Save the Children's new report on marketing practices of formula-milk companies: what do you think?

[RowanMumsnet]

As some of you may have seen from press coverage over the weekend and this morning, Save the Children is today launching a report into the marketing practices of formula milk manufacturers.

The report focuses specifically on marketing in developing countries - where a lack of good sanitation and public health awareness can make formula-feeding precarious - and on the importance of colostrum to a baby's long-term health. You can read more about the campaign and see the petition here.

We've been asked to get behind this campaign - and as ever, in these situations, we need to know what you think!

Is this something MNers would like us to support? As many of you will know, we have long refused advertising from Nestle and its majority-owned subsidiaries. Save the Children's report is also critical of Danone, the second-largest formula manufacturer.

We'd be really interested to hear your views.

"and most research shows when samples corrected to tie into account family income, education etc THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE in these diseases between FF and BF cases !!!! "

I think you'll fnd that research into health outcomes associated with infant feeding choices CONTROLS for income, education and heredity.

Of course you'd have to read it to know.

You might want to start here:

Diabetes (this study uses siblings and finds that earlier introduction of formula is associated with higher incidence of type 1 diabetes)

here

Really, seriously - you can't insist on here that breastfeeding makes NO difference to babies in the developed world on the basis of the current evidence. Particularly if you don't have a good over view of the evidence, haven't even read it, and don't understand the way it's constructed. A quick google isn't going to give you the information you need to know.

As for the comment "I don't know of ONE baby hospitalised in this country from being FF!! NOT ONE!!!!" - well you're not going to know whether formula contributed to the hospitalisation of a baby are you? 98% of babies in the UK are using formula. The majority are fully formula fed by 6 weeks. Hospital paediatric units and doctors surgeries are full of babies with UTI's, gastric infections, respitory infections, all of which we know are increased by lack of breastfeeding, but which can also occur in the (vanishingly small) number of fully breastfed babies. So you're not going to know.

If you want some ACTUAL, calculated figures from experts who've reviewed the ACTUAL evidence, here are some figures (from UNICEF): if 45% of UK babies were exclusively breastfed (absolutely possible) 3,285 fewer babies in the UK would be hospitalised with gastroenteritis, 5,916 fewer babies hospitalised with respitory illness, and 21,045 fewer babies would be visiting their GP with ear infections.

I don't know how you can read this and still carrying on insisting: 'no baby in the UK is harmed by not being breastfed'.

If breastfeeding has health and developmental benefits for babies, then it's not unreasonable to assume that a lack of breastfeeding will have a negative impact on health and development of babies at a population level, and that this will be measurable with the right sort of medical research.

Really - you can't agree with the statement that 'breast is best' and then argue vociferously that breastfeeding makes no difference to babies. It's not logical.

I think the babies of the youngest, poorest and most disadvantaged families in the UK deserve to have optimal nutrition as newborns. As good as the babies of the richest families. Because god knows the children of poor families in this country don't get much else that's 'best' or 'optimal' in later life in relation to housing, weaning diet or education. Why shouldn't they have the best diet as babies, when it costs nothing? And they could have it, if their mothers could be persuaded to stop seeing formula as the only 'normal' way to feed a baby. Normalising breastfeeding in these groups would necessitate addressing the fact that the media in the UK is saturated with advertising of formula.

Great blog post Zara - thanks for the link !!!

tis true we are all trying to do our best!!! Parenting is a long haul and not just about the first few months of a babies life.

Gosh - good blog apart from the last para. In this country formula doesn't kill, and we are all thankful for that. Elsewhere, whilst it might save some lives it can kill as well. We mustn't forget that. Not everyone has clean water.

Mmmm have read research - we can all find research based on are own bias though cant we???

I can say breast is best and have no problem with that. However, formula is ok to use to feed your baby - you clearly think not - what then do you suggest Shagmundfreud!

Shagmund so that's why I think you need to kill all formula advertising AND all bf advertising. It's like an arms race of guilt and fear.

Bf should be as normal and boring as sliced bread if you want people to do it. At a population level it's generally best. Not necessarily for the individual, which I think we agree. Marketing it as "liquid gold" is loading bf with all sorts of pressure and expectation.

So kill the advertising around all infant feeding. Put the money into postnatal support. Then let people feed their kids however works best for them.

Have read your research the concluding statement being it MAY be linked to diabetes -

Forgot to add - when we are not confused/adversarial in our own country about infant feeding, then we can focus more clearly on beating bad practices in developing countries.

Zara - that blog depresses me.

Especially this comment:

" Lack of milk, inability to breastfeed or circumstances that make breastfeeding difficult are not another kind of yuppy flu that only exist in modern times"

Because actually the babies who died in the past from a lack of breastfeeding weren't those babies born to healthy, well-nourished women with good access to health care, like we have in the west now.

They were the babies born to women who were too ill to breastfeed after difficult childbirth. Or mothers who'd died in childbirth.

The babies of poverty stricken, malnourished women with 9, 10, 11 children. Babies separated from their mothers because of social conventions about birth outside of marriage. Women ill with severe and untreated mastitis. Women with no access to medical care.

And even then, if there was another mother available in the family with milk, a child would be wet nursed if its own mother was unable to feed it.

You know what I think we should campaign for formula companies to do? Not to make a profit from formula in countries where a substantial amount of the population cannot access clean water. Nice and simple.

Mmmm similar to some of the women in developing countries then ?

Like the idea Cleanandclothed but don't think it would happen

Shouldn't stop us asking for it though?

Shagmund you're not actually insinuating that things like non-latching babies (my son) and lack of milk are a modern invention? Don't be silly. These are very very real things that happen everywhere in the world.

Even if only 1-2% of women have low supply, that's actually quite a lot of women when you extrapolate it to a population wide level.

Words straight out the mouth of my GP, who used to work in a NICU: "some babies just don't latch. Not every baby is born knowing what to do. I used to see it all the time in NICU and on the general postnatal words."

Ionekka - that's why it's always worth while looking at REVIEWS of the evidence.

Get an over view.

Not just cherry pick one piece of research or another.

That's what the UNICEF link (this one - here does.

Because it's a bit meaningless just having a random google on this subject. Basically because there's a lot of very poorly constructed research out there which doesn't control for length of breastfeeding or exclusivity of breastfeeding.

That's why a lot of early research (in the 1980's and even in to the 1990's) tended not to find significant benefits to breastfeeding. Because in much of it babies would be classified as 'breastfed' if they had no more than one or two breast feeds a day, or were only breastfed for a week on leaving hospital.

Agree cleanandclothed. Very very hard to do but would be interesting if eg WHO drew up some practical plans on how to make that happen

There are reasons why a baby cannot latch- poor muscle tone, birth injury and tongue tie for a start- and there are things that can be done to help. GPs are not trained to help in those situations. It's not just a case of 'this baby won't latch, oh well, there's nothing we can do'.

"Shagmund you're not actually insinuating that things like non-latching babies (my son) and lack of milk are a modern invention?"

No. I'm saying that in societies where breastfeeding is normalised and well supported, and where women are well nourished and are not suffering the affects of poverty or lack of medical care, breastfeeding failure is uncommon.

Unlike the blog entry which suggested that breastfeeding failure was endemic in the past, for the same reasons it's endemic today.

It wasn't.

"Even if only 1-2% of women have low supply, that's actually quite a lot of women when you extrapolate it to a population wide level"

Can I repeat: 75% of UK mums had used formula by the time their baby was 6 weeks old.

75%.

The vast majority of babies who are getting formula in the UK could have been fully breastfed if a) their mothers had chosen to do so and b) if their mothers had had clinically appropriate support to achieve full lactation.

That is all I'm saying.

The very large numbers of partially or fully ff babies in the UK is a reflection of our cultural acceptance of bottle feeding as the 'normal' way to feed a baby, and our lack of understanding and valuing of breastfeeding. As evidenced by the dozens of posts on this thread insisting that breastfeeding has no value to UK babies.

The very large numbers of partially or fully ff babies in the UK is not a fair reflection on the fundamental reliability or safety of breastfeeding.

I completely agree on banning formula adverts full stop. I suspect that every parent knows that formula is available. All that 'if you feel ready to move on' really pisses me off.

And what about not a 'breast-feeding helpline', but just a general 'feeding helpline'? Could be handy for breast, bottle, weaning, everything.

I am shocked by those figures Shagmundfreud 75% wow! Does seem really high

Eaurogue, no midwife, doctor, lactation consultant, LLL leader (DMIL) or anyone else could get DS to latch. No tongue tie, nothing. He wouldn't latch to anyone else either - my friend offered and I let her try to see if it was just my boobs.

The suggested solution? Express full time until he latched at ome point in the future. Righto, back in the real world....

I had full time support at home as well so it's not like I was trudging away on my own.

My baby would be dead if it weren't for formula.

I'm sorry about your situation and of course I'm glad that your baby is alive and well. But your statement was about babies in general, not just yours. If an expectant mother read your post and then had a baby who had trouble latching, she could then think that it wasn't worth trying. This is why breastfeeding misinformation needs challenging; it's not to make mothers who FF feel bad or guilty, it's to give future mothers a chance. If we do nothing about access to accurate breastfeeding information then nothing will ever change.

Shag my uncle is an obesity/diabetes scientist in North America believe you me last time we chatted the use of formula wasn't what he was looking at but the utter shit the Western diet contains particularly the amount of sugar combined with fat and lack of exercise.

Oh I could have carried on bfing I'm sure for me. I would have preferred to but when you have a weak,listless baby with it's ribs sticking out (poor latch again)really your wants pale into insignificance. You literally have to make a snap decision and once your baby has been ill no mother wants to put it through it again.

The 75% kind of illustrates how safe formula is,nearly every baby will have formula at some point,very few are ebf until weaning soooooooo these spurious figures bandied about get even more ridiculous. You get mixed fed,ebf for 1,2,3 weeks,mixed fed for months,ebf for weeks followed by eff for months......not one of my friends did the same thing, the science is crap.Formula is one of the most widely used,tested,looked at foods available - statwise it is one of the healthiest foods you could consume.

Sooooo wish the utter shit a lot of kids are fed from 6 months on got the same amount of hot air and over analysis but for some reason even though it has far more disastrous effects and can be directly attributed to poor health with better science a huge blind eye is cast over it.This is the area we need to spend money and time researching on-urgently!

Having said all promoting formula in the third world is utterly wrong.

The two issues are completely different.

Totally agree Polkadot --

i would wholeheartedly support the campaign. people have no idea of the crap that multinational companies put in formula feed (or beefburgers or lasagne, etc).
their ONLY interest is making money. NOT the welfare of your baby!!!

breastfeeding should be seen as the norm, and everyone should know where to go for advice. everyone has heard of AA for example, if you want help with an alcohol problem, but how many people have heard of The Breastfeeding Networks helpline if you want help with a breastfeeding problem? if i had known about the BFN when i had my second baby, perhaps i would have been able to breastfeed him for longer.

Yes, emmet, crap like vitamins! Minerals! Good grief. I heard on the internet that formula companies faked the moon landing too.

What is in formula is fine. It's the marketing of formula, especially in developing countries, that's the problem.