Underhand tactics - formula companies

[Blah11]

I wish my baby could read, he's due a nap and this thread would most certainly send him to sleep. The last 20 pages or so are just going round and round in circles.

That's so rude. No one is forcing you to be in here and read it

No it's not. If I didn't sit here and read it I wouldn't be able to come to the conclusion that its going round in circles, would I?

Yet you're still reading it

 

[Blah11]

To the ladies who like to tell us FF's over and over again that formula in inferior are you as passionate about only feeding home grown organic produce and home cooked meals.

Organic produce is free from chemicals and home grown food has not been treated for transport so is therefore fresher and again chemical free so the much better option. Non Organic and imported food is therefore the 'inferior' option. Will you only feed your LO home cooked meals from said organic produce??

Just interested!........

Formula is made from cows milk.. for baby cows. I won't feed my LO organic ALL the time although I do try but I won't be feeding my baby grass either.

What a stupid comparison.

 

[AppleBlossom]

To the ladies who like to tell us FF's over and over again that formula in inferior are you as passionate about only feeding home grown organic produce and home cooked meals.

Organic produce is free from chemicals and home grown food has not been treated for transport so is therefore fresher and again chemical free so the much better option. Non Organic and imported food is therefore the 'inferior' option. Will you only feed your LO home cooked meals from said organic produce??

Just interested!........

Formula is made from cows milk.. for baby cows. I won't feed my LO organic ALL the time although I do try but I won't be feeding my baby grass either.

What a stupid comparison.

I think it's a fair comparison based on what some others have said. Breastmilk is nutritionally best for your child and the thought of using formula is just non-sensical. Organic, fresh produce is nutritionally best for your child yet you will still often give them processed meat or a bag of crisps. To me that seems a bit hypocritical. I think that's what she meant by that anyway

 

[BlackBerry25]

I think its a fair comparison.

With it being banned, it is like people are comparing formula to cigarettes. Fast food is allowed to be advertised, and formula is nothing comparable in crap to fast food or cigarettes.

 

[Dragonfly]

To the ladies who like to tell us FF's over and over again that formula in inferior are you as passionate about only feeding home grown organic produce and home cooked meals.

Organic produce is free from chemicals and home grown food has not been treated for transport so is therefore fresher and again chemical free so the much better option. Non Organic and imported food is therefore the 'inferior' option. Will you only feed your LO home cooked meals from said organic produce??

Just interested!........

Formula is made from cows milk.. for baby cows. I won't feed my LO organic ALL the time although I do try but I won't be feeding my baby grass either.

What a stupid comparison.

To the ladies who like to tell us FF's over and over again that formula in inferior are you as passionate about only feeding home grown organic produce and home cooked meals.

Organic produce is free from chemicals and home grown food has not been treated for transport so is therefore fresher and again chemical free so the much better option. Non Organic and imported food is therefore the 'inferior' option. Will you only feed your LO home cooked meals from said organic produce??

Just interested!........

Formula is made from cows milk.. for baby cows. I won't feed my LO organic ALL the time although I do try but I won't be feeding my baby grass either.

What a stupid comparison.

I think it's a fair comparison based on what some others have said. Breastmilk is nutritionally best for your child and the thought of using formula is just non-sensical. Organic, fresh produce is nutritionally best for your child yet you will still often give them processed meat or a bag of crisps. To me that seems a bit hypocritical. I think that's what she meant by that anyway

how do you know she gives her child processed meat and crisps? I dont even eat processed meat will cook a chicken though to go with the spuds I dug up. But we do need supermarkets for the likes of bog rolls.
just because you give your child something thats not organic may it be some type of treat when its a toddler dosnt mean it dosnt need breastmilk.

 

[trumpetbum]

I suppose the difference is that there is little evidence that not eating a purely organic diet has a negative impact on health in general.
Although I don't personally, particularly feel comfortable with the use of the word inferior when discussing an issue like this on a parenting forum, even though I know that sugar coated language within breastfeeding promotion, health literature and media has been identified by some sources as counter productive.

 

[AppleBlossom]

I'm not saying "If you intend to give your kids crisps in the future then you shouldn't breastfeed because it's hypocritical" and it was a general observation, not targeted at anyone particular in here. I know people who do/have BFed and their kids eat oven chips, frozen pizza and the like. All I'm saying is people are so quick to tell FFers that what they feed their children is artificial and I have read, not necessarily on here, that formula is "junk" before. But then many of them go ahead and feed their children foods full of artificial additives. So, I understand where the previous poster is coming from. Unless you intend to feed your children mainly fresh homegrown/organic food then you should you really tell FFers that what they feed their child is 'inferior'?

I know what I mean but it's not coming out right...

 

[freckleonear]

On topic, they are obviously providing a biased service. At the end of the day, their aim isn't to increase breastfeeding rates and reduce the amount of women buying their formula!

Most of their advice has to be accurate but at the same time they are in a position to subtly undermine breastfeeding by careful wording. Rather than instilling struggling mothers with confidence, statements like "Jaundice, a yellow skin tinge, can be a sign that your baby isn’t getting enough milk" will cause mothers to doubt their ability to produce enough milk. The breastfeeding problems listed on their site are all to do with pain (honestly, there are so many problems breastfeeding women face, couldn't they think of any others?) and they emphasise things like having to have a special healthy diet.

As far as the telephone helpline is concerned, I couldn't find out any details about the SMA one but I did find information about a similar one run by Nestle. Their helpline staff consists of only a few "breastfeeding experts" who receive very minimal training. The other helpline staff only had information for formula fed babies and had to put mothers on hold whilst they went to find breastfeeding details. The breastfeeding advice given was reasonable for basic problems but they often ended calls with a soft marketing pitch for formula.

Personally I think formula companies shouldn't provide any breastfeeding advice on their website or helplines and just offer links and telephone numbers of breastfeeding organisations instead. There is no shortage of excellent advice out there but it needs to be made more widely known.

In a related issue, formula companies are buying internet keywords like "breastfeeding", "breastfeeding help" and "breastfeeding support" and using them to display formula adverts. Now that is definitely underhand!

 

[Blah11]

AppleBlossom - you say that like breastmilk is only giving them energy or something? BF has loads of benefits way beyond what organic food gives us. They're not the same.

 

[AppleBlossom]

AppleBlossom - you say that like breastmilk is only giving them energy or something? BF has loads of benefits way beyond what organic food gives us. They're not the same.

I know what benefits BM has. I'm not saying they are both exactly the same. But organic food has more nutritional value than other foods. So in a sense they are similar to BM being better than FM.

 

[smokey]

On topic, they are obviously providing a biased service. At the end of the day, their aim isn't to increase breastfeeding rates and reduce the amount of women buying their formula!

Most of their advice has to be accurate but at the same time they are in a position to subtly undermine breastfeeding by careful wording. Rather than instilling struggling mothers with confidence, statements like "Jaundice, a yellow skin tinge, can be a sign that your baby isn’t getting enough milk" will cause mothers to doubt their ability to produce enough milk. The breastfeeding problems listed on their site are all to do with pain (honestly, there are so many problems breastfeeding women face, couldn't they think of any others?) and they emphasise things like having to have a special healthy diet.As far as the telephone helpline is concerned, I couldn't find out any details about the SMA one but I did find information about a similar one run by Nestle. Their helpline staff consists of only a few "breastfeeding experts" who receive very minimal training. The other helpline staff only had information for formula fed babies and had to put mothers on hold whilst they went to find breastfeeding details. The breastfeeding advice given was reasonable for basic problems but they often ended calls with a soft marketing pitch for formula.

Personally I think formula companies shouldn't provide any breastfeeding advice on their website or helplines and just offer links and telephone numbers of breastfeeding organisations instead. There is no shortage of excellent advice out there but it needs to be made more widely known.

In a related issue, formula companies are buying internet keywords like "breastfeeding", "breastfeeding help" and "breastfeeding support" and using them to display formula adverts. Now that is definitely underhand!

I have already mentioned this, they do not claim a special diet is needed only a healthy one, they give the same advice on this as the |NHS website and the goverment website.

 

[Rach27]

AppleBlossom - you say that like breastmilk is only giving them energy or something? BF has loads of benefits way beyond what organic food gives us. They're not the same.

.....But organic food has more nutritional value than other foods. So in a sense they are similar to BM being better than FM.

Does it? I came across a study which concludes there's no difference. I'll try to find it...ooop, here is it is!

We're still a tad offtopic here....

 

[AppleBlossom]

Yes, I was told by my MW when we discussed weaning. No doubt this will be another one of those "scientific studies" links that seem to keep cropping up in this thread. Think it's probably time for me to actually leave this now before I say something that gets me into trouble

 

[Rach27]

Yes, I was told by my MW when we discussed weaning. No doubt this will be another one of those "scientific studies" links that seem to keep cropping up in this thread. Think it's probably time for me to actually leave this now before I say something that gets me into trouble

It is expected when you (not you personally) make a statement that you back it up with some substance IMHO, yet, when you do, this is also somehow wrong

Can't do right for doing wrong hey!

FYI I grow all our own veg - mainly for budget purposes. I don't like the idea of big companies profiting from something I could do myself.

 

[Celesse]

https://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/funny-pictures-kittens-will-clean-up-milk.jpg

This thread lacks lolcats.

 

[BlackBerry25]

I'm not saying "If you intend to give your kids crisps in the future then you shouldn't breastfeed because it's hypocritical" and it was a general observation, not targeted at anyone particular in here. I know people who do/have BFed and their kids eat oven chips, frozen pizza and the like. All I'm saying is people are so quick to tell FFers that what they feed their children is artificial and I have read, not necessarily on here, that formula is "junk" before. But then many of them go ahead and feed their children foods full of artificial additives. So, I understand where the previous poster is coming from. Unless you intend to feed your children mainly fresh homegrown/organic food then you should you really tell FFers that what they feed their child is 'inferior'?

I know what I mean but it's not coming out right...

I get what you are saying.
If people are so concerned with the first 6 months (or however long you BF) are you as concerned with the rest of their eating lives? It is hilarious to me. I bet you all are feeding your children "artificial" food. THATS ALL OUR SOCIETY EATS THESE DAYS. Everything is pumped full of crap.

I love you and get you 100%!

 

[aliss]

As one of the 1-2% of women who could not BF, all I can say is that I wish more women would take the basic principles of lactivism which is the promotion of breastfeeding without the snide comments, insults, or guilt tripping.

This is a good lactivism article:
https://www.lactivistleanings.com/lactivism/they-should-feel-guilty-for-not-breastfeeding/

 

[BlackBerry25]

Also, to the person who was going to write a letter to whomever, reporting the ad.

Why do YOU personally care about this ad? It must offend YOU, not just because its "the law" What about it is really grinding your gears?

 

[aob1013]

I am concerned about what Leni eats, and i will be for the rests of his life and until it is out of my control i will make sure he eats nothing 'pumped full of crap' .. that's normal?

Also, i think the first year of a child's eating life is very important and giving them the right foods will set them up for life.

 

[BlackBerry25]

Exactly, just go ahead with your breastfeeding, help those with questions, etc. That is the best way to get breastfeeding knowledge out there.

If I wanted someone to eat how I eat, I would invite them over for dinner and make them supper. I wouldn't be putting down how they eat, if they obviously like it.