I can speak precisely to the issues you raise, Rachel, because I wrote 
many of the handouts on the Ameda website during the 8 years I worked 
there as its full-time lactation consultant. (I left that position 2.5 
years ago over Code issues with its then parent company, Evenflo.) The 
Ameda website definitely includes photos of breastfeeding, including 
many of mothers and babies in the semi-reclined positions many now teach.

The handouts available for download on the Ameda website contain almost 
no references to products. However they *do* feature the Ameda logo, and 
that's the reason money and staff time were spent on them. Distribution 
of these sheets is a way to increase brand recognition. And that where 
the concern lies. Some hospital systems in the U.S. have prohibited the 
use of instructional materials with company logos for exactly this 
reason. The idea behind this is to "market health and nothing else," as 
BantheBags.org so eloquently explains. Although I can vouch for the 
quality of the information in these handouts, I think this is a valid 
point and does speak to the potential for conflict of interest.

One more thing. Neither Ameda nor Medela have shareholders because they 
are not publicly traded companies. Even without shareholders, though, 
the bottom line will always be a top priority.

Nancy Mohrbacher, IBCLC, FILCA
Self-employed and loving it!
Chicago suburbs
www.NancyMohrbacher.com <http://www.nancymohrbacher.com/app-support/>

Rachel writes:
> Tricia Shamblin asks whether BFHI requirements would affect whether
> hospital staff can give breastfeeding info from Medela or Ameda, and goes
> on to say ' it's really hard to explain why we can't use info from
> breastfeeding friendly companies.'  One of the BFHI requirements is that
> the institution itself abide by the WHO Code, which among other things
> means no advertising that idealizes bottle feeding nor that promotes
> artificial feeding. Marketing of feeding bottles and teats is specifically
> banned. Marketing of pumps is not mentioned, because the Code predates the
> rise of the aggressive marketing of equipment to aid breastmilk feeding.
> The BFHI requirement to provide mothers with information about where they
> can find help to continue breastfeeding raises the question of what sources
> are appropriate and what sources most certainly are not.
>
> When I find a breastfeeding-friendly company that prepares information of
> ANY kind, not just on breastfeeding, aimed at new mothers, I may have to
> face this dilemma myself.  Caveat: I have not scrutinized the Ameda website
> to the degree that I have done so for Medela, because Ameda are not
> actively marketing themselves to HCPs, to maternity institutions, or to new
> mothers here in Norway, while Medela is extremely active in all those
> areas.  I find the so-called information on breastfeeding on Medela's
> website to be incomplete, misleading, disempowering, and clearly not aimed
> at supporting mothers to breastfeed, but to buy products from Medela. And
> why on earth would any company whose bottom line is directly related to how
> many women at any given time are having difficulties with breastfeeding,
> provide information that would reduce their own profits? They are in
> business to make money, after all, with obligations to their shareholders
> that take precedence over all else. Their products can be fabulous for the
> purpose, but women should never be shortchanged by having to rely on the
> manufacturers for information on infant feeding of any kind, nor should
> we expect businesses to work against their own self-interests in order to
> fill a gap caused by neglect on the part of public health authorities.
>
> It cannot be coincidental that the Medela website, last I looked, did not
> have one single image of a baby breastfeeding, nor that the images of
> supposedly breastfeeding babies on all manner of items sold to new parents
> by the plethora of companies targeting this group generally show babies who
> can't possibly be feeding without causing their mothers pain and
> compromising their own milk intake.
>
> I have yet to find any useful information on the Medela website that is not
> available in better form from some charitable organization or public health
> authority without conflicts of interest, so I refer mothers to such
> sources, and advise them to ask themselves 'who profits from this?'
> when they find information on how to breastfeed from companies professing
> to sell 'breastfeeding supplies' or 'equipment', or companies in the
> business of selling foods that replace breastfeeding in the diets of
> infants and young children. It's just Free Market Economics 101.
>
> Rachel Myr
> hard-boiled staff midwife in a non-Baby-Friendly institution in a
> purportedly breastfeeeding culture, lifetime charter member of a
> WABA-affiliated mother-to-mother breastfeeding support organization, and
> battle-scarred survivor of the nineteen-sixties and -seventies
> Kristiansand, Norway
>
> **************************************************************
>


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