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.

I am getting to sound like a broken record.

The WHO code - which this campaign is supporting - already calls for local labels in a format which is understood locally (ie pictures as well as text in areas where literacy might be a problem).

We don't need to get into questions about what this would mean for developed country mothers and whether this would 'make them feel guilty' or not, because the chances of changing the labels in the UK are zero.

I continue to be struck by how some posters insist on making it all about them, all about their experience of ff, all about their perception of being judged and so on.

Some feelings about infant feeding go deep and last a long time.....and I don't like the idea of anyone being hurt or upset about what they did or did not do about feeding.

But there comes a time when the only proper response to these reactions is 'have a bit of insight and direct your angry feelings elsewhere'....please.

Loq - please get Ros Wynne-Jones' name and sex right in your otherwise very good blog post :)

Tiktok. I don't think we've read the same thread.

Posters haven't been saying that at all,far from it.

All posters agree with the third world issue however some are questioning whether this campaign will help and asking how.Others are questioning the labelling as it is being reported and pointing out that slapping the same label on both won't help either and would actually be rather damaging.

A little clarity wouldn't go amiss.

Utterly sick of the use of the words-hurt,anger and guilt.

You don't speak for how people feel or felt and belittling posters point of views by throwing such words into the mix spoils an otherwise surprisingly positive discussion.

Agree that there's been overwhelming agreement on the core issues - of campaigning for upholding the WHO code for the marketing of formula milk in developing countries.

I thought tiktoks post was helpful in reminding us of some important points such as that the WHO code already calls for local labels

But also agree with polka that a little clarity wouldn't go amiss
eg from campaign organisers, Save the Children.

If I was in the FF business, and I wanted to divert attention from my wicked practices of promoting it in developing countries where mothers had poor sanitation, polluted water, and couldn't afford the formula, I suppose I might want to encourage a lot of pointless argument about hurting people's feelings in European countries.

I'm sure that, with a vast marketing budget, good contacts in the media, and a lack of morals, I could find some people to push into the limelight and create a lot of noise.

Polka, I certainly do not belittle mothers' feelings.

The guilt word is used many times in this thread by people who genuinely feel it or report that others close to them feel it....you don't, and that's good. Some people are angry about their experiences of breastfeeding, and they are angry that campaigns like this one make them think they're being told ff is poison and dangerous. These people have posted here, and just because you don't share their feelings, you accuse me of belittling them simply because I mention them, and acknowledge the powerful feelings people have.

These negative feelings are genuine, and all I am doing is asking people to put them aside for the moment, and to work out where to direct their anger.

That is not belittling.

Having suffered PND I have no interest in belittling the guilt or pressures of motherhood in the first world. But I wouldn't suggest it comes anywhere close to losing 5 children out of 6.

To say that some things are more important than others is not to deny either the reality or the seriousness of the less important things.

Unless it is boots advantage points. People simultaneously claiming that formula advertising had no influence on their decision to FF but who also claim to feel demonised by the lack of advantage points on formula can jog right on.

Yes I've thought along those lines Piglet

Though I usually try to think the best of people I find myself feeling quite cynical where this issue is concerned. Maybe thirty years of dying babies since the WHO code was introduced (now reaching almost a million deaths a year) has something to do with how I'm feeling ? Feels right to be angry about it.

Thanks for reading the blog, to those who did. I have fixed the problems - can't believe I left a 0 out!

DreamingBohemian, I'm not actually saying that the 1/3rd warning measure will help. I don't know if it will. I'm not a researcher of developing world practices. What I am saying is, if the people who have researched this think it might help then who are we, as privileged Western parents, to say "no, don't do that because it'll hurt my feelings". It's not as if they are asking to print falsehoods: formula milk is inferior to breastmilk.

The petition also calls for BMS companies to finally get their act together and adhere to the Code. The international code of marketing of breastmilk substitutes is as old as me (31) and they STILL don't actually stick to it - here or in the developing world.

What an absolutely amazing success the BMS industry has made of itself over the last 50 years: the most successful marketing campaign ever; the selling of billions of pounds worth of (excess) cows' milk as an inferior replacement for something that is free, and millions of child deaths to boot. And to top it all they're routinely defended by hundreds of thousands of Mums who (by the formula industry's doing) feel guilty. Good day at the office.

I run a FB page for discussing the politics of infant feeding if anyone wants to debate such issues. www.facebook.com/loquaciouslactator

I'm thinking along the lines of what PigletJohn said. Every time there's a damaging report about formula manufacturers' unethical practices there will be a number of FF guilt/breastapo articles appearing in the press. It always makes me wonder. And judging by the bf rates in this country I think the manufacturers are winning.

Sherbet - if you are choosing your child's sole source of nutrition for the first 6 months of life, how responsible is it to rely on marketimg materials to make that choice? Advertising is by its nature NOT impartial. It scares me that people rely more on advertising than independent research to make such an important choice.

Safety, piglet, I don't think there's a formula company conspiracy in the UK media on this. I actually think that a lot of journalists are not very imaginative and rehash the same old arguments that relate to women in the UK, because it's easier to write and research. Which is really bloody annoying because I'm sick of the FF guilt/breastapo articles. I want some actual analysis from some good journos (Economist?) of what is practically being done to curb dodgy formula marketing practices.

And in this country I think shit post natal care does as much as advertising to drive women towards using formula. But I still think the advertising needs to go! One of my best mates chose Aptamil

I think we all agree that the WHO Marketing rules need to be updated!

On a humorous note re Boots advantage points. When I went to buy my first batch of formula when DS was 2 weeks old, DH said "go and get it from Boots. At least you can get the points and then buy something nice to make yourself feel better later" (ie about not bf). I came back later a bit forlorn saying "sniff... I can't get points on formula... It's not fair, I was going to buy a Sanctuary Face mask..." Of course I completely agree you shouldn't get points but it's hilarious now when I think back

Argh what happened there. My mate chose Aptamil because she fell for the "it's the same as breastmilk" and she's a nurse!

I use Aptamil cos it's what everyone I know uses, and C&G is always out of bloody stock at my Tesco. SMA makes DS smell like peanuts

I don't understand why those people who make the most noise about being made to feel guilty also tend to be the ones insisting that there are no significant benefits attached to breastfeeding anyway.

Possibly because (if they're like me) when it's not as easy and carefree as you got sold during pregnancy, you investigate if formula is as bad as is insinuated. Turns out it really isn't.

I don't doubt that there are significant benefits to bf, not at all, I really hope I can bf DC2 for that reason. But having reviewed the evidence (ok my scientist DH reviewed the major studies) I don't think they're as big as lots of other things eg healthy food in the home, supportive parents etc. But of course you want to do it if you can.

shag uhuh...tis indeed odd.

It's like:
I made an informed choice.
There is no real difference.
I am doing the best for my baby.
No you can't put the information about risks on the packet because it will make me feel guilty.

Soooo...you don't want to see the same data you made your informed choice on, and you did the best thing for your baby but you feel guilty?

riiight.....and this special brand of headfuckery is the problem of people losing babies year in year out in the developing world because?

the journalists mught not be part of the conspiracy, but the big Swiss company has a huge marketing budget and knows all the right people to influence.

TV, newspapers and magazines make their profits from the adverts.

In the days of Apartheid, SA embassies and press offices throughout the world were trained to give interviews dismissing opposition "A few students closing their bank accounts? Keep politics out of sport" "we have equality, but it's different. These people are not yet ready, but as soon as they are..."

and then swiftly throw in the diversion "What about Racial Segregation in America? They have far more hatred and violence than in my peaceful little country. And world poverty and hunger are far more pressing problems, you should be focussing on those. I don't believe the internal problems in my country are as important as the situatation in X (there's always a war somewhere). Why isn't your paper interested in the latest scheme to wipe out Polio in the third world?"

ICBINEG - why do you want warnings on the formula in this country??? I agree about the dangers in developing countries - but why this country ????

I am just generally in favour of things you buy telling you the risks of using them.

I don't really see why a food is different to a drug in this respect. I like my food to tell me if it has peanuts in it, or milk, or horse meat etc.

I like that my food tells me how much of it I should think about eating (traffic lights etc)

I like to make an informed decision about what I put in my body. I would like it even more on things I intend to put in my child's body.

Formula companies are always 'improving' the formula and adding different synthetic compounds. I would like to know that they tested those for adverse side effects and that the rates of said side effects are listed on the packet as they would be for drugs.

I don't at all like that they bunged in some extra iron (in a fantastically non-bioavailable form) for reasons known best to themselves and did very little or no testing to see if that had adverse affects on children eating the stuff as there main source of nutrition.

"I don't doubt that there are significant benefits to bf"

Like what?

And if someone says they think breastfeeding is important are they implying they think it's more important than good parenting, or a healthy weaning diet, or loving parents? Because I don't know any breastfeeding advocates who say or imply that breastfeeding is more important than these things.

I don't understand why someone always has to accuse bf advocates of prioritising the value of breastfeeding above EVERY other aspect of parenting, when it's so obviously NOT the most important thing.

Oh hang on, it's a 'straw man' argument isn't it? Misrepresent the other person's argument and then attack it as false? This happens all the time in relation to this issue. 'Formula isn't 'evil'!' Err, no. Nobody's saying it is. But in shouting that it's not 'evil' you're implying that someone else is making the case that it is. When actually nobody attaches any moral notions to formula itself, only the way it's sold.

Labels on packaging in the UK is an irrelevance to the serious problem of third-world infant mortality.

indeed.

And arguing about them is even more of an irrelevance.

ICBINEG there is an ingredient list on formula so,people can see what is in it?

Shagmundfreud - I think some BF mums do look down on BF mums and that is why you get the arguments -- and if you look closely at some of the arguments on here people are saying that even in this country it is 'dangerous' or can be to give your child FF -

This therefore implies you are giving your child something that can be harmful for them ----