What started this was the Medela US brochure for their 'complete feeding 
system' which does have a bottle and teat on the front cover - as I 
mentioned earlier - it seems to have disappeared from the website! From my 
research talking to people from around the world, this does seem to be a US 
issue primarily. Other regions seem to respond to concerns from their own 
HPs. I think that Medela is trying to do the right thing by always 
mentioning breastfeeding and breastmilk in all descriptions of their 
products. However, Karleen is correct in that the Code is a minimum 
standard. As IBCLCs we have a responsibility to ensure that breastfeeding is 
seen as the norm - NOT breast milk feeding. The infant feeding market is 
being saturated by products that are in direct competition to the norm - 
breastfeeding. It is in no companies interests for all babies to be 
breastfed - doesn't make them any money. With the recognition of the 
importance for babies and young children to be breastfed increasing across 
the world and the profits for companies decreasing, new strategies needed to 
be developed. You can be sure that significant amounts of money have been 
spent by marketing gurus to ensure that how products are being marketed to 
the consumer will yield the strongest response at the cash register. By 
including the words breastmilk and breastfeed in their advertsing spin, it 
helps to legitimise their product. This is done by artificial formula 
companies when they talk about 'breast is best' but....., just the same as 
bottle and teat comapnies saying our teat is 'just like the breast' or 
'close to nature' and 'easy to swap between breast and bottle'!
In countries where there is very high use of breastpumps/ bottles/ teats you 
will also see companies with very strong marketing and unfortunately there 
has also been strong support from HPs for these companies for a whole lot of 
reasons. I believe this started from a desire by all of us, to respond to 
the perceived needs of women ie. who return to work or who have sick or prem 
babies etc and this is a legitimate response, don't get me wrong. What has 
happened though is an escalation to the point now that far too many women 
believe this is the way to feed! Instead of us standing together to lobby 
governments to 'fix' the situation for women we have applied a bandaid 
approach which was never going to work in the long term.
So now we have comapnies that are constantly searching for ways to make a 
profit setting the norm - is this really what we want?
Jenni James
Melbourne, Australia

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