Raising Bakersfield

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Breast-feeding is best spurring nefarious baby formula marketing
Topics: breastfeeding, Valerie Schultz, The Bakersfield Californian
Posted by RaisingBakersfield Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
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They’re at it again. Or, I guess they’ve never stopped: I just haven’t had contact with their nefarious ways for a while.

I’m talking about the corporations that manufacture and market infant formula, and the subtle methods they use to undermine a new mother’s decision to breast-feed her baby. It is, after all, in their interest that as few women as possible breast-feed successfully or for any length of time: Every time a woman sits down and nurses her baby with her own, homegrown breast milk, the formula hawkers are losing money.

I’ve got my Irish up because of the unsolicited literature and free samples that formula companies have been sending my sister, who will birth her first child any day now. Upon casual reading, the literature seems to support breast-feeding wholeheartedly, in positively glowing terms. But upon a closer read, the words make breast-feeding a baby seem like a choice for a superwoman, not a regular woman.

My sister, like all new mothers, is excited about the future, but understandably apprehensive of the unknown. She plans to breast-feed because she knows it is the healthiest choice for her and her baby. But then she hears the nursing horror stories that other new mothers love to tell, and she gets nervous. Can it be painful? Can your nipples really crack and bleed? Can your breasts really get infected, or come to resemble boulders of hardest rock? It’s all a bit intimidating.

Imagine that you are pregnant, susceptible to the scary sagas of your peers. You worry that you will be the woman who endures those complications and hardships while trying to breast-feed your baby. Then a package comes in the mail, full of free powdered formula, accompanied by carefully written sympathy. There, there, soothes the literature, we all know breast-feeding is best, and noble, and even heroic, but it’s a little tricky.

You may not be able to manage it. But don’t worry: When you fail at this difficult endeavor, we will be there with synthetic food for your baby. Or, you can supplement with our formula; just a feeding here and there; just a few moments for yourself. What the brochure doesn’t tell you is that, statistically, once you start supplementing, your nursing days are numbered. The goal of their lovely prose is to get your baby weaned off of your breast and onto their expensive, inferior stuff.

I am intentionally demonizing the formula companies because I do believe they take marketing tips from the serpent in the Garden of Eden. They use our own fears and misgivings against us, and cast their product in the role of savior.

The fact is, formula and breast milk are not interchangeable! Human breast milk is the perfect, irreplaceable food for human babies. My sister, and just about any new mom, can breast-feed successfully: The female breast is marvelously designed to nourish infants. But breast milk doesn’t add a single dollar to the formula makers’ bottom lines. And so they declare war.

Source: The Bakersfield Californian,  Friday, Mar 21 2008

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