Infant formula company is at it again...a challenge for Nick Clegg

When you go abroad, it's common to see Nestle infant formula in the supermarkets, but it's not sold here. Sadly, the controversial company has now acquired Wyeth who manufacture the SMA brand.

That company has been sending out e-mails to mothers of 4 week old babies which are clearly designed to market their products. The Baby Feeding Law Group has identified three key areas where it believes that the law on marketing breast milk substitutes has been broken. They also have the cheek to suggest that a new fat in their milk is closer to breastmilk. That's like saying a hairbrush has become closer to being like a sheep's liver.

If mums are having issues with breastfeeding at four weeks, there are plenty organisations, like La Leche League and the NCT who can offer support. In my experience, every breastfeeding problem has a breastfeeding solution - which isn't likely to be offered by a formula company's so called "careline". What a mum who's struggling needs is expert help,who doesn't have a commercial interest in them taking a particular course of action.

Nick Clegg is always talking about increasing people's life chances and of the disparity in life expectancy between rich and poor areas. With evidence suggesting that a poor breastfed baby has better long term health than an affluent formula fed one, as I wrote for Lib Dem Voice last year, surely our leadershould be pushing for enforcement and extension of the current law. Incorporating the International Code on the marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes into UK law is a crucial strand to improving our lamentable breastfeeding rates in poorer areas along with providing easily accessible, knowlegable support and information through peer support programmes and the like.

I suspect the Government, which is always going on about reducing the regulation on business, will not be up for picking a fight with massive corporate giants on this. These companies have got away with it for so long and would not react well to being told brought into line. Nick Clegg talks about the scourge of vested interests in politics and business and he really needs to push for action on this. I doubt he'd get much backing, after all Labour made virtually no progress on this in all the years they were in power, but he needs to try it.

Baby Milk Action's latest campaign is to get formula companies to stop spending money on inappropriate and illegal marketing measures and use the money saved to reduce the cost of their already overpriced product. Sign their petition here. 

The Folly of Follow-on Formula

My enjoyment of Popstar to Opera Star was rudely interrupted by an advertisement I hadn't seen before for a brand of Follow-on formula which had me seething.

Follow-on milk is to my mind an invention of the Prince of Darkness himself. Babies simply don't need their systems assaulted by loads of iron that they can't deal with efficently.

The main point of the advert was to make us think that our babies desperately need iron. How in the name of the wee man we manaaged to survive successfully as a species for thousands of years without artificial baby milk containing iron supplements is beyond me!

The idea that babies need iron supplements, whether they are fed human or formula milk is ridiculous. Most full term healthy babies will get enough iron from their normal diet. What is particularly scurrilous about follow on milk is that it gives parents a false impression that their baby is somehow going to need extra iron that their milk can't give.

Sure, there's not a lot of iron in human milk, but, nature, being clever like it is, provides it in a form which is easily absorbed by the baby's system. In fact, around half of the iron in human milk is easily and unobtrusively absorbed by the baby. Follow on formula is the equivalent of weeding your window box with a bulldozer. It marches in with its tackety boots into the baby's system, and only around 4% of the iron it contains is actually absorbed. If a baby is receiving human milk as well as the follow on formula milk, the good work the human milk does is undermined by the onslaught of the formula. The proteins which bind iron in the baby's gut are overwhelmed and can't work as well.

Generations of babies have survived without this stuff, and a hundred or two hundred years ago, their lives were a lot more physically active than our's.

So what's the attraction to the manufacturers of this stuff? Well, the strict rules on the marketing of breast milk substitutes don't apply to them. That's why you see the adverts with the rosy cheeked happy looking babies which are banned for first stage formula milks. That's why you see follow on milk on promotions in the supermarket.

I think that follow on milk is nothing more than a blatant ploy by artificial baby milk producers to get round the marketing code. I've been concerned to hear health professionals advocating its use and even recommending that it replaces breastfeeding. I would say to any mum who is told this and is worried by it to ask for her baby's iron levels to be tested and not to give iron supplments of any kind unless there is a clinical reason for doing so. Don't be fooled by clever marketing.

If you're interested in any of the issues around the marketing of infant formulas, have a look at the Baby Milk Action website. It has a specific section on follow on milk here.

An Eggstra Easter treat from Jo Swinson MP

Happy Easter to all of you! I'm sure your world is less full of rabbits, chocolate eggs and fluffy chicks than mine is at the moment, but however you are spending your Easter Day, I hope you enjoy it.

I thought you might like to see, courtesy of Lib Dem Voice, the results of Jo Swinson's survey on Easter Egg packaging. Jo has long been campaigning against excess packaging and it appears that she has had some success in persuading manufacturers to celebrate this festival in a more sustainable way.

I hope she'll be able to use her powers of persuasion on Nestle to encourage them to comply with the International Code on the Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes. You can find out information on how they fall short on the excellent Baby Milk Action website.

Jo herself wouldn't, sadly, have been able to consume most of the eggs herself as she has a very severe nut allergy. I wonder if her lucky staff helped her polish them off or, as LDV suggested, Mark Pack got in on the act!

Quick update to point out that this story has been picked up by this site and Jo is described as a Government leader. If only - she'd do a better job than the current incumbents, that's for sure:-)

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