World Breastfeeding Week- The Politics of Infant Feeding

As my final post for this year's World Breastfeeding Week, I thought the politics of infant feeding is a worthy topic of discussion. When it comes to the "breast vs. bottle" this important issue seems to get pushed out of the spotlight except in most lactivist circles. (If you are wondering about the above picture, this was my most "dramatic" lactivist moment and is described at the end of this post.)

Since the 1970s, "Big Infant Formula" has been responsible for some of the most aggressive marketing campaigns for a product in America. The formula companies have managed to wrangle doctors and hospitals into promoting their particular brand of products in their maternity wards and offices through many various means, including informative literature mailing campaigns, "free" formula samples at check-out, "free" samples in the mail, and coupons and checks in the mail, among other means of product promotion. As the marketing tactics have become more aggressive, the cost of formula is on the rise and is becoming more and more unmanageable for parents as the years tick on. With each and every package of formula purchased, parents are funding these massive marketing schemes, as the cost of this marketing is passed on to them. Those "freebies" that so many become excited about are paid for by everybody who feeds their child formula and they do pay dearly for them over the first year of their child's life. The formula companies are not being "nice" or "generous" when they give hospitals "goodie bags" to hand out to mothers at discharge.

As if this were not disturbing enough, formula companies frequently purchase patient information from doctor's offices and hospitals so they can reach new and expectant mothers. This is a privacy violation and should not be occurring. When we seek medical care we should receive medical care, not become candidates for advertisements and product promotion! Our medical information should be remaining private, not being sold to this company or that. This selling of information becomes even more sinister at maternity ward discharge as the names of women who left the hospital breastfeeding are particular creme de la creme for formula marketing campaigns.

In the early days of motherhood, it is not an uncommon occurrence for a nursing mother to receive several FULL SIZE cans of formula from three or more formula companies. These packages will typically include two full size canisters of powdered formula and will come in a packaged labeled "A Gift for a Breastfeeding Mother". This package will include coupons of a large value for the product, along with literature that speaks some lip service to "breast is best" and will then highlight the "benefits" of formula feeding. The time period when these packages arrive is a delicate time in a nursing relationship; the time when a mother and baby are likely experiencing the worst problems, and studies have shown that these formula packages can and do sabotage breastfeeding relationships that may have been successful without this "easy option" being dangled in a moment of weakness. As the weeks and months past, high value formula coupons continue to be sent to mothers who left the hospital breastfeeding or indicate on surveys of certain large parenting websites that they are breastfeeding. Samples also continue to come, along with literature that speaks of how most women use formula and really hints that to be "normal", this mother must use formula as well.

The high value coupons that make their way into nursing mothers mailboxes almost never come the way of mothers who formula feed, despite the fact that these mothers could really utilize these coupons and are the ones funding these coupons with their hard earned money. With every formula purchase, these parents pay for breastfeeding parents to get rid of top dollar coupons and samples that they themselves could have really used!

In addition to these product campaigns, formula companies frequently pay for the only infant feeding & nutrition training that many pediatricians have. Medical schools do NOT cover general nutrition in any depth and certainly do not get into the nitty gritty of breastfeeding. Unless doctors have gone above and beyond the call of duty, they do NOT have the education or experience to advise parents of breastfeeding, nor do they typically have knowledge about particular formula brands and what sort of nutrition they provide. Pediatricians will usually promote whatever their pharmaceutical rep has told them to and left them with samples of. If a parent does not research infant nutrition themselves, speaking to their doctor is basically the blind leading the blind. This is not to say that doctors do not care about their patients by any means, but most are sorely lacking in nutrition knowledge and really should have been given this knowledge during medical school.

These serious issues are just brushing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the politics of infant feeding. There are many more problems that are worthy of researching and discussing including: the frequency of formula recalls, the fact that the majority of formulas are made with the two of the most highly allergenic foods (milk and soy) leaving children vulnerable to serious food allergies with no plans from Big Infant Formula to change, Nestlé's human rights abuses & formula campaigns in poor nations, how the WIC program is used to market formula, and many other issues. Whether a mother feeds her babies with breast or bottle, these issues do touch her life in ways she may not know. These problems hurt ALL of us. Feeding our babies should not be a "political" matter and should not be part of aggressive and controversial marketing campaigns, but just what they are: a normal part of parenting.

If anybody is interested in this subject further, the book "Milk, Money & Madness" by Naomi Baumslag is a fascinating read and a good place to start your research.

The Picture- When this situation came up, I just had to take a picture as I had heard "the stories", but was far too optimistic and naive to actually find them true; I wanted the small remembrance of my initiation to the world of hospital as marketing venue. :P The hospital where I gave birth to Peapod advised me that I could not be discharged without the formula diaper bag when I insisted that I did not need it and was not going to use. Knowing how dangerous formula access can be to breastfeeding, Sean and I placed the formula, coupons, and Similac literature in the trash at the hospital. It was a very good thing we did and that God helped us to make breastfeeding successful because they gave me two types of formula, with the instructions that I must use one in particular. The one they insisted I use when breastfeeding obviously failed was Similac Special Care Premature Infant Formula, the "ready feed" variety. Thankfully, I did not listen to their "advice" and instead trusted that my Heavenly Father would help me through, as this formula wound up being recalled several months ago since Similac neglected to put iron in it! Peapod would have went for almost seven months receiving no iron in her primary source of nutrition!! Hello anemia! :o(