Marianne poses a headache-inducing query:  when an IBCLC purchases products from a violator of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, is this unethical under the IBLCE Code of Ethics or ILCA Standards of Practice?  If we are asked to support a boycott of all products produced by another well-known Code-violator, how can it be okay to purchase products from a second or third Code-violator?
 
Let me pose this neck-ache inducing hypothetical:  If Rule No. 1 is "Feed the Baby," and there is no breastmilk available from mother or a donor/bank, are we to *not* feed the child because to do so would require the purchase of a product from a Code-violator?  
 
Here's my take, for what its worth:  the Int'l Code is designed to regulate *marketing* of breastmilk substitutes, bottles, teats and complementary foods intended for infants.  In a nutshell, Companies are not supposed to *market* their products directly to parents .... they are not supposed to be using health care workers (including IBCLCs) as "shills" for their products by having us pass things out with their brand/logo ... we as IBCLCs are not supposed to be accepting freebies (of the product, or of any other gifties) from the Companies (because walking around looking like a billboard for the Companies implies that you endorse/use their products).   See http://www.ibfan.org/english/resource/who/fullcode.html.  
 
However, if (as a health care provider, which includes IBCLCs) you merely go out and *spend* your hard-earned dollars on products that will be used by you or your patients for lactation care, you are not violating the Int'l Code.  The hook:  you gotta buy.  The colleague Marianne mentioned actually uses a great technique:  she opens the packaging herself away from the mother, and disposes of it, so that the packaging is not lying around the mother's house with that mantle of implied endorsement that the Companies are so eager for.
 
NOW -- all that being said -- you can choose to be as "political" as you want.  If a non-Code-violator makes the same product as the Code-violator, you may certainly elect to bring your hard-earned dollars to a company whose philosophy and marketing practices you respect.  I'd even applaud the effort.    
 
Liz Brooks, JD, IBCLCWyndmoor, PA, USA
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