It might be useful to put my media hat on for a moment, and point out 
that pictures have a great deal of meaning in culture.  A picture that 
is specifically designed to carry meaning in advertising and promotion, 
has a huge heritage and history behind it.  None of us can come across 
such an image, an icon, without reacting subconciously to its 'load'.  
But we also have personal history, and that personal history can 
overcome the cultural load, and we can overlay it without own immediate 
meaning.  Hence, one picture can mean many things to many people, but 
always have some sense of a 'commoness of understanding' about it.

The picture of a baby's bottle, especially the 50s type of upright round 
plastic container, tapered to an upright rubber teat, has had huge 
amounts of energy and money and time spent on it.  It was set up to 
illustrate all that was good about 1950s cultural conception of what 
babyhood, and motherhood, should be, through the lens of those who made 
profit from selling to mothers.  It was clean, sterile, washable, 
convenient, full of natural goodness.  It was the perfect delvery system 
for artificial milk, and it was set up with endless images of rosy 
cheeked bundles of smiles and lovingness.  It was the mother's best 
friend, her liberator and her ally in her struggle to raise an healthy 
and efficient child.

I'd say it replaced the breast in images, but of course, that's not 
true.  There were no common day images of breastfeeding for it to 
replace.  There might be high art on a museum wall somewhere, and if you 
look, photographs in collections... but there were no images of breasts, 
and breastfeeeding, in the marketplace.  In common, everyday occurence.  
Jut saying the word 'breast' was so taboo that La Leche League had to 
find a code in order to discuss and promote their meetings.  In this 
vacuum, the icon of the baby's bottle flourished - to mean babies and 
babyhood.  A delivery system for artificial food that came to mean all 
that was wholesome about babies.

Some of us still see the bottle that way.  Some of us react violently to 
it because that is what it means.  Some of us see it through personal 
history, and know that were it not for the bottle, many breastfeeding 
Mums wouldn't be sending their milk into day care.  Some of us still 
mistake the delivery system, for the artificial product, although this 
is no longer a useful way to see it, I'd argue.  Whilst we all know and 
understand what is meant by "the bottle brigade" - it's a meaningless 
distinction now, since so many mothers feed breastmilk via bottle.   
It's not the bottle, it's what is in it.

Most of us go through this range of understandings and meanings when we 
look at a picture of a baby's bottle.  Nowadays, I can never look at a 
picture of a bottle, without seeing the starving baby superimposed into 
it, that was so effective in marshalling support aganst Nestle in the 
1970s.  I have, therefore, an immediate gut reaction against the image 
of a bottle, especially in advertising.

The point of the Code is to protect women from the iconic use of the 
baby's bottle, to banish it, and to reduce down the cultural meaning of 
wholesome goodness that it suggests.  To undo the decades of advertising 
pressure that has made this symbol such an icon.  But how to then also 
let mothers who need bottles know of them?  Why is Medela not playing 
ball in this.. and further, _how_ can Medela play ball, as any bottle 
image will bring this connotation of wholesome, artificial, goodness?

To me, the answer is quite simple.  All they have to do is first of all 
uphold the image of the breast, and breastfeeding.  If you are talking 
about pumping and bottle feeding expressed breast milk - let your first 
and largest image be of a breastfeeding baby.  Make the iconic 
connection to the Madonna and Child first and foremost, and then make 
statements of supporting that bond by also supplying pumps and bottles.  
But place the breastfeeding mother and baby first.  Never advertise 
using images of bottles and teats.  Advertise with images of the baby 
feeding at the breast.   Only ever supply images of bottles, when you 
are actually listing them for purchase, and then be careful to undercut 
the iconic stereotype by also putting ii in direct context of 
breastfeeding: apicture f a mother breastfeeding at home, with her 
thinking of her baby at daycare, nurtured by her milk in a bottle.

It appears to me that this is what Medela are not doing, and this is why 
what they are doing is so suspect.  Why it's such a code breaker.  It's 
not that they are showing an image of a bottle that they sell - it's 
that they have removed brestfeeding from the picture, and that leaves 
all the iconic meanings of such a bottle to stand uncontested.  They 
are, in fact, using the previous meaning of the wholesomeness of _the 
bottle_ to now mean the wholesomeness of their bottle containing 
_breastmilk_.    And, given the wording, I suspect this is a deliberate 
tactic in order to persuade women not to breastfeed, but to exclusively 
pump, with all the profit that this brings them.

So, we have a retailer who has smelt the change in the wind, and is now 
aiming to persuade mothers that bottle feeding is still the clean, 
efficient and 'modern' answer to the problem of having babies.  Yes, we 
can say that pumping is needed to support women: pumps, bottles, 
sterilisers, freezer containers, warming machines.  But these products 
must be in order to _support breastfeeding_, not to replace it.  The 
Medela site does appear to be all about replacement.

This is also ringing other bells, for we are used to seeing formula 
marketeers 'hijack' breastfeeding to support their own product.  Teats 
that mimic breastfeeding, formula that is almost as good as 
breastfeeding, dummies that are shaped lile the nipples etc.  Medela, 
and all pumping paraphenlaia companies have a difficult job here.  For 
on one hand, they have to make and sell a product that has as low an 
impact on breastfeeding itself as they possibly can, on the other they 
need to explain that clearly to mothers how their products will do their 
job, so they can make an informed choice.  Difficult, but not 
impossible.  A few images of wholesome breastfeeding, a small discussion 
of why not breastfeeding, only feeding expressed, raises health risks 
(lack of jaw development, increse in ear infections etc) but coupled 
with a reassurance that expressed milk at daycare protects against the 
risks associated with formula etc, and rounding off with a picture of 
the mother brestfeeding when she gets her baby back home for their 
"rebonding moment"... and you've fully supported the ethos of 
breastfeeding whilst managing to market your product without breaking code.

In short, if a company is doing what Medela is doing... NOT upholding 
breastfeeding as the desired norm, printing isolated images of 'the 
bottle', not discussing increase in health risks by only bottle 
feeding... its making the transition back to breastfeeding as the norm 
harder.  It's also breaking Code - and Medela need to feel the weight of 
that, as well as having positive support to change their practises.

Morgan Gallagher

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