Should we regulate the way follow on milk is advertised?

When I recently heard of a petition to ban the advertising of follow on milk and breast milk substitutes to babies over six months, I initially thought it was Lactivist gone mad and a step too far from the pro breastfeeders.

Surely everyone has the right to make an informed choice about how they feed their baby? It’s personal preference isn’t it?

I couldn’t help but wonder if banning the advertising of follow on milks and formula was putting it in the same category as cigarettes? What next, will it have to be kept behind the counter and no longer available on the main supermarket shelves. Perhaps you could put the two together and people could ask for ‘20 B&H and a carton of your finest formula please.’

Parent Cath Jevon said; “My main beef with advertising formula is that it promotes the concept that breastfeeding is only for the first couple of months and then it’s portrayed as inadequate and you should be moving on.”

Lucie Mann, mum to two boys who were both breastfed added; “If you look at the TV adverts they portray a woman feeding on her own – she isn’t holding the baby in the correct position. When the adverts start to talk about follow on milk, the colours become brighter, the baby takes on a blue ‘ready break’ type hue and the whites of the eyes are enhanced to make them look bright and healthy. All of this gives the impression that your baby will be healthier if you use follow on milk.

“We are very lucky to have perceived choice in this country, but there really is no need for follow on milk. It was really only made when the ban of advertising formula came into place.”

Joining the debate is Corrine Suddes from Southampton; “Unfortunately, these giant companies are very astute in manipulating mothers to think ‘I’ve done this for six months, I’m weaning now so it doesn’t matter.’ Having researched it, there appears to be no strict guidelines and ingredients can change from batch to batch. It’s such a shame we can’t compete financially with these big companies to get the message across.”

Looking into this debate further, the call to action isn’t actually against the use of formula or bottle feeding parents, it’s not even about breastfeeding snobbery or Lactivist going too far. It’s actually about stopping the massive corporations playing on the vulnerability of parents and selling them a product which is not always necessary and doesn’t live up to its claims of being better for their health.

If you peruse the supermarket shelves you will find a plethora of follow on products starting at six months all the way up to two years plus. Where will it stop? Will they design a follow on milk for five year olds about to start school? As a parent guilted into buying a non essential product, how do you choose the best one for your baby, when you are bombarded with a wealth of mixed advertising messages from companies all struggling to get their share of the pie?

One group lobbying to stop the advertising of follow on milk and breast milk substitutes is Baby Milk Action. There slogan is, ‘Protecting Breastfeeding – Protecting babies fed on Formula’.

The non-profit organisation is far from anti-formula and is not trying to get formula banned; it wants tighter advertising controls and actually want to try and make it cheaper for mums to use without the massive mark up and ensure everyone has the right to accurate information about the products.

The latest success for Baby Milk Action is the cancellation of Wyeth’s SMA Baby Know How roadshows following protests.

Mike Brady, Campaign Coordinator told me; “Wyeth’s promotions of its SMA products benefit no-one but the company. Its advertising is misleading and does not provide objective information – the Advertising Standards Authority has upheld complaints in the past. It is designed to drive up prices by making idealising claims about formula, while those who purchase formula also end up funding the marketing campaigns. For example, Wyeth claims its SMA formula is the best, but that claim does not stand up to scrutiny. By law, all formula have to contain what is known to be necessary for infant nutrition. Unfortunately, companies are getting away with misleading promotion because the regulatory system in the UK is failing parents. It is shocking how little action is taken over company marketing, even when it is acknowledged they are breaking the marketing rules. It seems often that if they apologise after the event, that is the end of the matter.”

In 2009, the infant milk market in the UK was worth £263 million and had grown by 73% since 2004.

I can’t help but think though that if people choose to use a follow on milk then they will do so with or without the organisations advertising the products. Although at the moment there are mixed and perhaps incorrect messages, if we take it away, where will the people looking for information turn to? I have asked my health visitor before on advice of which formula I should choose and was told they had to be impartial and not recommend one particular product.

It seems a good compromise would be to not ban the adverts and instead make them adhere to stricter guidelines. Education is essential from an early age about feeding a baby and we must not forget, there are ladies out there who want to feed but can’t – where do they turn? Surely being a parent comes with enough guilt.

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• http://www.facebook.com/sarah.j.chitty Sarah Joanne Chitty

  I think there are too many people forcing their opinions on others as long as the baby is healthy and happy does it really matter wether its breast milk or ‘formula’ I’ve seen too many new mums become depressed because their made to feel like failures due to the pressure made on them to breast feed. People need to stop being so judgemental and leave woman that have happy healthy babies to get on with it regardless to whether its breast milk or ‘formula’

• Joseph Kelsall

  breastfeeding
  Blog webfeed
  [image: Julie Griffiths]
  Julie Griffiths, guest blogger
  *15.27, 19 August 2010*

  A poll of young women finds a third would shun breastfeeding because they want to avoid saggy boobs. For some, vanity is the overriding factor when weighing up the pros and cons of breastfeeding. It seems a sad indictment of young women’s priorities when a baby’s health comes second to their looks. Or is it?

  The survey of 1228 women between 18 and 25 follows the recent furore caused by model Gisele Bundchen who proclaimed there should be a law to force mothers to breastfeed their babies for at least six months.

  Half of the women polled by BabyChild.org.uk would fall foul of Gisele’s law because they had no plans to breastfeed.
  And 32% of them said the main reason was because they did not want to ‘ruin the look of their breasts’. Half of them were afraid of their partner finding them less attractive should this happen.

  Another 19% felt ‘uncomfortable’ about the thought of breastfeeding, a quarter of whom said they viewed their breasts as sexual and therefore deemed it inappropriate.

• Dr_Taylor

  I won’t sink to your level of sneering unpleasantness, but there is
  no need to get personal in this discussion. My Ph.D is a qualification,
  one I worked very hard to achieve. I never attested to having medical
  training, I never suggested that my title made me any more/less
  qualified to comment on the article or your post, and my posts did not
  attempt to cite medical information. In the UK, A physician’s title is
  actually a historical/traditional courtesy title, rather than strictly a
  qualification (it’s a term used to infer an educated person, as when
  the term was phrased, it was generally only physicians who were
  considered educated). It’s much more transparent in other countries,
  where there are distinct names for the academic title and the medical
  practitioner. Semantics I suppose, so take from that what you will, but
  after all that, I would suggest that it’s a little pathetic to try and
  diminish someone else’s achievements.

  Regarding the issue of breastfeeding, That’s great for your family,
  obviously breastfeeding works well for you & yours. Wouldn’t it have
  been awful if you were forced to adopt formula instead? You’d rightly
  feel opressed, and that it was no one’s business but yours. I imagine
  that’s how mothers who, often have no viable choice but to feed a child
  on formula (the vanity agruement is plain bull, as illustrated by many
  other comments here), would feel about the reverse situation. Inform,
  educate, advise, but don’t force your views agressivly. Let people make
  their own minds up.

• Dr_Taylor

  (Disquss seems to be behving again, pasted this in the appropriate slot).

  I think this reply is perhaps a little unnecessarily aggressive, no need to capitalise ‘YOU’ in quite such a finger pointing manner. I would implore you to keep things civil.

  I should have precluded my argument by stating that I am not
  medically trained, the Dr in my moniker is geoscience based. Apologies for any potentially misleading as a result of that. However, my post (below or above, wherever it ends up) was not based on any medical assersion, and did not state medical benefits for or against any method of infant nutrition. I was simply arguing that you can’t base policy or advice based on what wild animals do. Your response rightly stated that we are animals – of course! We could go around in circles with that all day. My point is that our civilisation is supposed to be flexible and cater for the needs of those which otherwise might suffer without options.

  You provided a series of studies which indicate that natural breast
  milk is less harmful and more nutritious than synthetic substitutes. I
  never actually stated a belief that contradicts that; as you said (in a
  more aggressive tone than necessary), I have not researched this topic in depth. However, there are several situations recounted in this thread which illustrate the need for alternatives which are not based on ‘vanity’. Alternatives may be a compromise, as most medicines and dietary supplements are, and come with their own risks – but as long as mothers are informed in an unbiased fashion, how can anyone have to right to force their own view upon them?

  I should end by fundamentally rejecting your suggestion that I am somehow ‘part of the counterfeit lobby’ and as such that me and my ilk are responsible for the misinformation of thousands of third world mothers – I have no personal, financial, or professional stakes in either side of the debate, and that is quite frankly a ridiculous and shrill accusation. I was, however, poisoned by salmonella-infected formula as a young child, which brought me rather close to an untimely demise, and somewhat stunted my
  growth (though I’m happier being short than dead, for all that!). But I would never support your manner of brow-beating and a campaign to take the choice away.

• Dr_Taylor

  Definitely a very sensible and empathic viewpoint…unfortunately that seems to be something of an oddity, seems many people love nothing more than standing in judgement of others from an ivory tower!

• And789

  Pity breastfeeding can’t bestow a pleasant personality.

• Joseph Kelsall

  Lfe’s too short to pussyfoot about!

• Dr_Taylor

  There’s a difference between being direct, and being unnecessarily rude and unpleasant. If life’s too short, why bother wasting that time putting someone else down?

• Daniel Morton

  Norway banned advertising of any formulas several years ago. As a result, 99% of mothers breast-feed whilst in hospital and 80% still breast feed 6 months later (compared to between 20% and 32% in the UK and US). As well as misinforming people, advertising works as a validation – “why would they advertise it if it wasn’t good for the child?” is the general response I encounter in my run-ins with new (and old) mums.

  Whilst individual problems do occur, anecdotes are not statistically relevant. If you believed even half of the “I couldn’t breastfeed because…” stories out there you’d extrapolate that the human race wouldn’t even be here! How the hell we functioned prior to the invention of formula is a mystery.

• Dr_Taylor

  I think that extrapolation is a little simplistic, and there are probably relavent statistics pertaining to problems with breastfeeding, perhaps related to
  e.g. premature birth (problems with reflex, or that the child had an extended period in an incubator). I don’t think the extrapolation back to a time without formula would spell out non-survival of the race, but could probably possibly form some aspect of the exponential population boom seen since the agricultural/industrial revolutions (and the technological and medical advances associated). (i.e. a series of medical advances reducing infant mortality).

  Before relatively recent medical advances, I suppose those premature children would simply have died, from one thing or another (i.e. lack of medical support, or lack of nutrition). Global infant mortality rates have gone from around 15.2% to 4.3% from 1950 to present day. Not saying that’s entirely due to formula of course, but it’s not improbably that some fraction of that statistic correlates.