned or we should even be suggesting it - this is just going to make situations like ours worse. The answer lies in more money and resources at the midwife stage. If they had time to spedn with us at this crucial point - then we wouldn't have gone through the trauma.

When working for a major supermarket there were very strict rules as to the management of these products. They had to be date checked regularly, rotated and were never to be reduced in price or put on promotion in any form.

There is also an internationl agreement set out by the World Health Organisation that states that formula milk should not be promoted in countries where there is an unsafe water supply. Many babies die each year because of this.

This is why Nestle have had boycotts called upon them in the past because they have blatantly ignored this agreement and have been proved to be an un-ethical company.

"If you feel guilty bottlefeeding then that is your problem."
It's this kind of attitude that does pro-breastfeeding no good at all. It says "sod the mother".
And I'll say once again that being harmed by formula can't be that common as I've not known anyone who has been harmed by it. Therefore to compare it with alcohol and tobacca is ridiculous.

Tobacco.

Things need to be put in perspective. FF is just not as good as BF, that's all. This doesn't mean that FF is sewage. It's like saying that a cured ham is poison just because it's not serrano!

The "best" is not always achievable for everyone, and also the "best" is different for everyone, according to their possibilities and circumstances, and the "best" for the baby is also necessarily what is "best" for the family she's been born into.

I think that BF can be supported and positively encouraged without the need of upsetting FF mums in the process. Some people choose not to see the damage that the current BF expectations are causing on women's mental health on the first weeks after the birth, and sometimes beyond. I am hoping that we'll grow out of this.

And I really think that BF is not for everyone, it never has been and it never will be. Not everyone can BF successfully just because they have breasts: we also have a pair of eyes, and many people have bad eyesight from day 1. My grandmother nursed a few babies, apart from her own. Those babies had mums who for some or other reason couldn't/wouldn't nurse their babies.

This doesn't mean that we shouldn't promote and educate people about BF and put all the necessary things in place to allow more women to BF happily for as long as they wish.

Great post BonitaMia.

Have not read the entire thread but do want to make the point that yes, formula is sometimes necessary. Advertising formula is not necessary and what advertising is permitted is very often misleading. What is the point in advertising it? If you need it you need it, why do you need a full page ad in a magazine?

The same could be said for tampons - if you need it you need it - why the need to advertise?
The point is, why should it not be advertised?

LWandLottie. Please, please do not refer to bf advocates as 'Nazis'. It's wrong on so many levels.

Why is advertising formula necessary? Good quality information is not provided by adverts. All adverts do is try and persuade you to buy formula X. It doesn't tell you the formula x is unsuitable for a vegetrian family.

I think its a petty that scientists haven't yet worked out a way to genetically engineer cows to produce breastmilk.

So what is really needed is better and more informative formula advertising which lets you make a truer comparison.

Another good post, BonitaMia.

JeremyVile, I don't use tampons either! I use cloth pads so tampon companies are wasting their time targetting me!
Seriously though, tampons are for grown women and are nothing to do with infant nutrition. I don't think formula advertising is appropriate as I think that in vying for their share of the market, formula companies do try to imply that formula is as good as breast milk. When large profit-based companies get involved in infant nutrition, ethics go out the window. I think that where formula is needed, it should be available at a very low cost and its composition should be based on whatever current research says is the best. Banning advertising would certainly reduce the price, I imagine that a very large proportion of the price you pay for your formula goes towards marketing and pretty packaging.

"So what is really needed is better and more informative formula advertising which lets you make a truer comparison. "

Maybe my definition of an advert is different to yours.

So how heavily controlled do you think formula advertising should be. Legally adverts have to be truthful, but there is no reason to expect adverts to contain the WHOLE truth and NOTHING but the truth.

Its a bit like an advert for a Ford Focus won't tell you that prehaps the boot is a bit small. It is not against the law to leave out information in an ad.

There is very little information comparing different formulae. An information pamplet would be just that. It could even contain web addresses, telephone numbers for a mother who wanted to know more about a particular formula.

Agree. Ads are to make money for the company, not to inform.

Re the tampon comparison - if you use sanitary towels and decide to use brand X tampons after seeing ads, then it doesn't work out for you, you just go back to using towels, right?

But if you decide to start using formula because you're not getting the support you need to bf successfully (or for any other reason) there's no going back. That's the difference and the reason why formula ads should be banned. Impartial advice and as much info as possible on FF is good. Advertising is to sell formula, that's all.

I think this is where the tobacco advertising comparison is PARTLY valid - in the same way if you choose to start smoking it's difficult to give up again.

Just to make it clear I'm NOT comparing formula with tobacco (!!!) just wanted to point out that it's a difficult decision to reverse once you've started either smoking or FF.

Okay, that's the whole point of the adverts, to sell the stuff.
I suppose what I really meant was that more information should be available for people to make a proper comparison. At least advertising does make people aware of different makes and brands of formula which they could then find out more about if they were interested.
Maybe if infant feeding literature given out by clinics included ingredient lists of formula and explanations of the benefits of the ingredients. Breast milk would always come out on top and people could make up their own minds. Instead of some things being ignored and people having to guess what might be okay.

Does anyone remember seeing a formula ad? I am struggling to recall one at all. Just something i have thought about.

Anyway - apart from the moral issue of advertising formula, i think some posters are missing the point of advertising here as well.
A company doesn't really put out an advert to encourage the sales of the whole product group they specialise in - they just want you to choose their product over another when you are at the supermarket shelf.

It has been proven that most people will only buy brands they have heard of, and then image comes in second. To take the example of tampons - if they weren't advertised at all there would be a greater spread of sales across the whole product range and decisions would be made based upon the look of the packaging. If you need to buy one - you will buy one and walk out with it in your bag. They would still sell in the same volume across the range.

If Tampax were the only brand ever advertised then their sales would comfortably out-strip all the others no matter how fancy the others looked.

That's what I think,too, Eric.

I have seen stv ads for follow-on milk but not first milk.

I had to ffeed two of my three dcs. I would have liked a lot more info to be out there - what brands are low-lactose, for example, how each type of milk differs. My dd1 had a lactose intolerance and my GP was clueless - it was pretty much up to me to sort out myself what milk suited dd1. I don't think it would have been unethical for myhv yo have had a leaflet setting out each brand's approcah and teh features of each particular milk.

If adverts included info like 'low-lactose' that might help.

startouchedtrinity ,
It could be life saving for you to have good info to know which is low lactose formula.

However I think such information is best given by a health professional to explain what low lactose means. Ie. Breastmilk is NOT low in lactose. A baby with a lactose allegy would not want a formula which was the closest thing to breastmilk.

Your post also shows that formula fed babies need different formulae. Understanding the different milk formulae virtually requires a degree in nutrician!