On behalf of a subscriber outside of the US who for the moment needs
anonymity, I am posting this:

I've spent the past two weeks dealing with fall-out from a
non-breastfeeding-trained Milk Bank director who took sponsorship from Avent
and appointed an Avent rep to her board.  Avent is a non-Code compliant
company and produces "the bottle that helps you breastfeed longer... the
natural form and function of the teat will allow you to combine breast and
bottle feeding with ease.  Clinically proven to reduce colic in the
newborn." (from Avent's packaging and advertising material)  The fall-out
included concern from the IBCLCs who had associated themselves with the Milk
Bank and suddenly found themselves in bed with Avent.
 
Any idealising of bottle feeding, including saying how close it is to the
real thing, is a Code violation.
 
Last week I opened a October-November 05 issue of Leaven.  Yes, it gets to
my part of the world slowly AND I didn't get to it at once.  Perhaps the ad
has since been pulled, but here are my thoughts on it.
 
Front inside cover, a Medela ad. "Symphony, more like a baby.  What more can
you ask of a breast pump?"   
 
More like a baby than what?  Than a baby?  If manufacturers cannot say that
artificial milk is like breast milk, and that artificial teats are like a
mother's nipples, how can we accept that a pump is like a baby?  In fact,
what I see in the ad looks similar to my vacuum cleaner, and I don't feel
the same way about my vacuum cleaner as I did about my babies.
 
I admit, there are no bottles in the advert, but there is no mother either.
There is no mention of how direct breastfeeding is more beneficial than
pumping and feeding to both mother and baby and that expressing milk is to
be used in emergencies and periods of separation.  If formula cans have to
praise breastfeeding, I believe that pump adverts do too.  If ads are not
allowed to maternalise artificial feeding, I submit that they are not
allowed to turn pumps into babies either.
 
At the risk of muddling two issues here, I'm personally concerned at how
casually pumps seem to be promoted in developed countries as a first resort,
and taken as a fact of life, even among breastfeeding supporters.  I
appreciate that LCs have to go along with what a culture can bear, but just
wish more people thought through the implications of commodifying (if I've
used the term correctly) breastfeeding - MORE STUFF TO BUY, more distancing
from actual body parts.

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