Despite the beautiful sunshine outside I am sitting here looking at Medela's
websites for various countries and noting one huge difference.  Please note
that according to watchdog organizations such as IBFAN or Baby Milk Action,
a company who calls itself code-compliant is obliged to comply with the Code
in every country in which it does business, NOT just in the ones who have
ratified the Code.  If you violate it anywhere, you violate it, just like
Karleen's analogy about being a little bit pregnant.

Thirty seconds ago I found this, which when I clicked on it took me to a
photo of the same storage bottles as on the Dutch Medela website which
Gonneke posted on, only in the picture I am looking at, there is a feeding
teat attached in the usual way to one of the three bottles in the picture,
and the text says 'perfect for collecting, storing, freezing **and feeding**
breastmilk' whereas on the Dutch site, only collecting, storing and freezing
are mentioned.  Interesting.  From this site, I could choose my country,
Norway, and when I clicked on that and THEN went back through the same
series of clicks that took me to the bottle photo with the teat, I got to
the same photo as on the Dutch site, with no teats in sight, and the text,
which is all in English, didn't say 'feeding', it only mentioned that the
milk could be 'used' directly from the bottle.  Spooky!

First, at wwww.medela.com
http://www.medela.com/NewFiles/brpmpacc.html#container%20set

Then, from there I chose Norway, and found this:
http://www.medela.ch/ISBD/en/breastfeeding/products/bottles.php

In fine print below the first image is the following text:

' Medela is committed to supporting the WHO Code's call for commitment to
breastmilk as the optimal nutrition for the growth, development and health
of babies. We believe it is our obligation to offer a complete solution from
"breast to belly", of high quality products that enable mothers to provide
the best nutrition of breastmilk to their babies. With an extensive
portfolio of breastpumps, Medela is committed to also offer solutions that
help moms feed their expressed breastmilk back to their babies. Our existing
specialty feeding devices are effective tools for feeding special needs
babies. In line with the AAP Guidelines on introducing bottle feeding,
Medela is pleased to now offer a conventional system for feeding breastmilk
once breastfeeding is well established. The combination of our specialty
feeding devices and conventional feeding systems helps Medela realize our
obligation and commitment to mothers by offering complete solutions from
"breast to belly". '

When I read this, I note that the word breastfeeding doesn't appear until
the fifth of six sentences in the paragraph.  If I had just landed on earth
from another planet I would not know that there was any other way to get
milk from a breast to a baby than expressing it into a container from which
it could be poured into the baby.  What is a 'conventional system' for
feeding breastmilk once breastfeeding is well established?  I thought the
'conventional' system would be offering the baby the breast when s/he is to
be fed, and letting baby help themselves.  This text is written very
ambiguously, and since I am inclined to see everything written by a vendor
as a sales pitch, I see this as a way of insinuating that the AAP recommends
introducing bottles immediately after breastfeeding is well established.
Most mothers are unlikely to make the effort to find the AAP statement and
read it for themselves, they will just see that 'pediatricians recommend
this way of feeding'.  I've met plenty of women in Norway who are concerned
when they are getting ready to return to work because they don't know how to
teach their year old breastfed child to take a BOTTLE.  Even here, they
don't know that a bottle is superfluous for a one year old who has never had
one.

If Medela had said one word about the unfortunate situation in the US, where
nearly all women must choose between having an income or being with their
babies for the first six or twelve months of the child's life, and how their
products are meant for such women, I might feel more charitable.  But they
don't.  They mention bottles as though they are part of the normal
progression through which all children pass - establish breastfeeding,
introduce bottles, and let's just leave it at that.  If Medela didn't make
such a big deal about how they are so d*** committed to breastmilk (sic), we
wouldn't be so irate over this sleaziness.  Actually they only say they are
committed *to supporting WHO code's call to commitment to breastmilk*!  If
they had the reputation of being non-compliant with the WHO code from before
we wouldn't expect any better now.  But they have in fact respected the Code
until now.  This advertisement represents the breaking of a barrier, the
barrier between ethical and unethical marketing, and if we don't protest,
who will?  I protested to them when the advert for the Symphony pump began
using the text 'the only thing more natural is a baby' while not mentioning
that double pumping using a hospital grade machine is not an integral part
of the normal course of breastfeeding for most women.  I protested to the
publication in which the ad appeared too.  I never got a response from
Medela except an acknowledgement of my letter and an unkept promise that
they would get back to me on it, but I had a very fruitful correspondence
with the editor of the journal in question, and the text was changed in the
next issue of that journal.  I've just sent a pithy, two paragraph rant to
the Norwegian distributor, and we'll see whether that gets any reaction.

Since I am already grumpy, what *obligation* does Medela believe they have,
"to offer complete solutions from 'breast to belly'"?  And what does it do
to our understanding of what breastfeeding is, to call it 'breast to belly'?
As though the only important thing that happens when I hold a child close
and it takes my breast in its mouth and suckles, is that a nutritious fluid
moves from my breast to the child's belly, and I don't even need to be
there, physically OR emotionally?  What about from mother to child, from
*me* to *you, my beloved*?  I am convinced that this wording has been chosen
intentionally to downplay those aspects of breastfeeding that are not
enriched by the use of products sold in stores, and to reduce it to movement
of fluid for which a suitable container is a Useful Thing I Need to Buy.  It
must be possible to make such a product, which none of us disputes the need
for in special cases, available without this belittling of the pain and loss
felt by women whose only way to get their own milk into their children is by
expressing it and feeding it from a bottle.

Bah! Humbug!  And now I am going out to get some Vitamin D!
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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