While it may well be true that Hygiea abides by the Code re: marketing of
bottles and teats, their advertising is IMO at least as offensive than
Medela's, if the advert in the latest JHL is indicative, and I assume it is.
 Not only can a breastpump be almost as natural as a baby, it can now cry,
as though hearing a recording of your own baby longing for you will
'enhance' your pumping experience, while you sit there at your workplace
expressing milk because you live in a country that thinks 'mother-friendly'
means not harassing you or docking your pay if you spend your lunch hooked
up to a milking machine. 

I can sort of understand why they'd use this kind of sales tactic toward
consumers, though I would be repelled by it then too, but I don't understand
why pump adverts never mention a single real reason someone might need to
express their milk.  Avent pumps are 'to help you breastfeed longer'. 
Medela pumps are to give you 'freedom'. Ameda pumps are used by ecstatically
happy, slender, dressed-for-success women with no baby in sight, who want to
'take pumping to the next level' - toward nirvana, judging from the photos
in the JHL ad.  None of the adverts boast that the pumps are for the purpose
of maintaining supply when separated from the baby, or for a baby who can't
suckle. 

My objections have nothing at all to do with the WHO Code and everything to
do with how I view breastfeeding and childbearing.  I live in a country with
very high participation by women in the paid work force and great maternity
benefits. Still, many of them have a need to express milk at some point and
I have no problem with that, nor with sharing care for breastfed children
with fathers and extended family.  I do have a problem with the assumption
that owning a pump is a normal part of being a lactating woman, and the
fancier, the better. For me it is not enough that a pump company refrains
from actively pushing feeding bottles and teats. I'd like them to at least
give lip service to the notion that pumps are an aid to women in special
circumstances, not a fashion accessory. 

From a grumpy old lactasaurus in Kristiansand, Norway, just glad our 50 year
old SMB pumps at the hospital are all in perfect working order, and hoping
they last another 15 years so I can retire without having to see these new
contraptions enter the scene
Rachel Myr

             ***********************************************

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