Jim: “Ok advertising team, let’s see if we can use the fact that Jordan’s formula feeding her baby to get our formula advertised as much as possible. I think she’s due to do a shoot with OK! magazine. I’ve got contacts there - let’s start by getting an advert in right next to the article”
Anna: “But we’d be breaking the law if we put in an infant milk advert as it’s in the UK. At least we can get in a follow-on formula ad - we know from research that most mothers don’t distinguish between follow-on formula and first milk when it comes to advertising.”
Jim: “Is there anything else we could do, I wonder? Does Jordan use SMA?”
Dan: “Well she will if we send her some free samples! Let’s do that.”
Susan: “Great idea! Hang on, don’t you have contacts at OK!, Jim?”
Jim: “Yes - my girlfriend knows someone big on the features team”
Susan: “Do you think she’d be able to get them to help us out a bit? If we helped them *wink, wink*, if you know what I mean!”
Jim: “I’m sure they would…what were you thinking?”
Susan: “Well, if we got them to photograph Jordan lovingly bottle-feeding her baby, maybe they could make sure that the bottle was a ready-made SMA one - just a bit of subtle product placement. Then if the follow-on formula ad was on the next page…voila!”
Anna: “That’s a fantastic idea. And I’m pretty certain it doesn’t break the UK law - highly unethical, but who cares about that? Jordan unofficially promoting us could really give usa boost in the market.”
Dan: “Let’s hope that somewhere in the article she explains her reason for not breastfeeding - the more people glamourising formula feeding the better for us. And then all the readers will be automatically pointed to us as a company.”
Jim: “Let’s go for it - product placement in the photos, see if we can get the interviewer to lead Jordan a bit on the baby-feeding issue, and a huge full-page follow-on formula ad right next to the feature. Well done team!”
*This transcript is purely fictional and simply a guess at how SMA came up with the appallingly unethical formula promotion in the latest OK! Magazine. It could have happened in many other ways. Baby Milk Action are asking questions to find out whether Katie Price was involved or even aware, or how involved OK! Magazine were. See Mike Brady’s blog for more details.*
Now here is a government consultation that I know enough about to be able to produce a more thorough response than I managed for the HE one recently! The Government are reviewing UK Law on the marketing of breastmilk substitutes. Please watch this brilliant cartoon to see why this is so important to every mother and baby, not just breastfeeding ones.
The new regulations are not close enough to the World Health Organisation International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and, when I get a chance I’ll be recording here, and telling the Government in my response to the consultation, exactly why!
Edited to add: I can’t get the banner to work as a link to the website so here’s the link itself: http://www.babymilkaction.org/action/savephp/animation_php.html
OK magazine feature on the two of them with their new baby. Photo of Jordan bottle feeding her little girl. Peter Andre’s comment: “Junior didn’t breastfeed and he’s turned out fine.” A comment oft-heard but one along the same lines as “I never sat in a car seat as a baby and I turned out fine.” Why do some people find the concept of ’increased risk’ so difficult to understand? It doesn’t mean ‘if you do a then b will definitely happen’, it means ‘if you do a, then b is more likely to happen’. Of course the other thing with breastfeeding (and other things one does/eats as a baby/child) is that, while little Junior might be fine now, there are problems he is more likely to encounter in later life. I hate when I hear the ‘I/he/she turned out fine’ argument for not breastfeeding - it’s so daft! But hurrah! for Jordan, who is blatantly honest and just says “I don’t want a baby drinking from me. The thought of it makes me feel really funny. I think only a certain person could handle my knockers.” Yes, I feel sad that this woman’s life experiences so far have led her to see her breasts in this way, and only in this way, but she is showing that, in a way, she is empowered - she is confident enough to admit she doesn’t want to do it, and won’t feel guilty for her decision because it’s her decision and hasn’t been made for her by circumstances.
I often come across the belief that my passion for breastfeeding is just that - a passion, an interest, something I’ve enjoyed. But it’s not. It’s so much more than that. Breastfeeding is a desperately important social, political and economical issue and not enough people understand that. There are two good books I’d recommend people to read to illustrate this - The Politics of Breastfeeding by Gabrielle Palmer and Milk, Money and Madness by Naomi Baumslag (there are others on the subject but these, in my opinion, are the most succinct), but, if you don’t have time to read whole books, try this Guardian article for starters.
Try this:
Twenty-five years ago, when Dr Iqbal Kabir first came to work at this [diarrhoea hospital in Bangladesh], small babies were almost unknown as patients. Today, he says, infants make up as many as 70% of admissions.
The reason? Kabir shakes his head, and points to a poster on the wall above Eti’s bed. The same poster is displayed, many times, around the ward. It shows a baby’s bottle, with a big cross drawn heavily through it. The message is clear. “Bottlefeeding is harmful,” says Kabir. “Because bottlefed babies get diarrhoea, since their formula is mixed with dirty water and since their bottles are not sterile. Do you know how many breastfed babies are admitted here with diarrhoea? The number is almost zero.”
Or:
“The [artificial baby milk company] reps are very aggressive - there are three or four companies, and they come in every two weeks or so,” he says. “Their main aim is to recommend their product. Sometimes they bring gifts - Nestlé brought me a big cake at new year. Some companies give things like pens and notebooks, with their brand name on them. They try very hard - even though they know I am not interested, that I always recommend breastfeeding, still they come.”
Or:
“Nur has been fed on Lactogen [made by Nestle] from the outset, but his formula, she says, costs her and her husband Gias, who works in a mustard-dyeing factory, around 800 taka (£2) a week. And if that doesn’t sound much, set it against the fact that Gias earns only £6 a week. “We can’t afford it at all,” says Happi, shaking her head. “The milk uses up all our money.”
Or:
According to Save the Children’s report, infant mortality in Bangladesh alone could be cut by almost a third - saving the lives of 314 children every day - if breastfeeding rates were improved.
So it’s not just a hobby, it’s not just a whim of mine to support breastfeeding - IT SAVES LIVES!!! That’s why I’m passionate about it.
I dislike Breastfeeding Awareness Week (BFAW) for several reasons, believe it or not. One of the reasons is the sudden emergence of millions of newspaper articles like this one in the Mail on Sunday. The authors bemoan the way that the DoH and breastfeeding organisations ‘force’ women to breastfeed but the truth is that these mothers’ sad stories have nothing to do with the relentless pushing of breastfeeding by the DoH and everything to do with the appalling level of support from the NHS. The NCT, LLL and Unicef are trying to improve that support by trying to provide education for NHS Health Professionals (training that is, appallingly, not officially a part of midwifery or health visitor training!) and by providing highly trained Breastfeeding Counsellors and Supporters who volunteer their time to help women let down by their care-givers. These articles just attack the only people available for skilled breastfeeding support when they ought to be attacking the government for pushing the ‘breast is best’ message (a slogan that is disliked and never used by most BFCs) without providing the necessary support for it.
The other reason I don’t like BFAW is, as you may have gathered from the above, is because I totally disagree with breastfeeding promotion. What we should be working towards is protecting breastfeeding, not promoting it. Protection of breastfeeding will help more women succeed in their choice to breastfeed, which will result in mothers feeling more empowered and believing in their ability to nurture their own babies themselves. More women succeeding at breastfeeding means more breastfeeding being visible which will hopefully lead to a cultural change of seeing breastfeeding as more the norm. Stopping promoting breastfeeding so heavily will also help the allay some of the negative feelings of guilt many mothers have when they stop breastfeeding (which is usually because of not having enough support, not out of choice - statistics suggest that a whopping 90% of mothers who give up breastfeeding do so sooner than they would have wanted! In my (limited, I admit!) experience, women who give up because they actually *want* to, not because they feel they have no choice, do not feel guilty about their decision). Protection of breastfeeding, in my opinion, involves everything the Breastfeeding Manifesto endorses. If you agree with me, please pledge your support by signing up yourself and by contacting your MP to ask them to do the same.
While I’m at it, I’d just like to say that I am truly shocked by the above article author’s description of her NCT Breastfeeding Workshop. No BFC I know would have even asked whether or not the parents were bfed, let alone asked such direct and offensive questions of a bottle-fed person…I wonder where that comment has come from? I’m sure she’s not lying, but I am well aware that sometimes strong feelings about a subject can warp one’s understanding of what someone’s saying - I hope that’s the right explanation!
There is a charity task-force in the US set up to make sure that babies of disadavantaged mothers get the “the food to make it through their infancy healthy and happy”. Fantastic! They’re going to sponsor breastfeeding counsellors and supporters to help these mothers breastfeed their babies! Oh…no…I’ve got it wrong…they’re going to raise money to buy them formula milk! Of course! That’s obviously the best way to “make an impact on the lives of single mothers in the state of Wisconsin” - these “mothers will be able to sleep soundly knowing their newborn children will receive the formula they need to be healthy”. 
The FSA have told artificial baby milk manufaturers that they are not allowed to put claims on their packaging that make the contents sound wonderful: Daily Mail article. What I wish is that every man and woman could read ‘The Politics of Breastfeeding’ and/or ‘Breastfeeding Matters’, and/or ‘Milk, Money and Madness’. It’s clear from some of the comments in response to this article, and from talking to everyone I know, that people really see breastfeeding as just a parenting choice, just like whether to use a travel system or a pram. But it’s so much more important than that - it’s not only important to the physical health of the mother and her baby/ies, but also the psychological health and, on top of all that, breastfeeding is a feminist issue in Western cultures, and a huge political issue worldwide. Breastfeeding campaigners are not, on the whole, trying to stop informed choice, or to interefere with people’s parenting choices, but trying to stop the artificial baby milk manufacturers from doing it! Maybe one day I’ll write a huge long post about this subject, but I’m working on the national NCT breastfeeding helpline this morning and may have to leap up at any moment to help a woman deal with the disasterous situation today’s mothers are in - being told to breastfeed but not helped to do so by her care-givers, and enticed away from it all by the baby milk manufacturers who have succeeded in making many mothers think that artificial baby milk is as good as breastmilk
I’m going to be working as the BFC at one of our new local BF Peer Support groups and I’m so excited about it! Yes, I’m getting paid for it, which is wonderful, but the funding is not secure after March so I may not get paid for long but I don’t care - I just want to be working officially as a BFC and I can’t wait. I’m starting officially on the 27th, but am filling in for the BfN Trainee Supporter who’s been attending up until now tomorrow, and next week we’ll both be going for a sort of ‘hand-over’.
I’ve been working on the NCT Breastfeeding Helpline a lot, which I’m really enjoying. We’re allowed to do up to 30 hours a month and I started out doing 2 hours in the evenings, but listening for 2 hours is hard work, so I’ve changed it to doing 1 hour most evenings and the odd hour in the morning when DH is off work and it’s going really well.
We’re changing our lives a bit at the moment - trying to get the girls to have a ‘bedtime’ is getting more and more stressful, so we’ve decided to give up. We have enjoyed our period of having evenings to ourselves, but it’s really not worth the battle we’re having to endure at the moment in order to get an hour in front of the tv (as that’s all we have the energy for by that point!). We’re going to just play, play, play with the girls all evening until we all go to bed together…maybe they’ll decide they want a ‘bedtime’ again in the future, but for now, we’re going to enjoy our family and put our ‘time to ourselves’ to one side for a bit.
Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail continue to be a delightful trio of sisters - we are very much enjoying being the parents of three and are finding it a whole lot easier than when Mopsy was born. We seem to be lucky enough to be in the group of parents who can report that the impact of the third child is much, much less than the impact of the second.
People know me too well - I’ve been alerted to this story by no less than three people!!! However, it is ‘old’ news to me - I already am the proud owner of two knitted breasts. One is a caucasian skin colour, the other is blue and navy! My friend (another student BFC) has one that has a very unfortunately red nipple - ?very sore, ?thrush - who knows! I certainly wouldn’t want to use it with real life mothers - way too scary looking LOL!
I remember going through these feelings when I was still feeding Flopsy, and I’m going through them again now. Breastfeeding Mopsy is irritating me a lot at the moment, both physically and emotionally. I am so tired of hearing her going “yakyak” (her word for breastfeeding - don’t ask how she thought of it!) all day long (and even in her sleep!) and I would dearly love to be not breastfeeding her right now. But do I want her to wean? No, I don’t think I do, as she clearly still needs it. It’s also the quickest way to help her through any meltdowns, hurts, bad dreams etc. etc. I do love breastfeeding her when she’s sleeping - for some reason it’s not half so irritating physically, and it’s warm, dark and cosy and very, very special. In the day time it’s a completely different story, though. She gets very upset when I refuse, although occasionally she’s happy to have her feeds limited to just a few seconds. I just need to let off steam about how maddening it is right now. I just want to feed Cotton-tail, and I guess that’s my instincts kicking in - I need to protect my newborn! I know I felt like this with Flopsy, and I also know that I got through it. However, I continued to experience more and more episodes where I found breastfeeding her annoying, right up until she weaned - I thought of it in the end as the beginning of a two-way weaning process ie. we both started the nursing relationship together, and we both ended it together. I guess, thinking about how nature works, if mothers adored breastfeeding the whole time, there would be little or no incentive for them to help their little ones to wean - it’s probably no coincidence that it commonly becomes irritating for mothers to breastfeed at approximately the same time as toddlers start to become ready to break away from that part of their babyhood. Sometimes Mopsy gets over her distress at not being allowed to feed very quickly, at other times she really does get beside herself. I could really do with devising a strategy to deal with this. When I weaned Flopsy, I always fed her if she got beside herself with distress at not being allowed to feed, but it rarely happened so I assumed from this that she was probably emotionally able to deal with weaning. Maybe the fact that Mopsy only sometimes gets this distressed suggests that she’s near that point herself…? Maybe just that thought might keep me going…? The situation’s not helped by the knowledge that having a new baby sister is going to make Mopsy’s need for breastfeeding much greater - she needs to know she’s still my baby - so I don’t want to actually wean her completely yet. Tandem nursing can be a wonderful thing, but it can be the total opposite at times as well! However, I guess if I weren’t still feeding Mopsy, she’d be doing other things that may make my life difficult - at least breastfeeding is a pretty easy thing to do, as long as I can get over the irritation of it! Much easier than dealing with meltdowns or other challenging toddler behaviour like hitting/biting etc.!
