Formula Industry
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Marketing of breastmilk substitutes
The baby formula industry boasts one of the greatest marketing successes of all time. A lot of people spend a lot of money for an inferior substance that, depending on your living conditions, can be a death sentence for your baby, or, if your lucky enough to have all the resources you need, it can just mean that your baby will get sick a lot more often, will suffer from more allergies and a higher risk of cancer, and will not develop her or his maximum intellectual potential. All this while the superior substance that provides optimal growth of body and brain, that protects the baby from disease and allergy, that reduces the chances that the child will be abused, that furthermore protects the mother from cancer and osteoporosis is practically for free. Why is it that people spend so much money on a substance they not only do not need, but may actually harm their baby? This page focuses on marketing of breastmilk substitutes in industrialized countries where income levels are high enough that most families can afford to buy sufficient formula for their babies, where most families have access to clean water and heat so they can feed their baby sterile formula, where there is reasonable access to health care so the increased risk of infection that a bottle-fed baby is not necessarily a death sentence. You'll see that formula marketing in industrialized countries is truly appalling. But it is much worse in the third world, where WHO and UNICEF estimate that one to one and a half million babies die every year because they were not breastfed. See the relevant page for more information on this. Through years of advertising and close relations with the medical profession, the baby formula industry has created a bottle-feeding culture. The Western attitude towards the female breast as an exclusively sexual object has also contributed to this Most people believe that bottle-feeding is just as good as breastfeeding, if not better; this view is promoted not just by advertisement, but also (still) by the medical profession, and even by authors of some books and videos that supposedly encourage mothers to breastfeed their babies. The truth is of course very different. What is amazing is that people who raise cattle or dogs or other animals know very well that there is no adequate substitute for mother's milk. Somehow, the baby food industry has duped us into believing that the same is not true for human babies. The bottle-feeding culture we live in makes a woman who breastfeeds her baby in public feel awkward. Everyone accepts bottle-feeding, but breastfeeding is considered shameful. Here are some specific examples of advertising tricks used by the baby formula industry: Many manufacturers supply pediatricians and hospitals with free samples of their products, which are then given to new mothers. A mother who receives a free formula sample from her hospital or doctor thinks that the hospital or doctor endorses the product. Baby formula companies produce books and videos that allegedly provide information on breastfeeding. Those books and videos are often bundled with formula samples or discount coupons. They often contain a lot of advertisements for the company's product as well. Furthermore, many of these books and videos show exhausted, half-naked women breastfeeding a baby in a dark room, all alone. Formula ads in the same book or video show a well-dressed, smiling woman bottle-feeding a chubby baby in pleasant surroundings. When the international code of formula marketing was adopted, formula companies came up with an amazing gimmick. The code prohibits pictures of babies (or other images idealizing bottle-feeding) on containers of breastmilk substitutes. Soon after the code was adopted, formula companies invented a new product called a "follow-up formula". That product is supposed to be given to babies who have been weaned. As such, the formula companies argue, this product is not a breastmilk substitute, and is therefore immune from the Code. They put pictures of babies on containers for this product, which of course has the same name as their regular formula. What's more, they encourage early weaning by advertising this product for babies of a ridiculously young age (three months is common). What's more, many companies market so-called weaning cereals, and recommend these for babies that are too young to be weaned from the breast. So much for marketing strategies. No one can deny that most people believe that bottle-feeding is just as good as breastfeeding, or at least nearly as good. By now, it is clear that breastmilk is superior to artificial baby milks in just about any imaginable way, and its mode of delivery is also conducive to better parenting. However, people who produce breastmilk (that is, women) have no power to relentlessly promote it the way formula companies promote their inferior substitute. |