What the WHO (World Health Organization) says:
“because of the hazards associated with using breast-milk substitutes, infant formula was no ordinary consumer product, but that, up to the age of four to six months, it should be treated more as a nutritional medicine that should be used with the advice and under the supervision of health workers. The report also noted that, even seen from the viewpoint of fostering competition, direct advertising to mothers with infants in the first four to six months of life was singularly inappropriate because:
· advertising infant formula as a substitute for breast milk competes unfairly with normal,
healthy breastfeeding, which is not subject to advertising, yet which is the safest and lowestcost method of nourishing an infant; and
· advertising infant formula as a substitute for breast milk favours uninformed decisionmaking, bypassing the necessary advice and supervision of the mother’s physician or health worker.
In this respect, the report concluded, it can be considered that advertising of infant formula fails to achieve the objectives of ensuring best quality and the lowest cost and creating an informed public, which are among the benefits assumed to be a result of direct advertising.”
“Those who suggest that direct advertising has no negative effect on breastfeeding should be asked to demonstrate that such advertising fails to influence a mother’s decision about how to feed her infant.”
“Proper use of infant formula should rather be the result of informed decision-making based on objective and consistent advice, and appropriate supervision. This message is implicit in the final paragraph of the preamble to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which states:
Believing that, in the light of the foregoing considerations, and in view of the vulnerability of infants in the early months of life and the risks involved in inappropriate feeding practices, including the unnecessary and improper use of breast-milk substitutes, the marketing of breast-milk substitutes requires special treatment, which makes usual marketing practices unsuitable for these products.
No breast-milk substitute, not even the most sophisticated and nutritionally balanced formula, can begin to offer the numerous unique health advantages that breast milk provides for babies.
Nor can artificial feeding do more than approximate the act of breastfeeding, in physiological and emotional significance, for babies and mothers alike. And no matter how appropriate infant formula may be from a nutritional standpoint, when infants are not breastfed or are breastfed only partially, feeding with formula remains a deviation from the biological norm for virtually all infants.”
http://www.who.int/nut/documents/infant_formula_trade_issues_eng.pdf”
18. The vast majority of mothers can and should breastfeed, just as the vast majority of infants can and should be breastfed. Only under exceptional circumstances can a mother’s milk be considered unsuitable for her infant. For those few health situations where infants cannot, or should not, be breastfed, the choice of the best alternative “ expressed breast milk from an infant’s own mother, breast milk from a healthy wet-nurse or a human-milk bank, or a breast-milk substitute fed with a cup, which is a safer method than a feeding bottle and teat” “ depends on individual circumstances.19. For infants who do not receive breast milk, feeding with a suitable breast-milk substitute… for example an infant formula prepared in home-prepared formula with micronutrient supplements should be demonstrated only by health workers, or other community workers if necessary, and only to the mothers and other family members who need to use it; and the information given should include adequate of inappropriate preparation and use. Infants who are not breastfed, for whatever reason, should receive special attention from accordance with applicable Codex Alimentarius standards, or a instructions for appropriate preparation and the health hazards the health and social welfare system since they constitute a risk group.”
Other interesting articles:
The Deadly Influence of Formula in America Linda Folden Palmer, DC
http://www.babyreference.com/InfantDeaths.htm
Dangers of Formula
http://www.lactivist.com/dangform.html
Government Pressured by Formula Companies to ‘Water Down’Breast-feeding Ads
In my experience, a lot of people really don’t know much about breastfeeding. I’ve heard so many times that a mom wanted to breastfeed, but her supply dropped, so she had to artificially feed her baby. And I’m thinking: were you nursing on cue? were you supplementing with formula? were you using a pacifier? were you pumping and using a bottle? were you and your baby together all the time?
If this supply dropping thing were as common as it “appears” to be, our species wouldn’t be here.