I have posed questions both to Aptamil and Cow & Gate asking why they don't display the health risks of using their products on their tins/cartons as cigarette companies have to do. I have also asked why they don't print ALL of the ingredients on their tins/cartons. Suffice it to say that I have subsequently been blocked from both Aptamil and Cow & Gate pages on facebook. Whether this is due to the questions I was asking or because of the arguments that ensued from righteous (albeit rather ignorant) mothers, or both.
I have since taken steps in obtaining both UK health statistics and global health statistics on the use of infant formula as well as approaching someone about starting an international petition to have the law changed so that formula companies HAVE to print the risks of using their products on their tins. This could take YEARS to accomplish but if it saves just one baby's life, surely it is a very worthy cause?
In the wise words of the Alpha Parent, "breastfeeding should be EVERY baby's human right".
We need to educate those mothers that are too blinded by the cunning marketing web that has been spun around them. We need to re-educate the health professionals who offer formula as an easy alternative all too often. We need to impress upon mothers that they need to do their own research instead of just believing everything they hear. The government needs to spend more on breastfeeding and limit the amount that is spent advertising on formula. Unfortunately, I think there is a link somehow between governments and the formula companies, whether the formula companies sponsor politicians, or the government makes a hell of a profit on VAT income from the sale of formula I'm not sure. It could be both.
KNOWLEDGE is FREEDOM. We are all pulled into marketing traps every day of our lives. 60 years ago Camel cigarettes were advertised as the 'healthy' option of cigarettes. If such an advert displayed on our television screens these days, complaints would be made by the thousands to Ofcom et al. The same approach needs to be taken with formula. We need to be horrified that formula is marketed as 'healthy' or as an 'acceptable alternative' to breast milk.
The sad truth is that we are victimised and our health is compromised by formula. We are subjecting our babies to suffering from the day they are born to the day they die. It's not fair. We need to fight back! We need to prove to these people that we CAN think for ourselves, that we are HUMAN beings, not lab rats! No one can deny that formula has saved children's lives, but it was created for the sole use in cases of maternal death or physical inability to breastfeed. The formula companies got greedy so they sexualised breasts and made us doubt our own abilities as mothers. Why do women buy into the biggest lie, but not only that, the biggest lie run by MEN.
About Me
- backtobasicsmom
- Breastfeeding,co-sleeping, attachment parenting mother. Trying to save babies from unnecessary exposure to infant formula. Supporter of proper information distributed to mothers worldwide on the benefits of breastfeeding and the risks of infant formula. Doing everything possible to make the risks known!
Tuesday 17 April 2012
Monday 16 April 2012
What have we been fooled into doing to our children????
So after a long long think and much debating and arguing I have come to one conclusion. The formula industry is as evil and twisted and corrupt as the tobacco industry. They play a psychological money game with those in the health profession and in 3rd world countries they aggressively target mothers to use their products. AT WHAT COST??? At the cost of millions of little lives every year.
By no means am I having a rant about mothers choosing to formula feed. No no no. Mothers are led to believe by advertising and misplaced advice from health professionals that formula is just as good as breast milk. I've heard of so many stories of mothers who have been to see their family GP and being told that there are 'no nutritional benefits to breast milk after 6 months old'. W-T-F???? I wonder, does anyone know WHY they say this? I do. After reading an article from the Archives of Disease in Childhood, I know EXACTLY why these GP's say such things. Here is an extract from the Archives of Disease in Childhood which is an offshoot of the American National Library of medicine.
"It is now known that the use of infant formula instead of breast milk is one of the most important causes of preventable mortality in infancy world wide.1,2,3 However, there is growing evidence that this is not just an issue for poorer countries. Research in the United Kingdom has shown associations with increased morbidity,4,5 reduced later intelligence quotient (IQ),6 and increased risk of adult ill health,7 and a recent paper from the United States showed an association with excess infant mortality.8 This places the use of infant formula high among the avoidable risks to health to which children in the United Kingdom are exposed. Yet in the United Kingdom, breast feeding rates are stagnant, after encouraging rises in recent decades, and there is a clear social class disparity, which means that children in the poorest families, already facing multiple adversities, predominantly start life without the protective benefits of breast milk.9 Globally, breast feeding is also under threat, with signs of reverses in rates of exclusive breast feeding in many countries.10"
So from this we can see that despite the governments breastfeeding campaign mothers are not getting the proper support and information on breastfeeding. The government spent £729 011 on advertising breastfeeding in 2006/7 whereas the formula companies spent a staggering £7 626 847 in 2006/7 a 36% increase on the previous year. Who can blame mothers for choosing to formula feed when they are bombarded by more advertising on formula than they are on breastfeeding? We also have to take in the emotive factors that formula companies create with their consumers. "Their product kept my baby alive, I'll keep using it rather than try breastfeeding the next one". Only 2% of mothers aren't physically able to breastfeed according to WHO and the NHS. Mothers come up with all sorts of excuses about why they 'couldn't' breastfeed, not realising that with the help of a proper breastfeeding peer counsellor that they could have had a long and happy breastfeeding relationship with their child. Let us not forget about the sexualisation of breasts in Western society. Thanks to.... The formula companies!! Early advertisements of formula included images of breasts that successfully alienated the breast as the natural form of nutrition. Let us look at another excerpt from the above article.
"Infant formula manufacturers have a duty to their shareholders to maximise sales of their products, which by definition means minimising exposure of infants to breast milk. Hence while publicly stating their commitment to breast feeding, as required by law, IFMCs are, in fact profiting from the failure of breast feeding. With growing knowledge of the hazards of infant formula, manufacturers need to seek ever more sophisticated ways of promoting their products as scientific and safe. Any link with paediatricians or other health professional is thus likely to enhance their products' credibility and sales. IFMCs are therefore happy to provide funds from their advertising budgets to achieve this. There are three main ways by which IFMCs forge these links with paediatricians: through educational activities, support of a department or organisation, and funding of research.
By no means am I having a rant about mothers choosing to formula feed. No no no. Mothers are led to believe by advertising and misplaced advice from health professionals that formula is just as good as breast milk. I've heard of so many stories of mothers who have been to see their family GP and being told that there are 'no nutritional benefits to breast milk after 6 months old'. W-T-F???? I wonder, does anyone know WHY they say this? I do. After reading an article from the Archives of Disease in Childhood, I know EXACTLY why these GP's say such things. Here is an extract from the Archives of Disease in Childhood which is an offshoot of the American National Library of medicine.
"It is now known that the use of infant formula instead of breast milk is one of the most important causes of preventable mortality in infancy world wide.1,2,3 However, there is growing evidence that this is not just an issue for poorer countries. Research in the United Kingdom has shown associations with increased morbidity,4,5 reduced later intelligence quotient (IQ),6 and increased risk of adult ill health,7 and a recent paper from the United States showed an association with excess infant mortality.8 This places the use of infant formula high among the avoidable risks to health to which children in the United Kingdom are exposed. Yet in the United Kingdom, breast feeding rates are stagnant, after encouraging rises in recent decades, and there is a clear social class disparity, which means that children in the poorest families, already facing multiple adversities, predominantly start life without the protective benefits of breast milk.9 Globally, breast feeding is also under threat, with signs of reverses in rates of exclusive breast feeding in many countries.10"
So from this we can see that despite the governments breastfeeding campaign mothers are not getting the proper support and information on breastfeeding. The government spent £729 011 on advertising breastfeeding in 2006/7 whereas the formula companies spent a staggering £7 626 847 in 2006/7 a 36% increase on the previous year. Who can blame mothers for choosing to formula feed when they are bombarded by more advertising on formula than they are on breastfeeding? We also have to take in the emotive factors that formula companies create with their consumers. "Their product kept my baby alive, I'll keep using it rather than try breastfeeding the next one". Only 2% of mothers aren't physically able to breastfeed according to WHO and the NHS. Mothers come up with all sorts of excuses about why they 'couldn't' breastfeed, not realising that with the help of a proper breastfeeding peer counsellor that they could have had a long and happy breastfeeding relationship with their child. Let us not forget about the sexualisation of breasts in Western society. Thanks to.... The formula companies!! Early advertisements of formula included images of breasts that successfully alienated the breast as the natural form of nutrition. Let us look at another excerpt from the above article.
"Infant formula manufacturers have a duty to their shareholders to maximise sales of their products, which by definition means minimising exposure of infants to breast milk. Hence while publicly stating their commitment to breast feeding, as required by law, IFMCs are, in fact profiting from the failure of breast feeding. With growing knowledge of the hazards of infant formula, manufacturers need to seek ever more sophisticated ways of promoting their products as scientific and safe. Any link with paediatricians or other health professional is thus likely to enhance their products' credibility and sales. IFMCs are therefore happy to provide funds from their advertising budgets to achieve this. There are three main ways by which IFMCs forge these links with paediatricians: through educational activities, support of a department or organisation, and funding of research.
Sponsorship of an educational event promotes a company and its products at a number of levels. The firm's name is linked to that of the institution on widely distributed publicity, those attending the course receive material such as pens bearing the firm's logo, and all involved will then tend to have subtly enhanced respect for that company and their products. When companies fund clinical activity or support health related organisations, this also conveys an impression of the company as being “health giving” even if their products may cause net harm to children's health.
Research into formula milks, although ostensibly necessary, in fact serves an important role in promoting the use of infant formula, as the results are then used to enhance the impression of their “equivalence” to breast feeding, once compounds present in breast milk, such as “pre‐biotics”, are added. Every supposed enhancement of an infant formula, which EU law only requires be tested in trials of equivalence to other formulas, can then be advertised as making the formula “even closer to breast milk” even though there is no evidence that any such enhancements have actually increased the safety of formula. Paediatricians also tend to attach great significance to the role of IFMCs in developing specialist formulas, which may be useful for a tiny number of infants, without necessarily recognising that far more infants suffer because they were deprived of the protective benefits of breast milk by the use of that company's products."
Hmmm... A stunning insight into the corrupt psychological games that the formula industry plays on the government and pediatric science... What does this mean? It means that the afore mentioned GP will tell you that your breast milk is not enough for your child after the age of 6 months so they should be fed an artificial, substandard, potentially harmful alternative instead? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiight... Thanks I'll stick to breastfeeding my 18 month old child rather than risk his health with a product that has the potential to kill him at the age of 40. Lets look at another extract.
"If breast feeding, with all its benefits, is to be established as a majority activity, we paediatricians must learn to recognise the elaborate web woven around us by formula manufacturers, which currently ensures our goodwill and support for a product that we may acknowledge, but would mostly not wish to actively promote. Fifty years ago nearly everyone, including doctors, smoked and it was perceived to be a necessary and inescapable part of our culture. Now it is unimaginable that we would smoke in front of our patients or accept gifts from cigarette manufacturers. It is time for a similar shift to take place with respect to formula milk. Just because many mothers currently choose to bottle feed their infants and a tiny number of infants cannot be breast fed, it does not mean we should be seen to be endorsing a product that causes net damage to the health of children. The time has come for paediatricians to recognise the influence of IFMCs, shake off their silken chains, and become truly uncompromised advocates for breast feeding and against the hazards of formula milk."
Well at least SOMEONE knows something funny is going on right? But the problem is, how to inform the public? Mothers are very defensive about what choices they make when it comes to feeding their children. They don't WANT to know that they are feeding their child something that can cause child/adulthood cancer, diabetes, obesity, gastroentiritis, SIDS, respiratory illness, asthma, eczema etc etc etc.
Our responsibilities, not just as parents, but as human beings, is to expose this industry for what it really is. A corrupt, power-hungry, money making scheme that kills millions of babies every year. There need to be drastic changes in the medical profession and government attitudes towards infant formula. Midwives need to stop offering gift vouchers to those who can give out the most samples of formula in a day (yes! they do that!), doctors and scientists need to stop accepting 'funding' from these formula companies and need to study and promote breastfeeding more, laws should be changed with regards to infant formula.
My aim, my GLOBAL aim, is to have a law passed that formula companies display the health risks associated with the use of their products on their tins so that mothers can make an INFORMED decision at point of sale. Do I contact someone to help me breastfeed or do I buy this stuff and risk my child's health, both now and later on in life?
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