My jaw dropped at Jack Newman's list of different formulas for different
people and age groups - but he's right, it's already happening.

I wonder if the big-money strategy for the future is to develop 'speciality
ABMs' for every baby, so the average consumer - who doesn't have a
special-needs baby - might be faced with a choice of half a dozen or so
'specialities' which she then chooses from with the help of her
HP...obviously these will be expensive, and there will remain a few
bog-standard 'routine' formulas for people who can't afford the 'better'
stuff, or in the UK, low or no-income mothers who use milk tokens.

If your baby is over 7 pounds you need brand X; if over 10 pounds you need
brand Y; under 7 pounds it's brand Z;  already we have the stuff for babies
with perfectly normal posseting; there'll be stuff for babies who gain
weight quickly or slowly; stuff for babies with blue eyes, brown eyes, hair
and no hair, teeth and no teeth...

Okay, the last lot I'm joking - the rest are possible - though come to
think of it, the teeth one might be a goer - ' now your little one has his
beautiful pearly-whites, keep 'em that way with new calcium-enriched
Calci-lac! ' Or, how about this? 'Finding difficulty brushing your little
one's toothy-pegs? Give him Fluori-mil - the *only* formula enriched with
added flouride to strengthen his teeth!'

The idea would be - as now -  for babies to have to move on to different
ABMs as they get older.

This would be a money-maker's paradise.  It is a return to the days when
(in the US - it never happened here) you would go to your baby's doctor and
have him make up the prescription for the formula your baby needed,
according to your baby's 'needs'....but this time it would be the
manufacturers who would make the money.

The speciality ABM would be a premium product, for the mother who *really
cares* and be a commercial answer to the breastfeeding lobby's reminder
that breast milk is always uniquely tailored to the needs of the individual
baby.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK