Marie has told us of her discussion with Abbott's Expert Feeding line. The extent of a formula company's efforts to market their products knows no bounds. The obligation of a publicly held company is to its shareholders not the community, and certainly not to breastfeeding mothers. Corporate law in the US obligates the company to those who hold stock in it. Efforts to increase formula sales have escalated due to falling birth rates and the work we have all been doing in promoting and supporting breastfeeding. Formula companies view breastfeeding as the competition and work hard to assure that breastfeeding mothers use their products. Efforts like the Expert Feeding line draw a mother to formula companies with the goal of removing barriers to her use of their products. 


This service is worrisome as it does not use IBCLCs. No IBCLC would participate in this sham as it would violate their ethics and place them in jeopardy of losing their IBCLC credential. My understanding of this service is that some employees of the company that contracted with Abbott took a one week on-line breastfeeding course and were then turned lose on the public. I wonder what the liability would be if a situation arose where one of these "experts" gave incorrect information because she was minimally trained and lacked sufficient experience to spot a real problem. Hospitals that pass out literature referring their patients to this service would probably give their Risk Management departments a stroke if they knew the potential hazards of this practice.


Formula companies fear 2 things--poor corporate image and government regulation. If we want to assure that breastfeeding mothers get the help they need from qualified practitioners then maybe we need to work harder to expose formula marketing practices that are deceptive and misleading. Perhaps we need to call the Federal Trade Commission at 1-877-382-4357. Maybe contacting our legislators and complaining to them would be of help. We have the option of reporting unsavory business practices to the Better Business Bureau and their National Advertising Division.


It should be no surprise that formula companies monitor Lactnet and follow closely who says what about them! The issue, as always, is not the proper use of infant formula but the way it is marketed. Mothers should be accessing clinicians qualified to support them, not formula companies trying to peddle their products.


Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA








 

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