Rose, your dilemma is one that many LCs have faced over the years. Formula
companies develop "educational" materials to promote their product, not
educate women about breastfeeding. During NABA's recent Code monitoring
project we analyzed these materials finding that their main focus was to
cause breastfeeding mothers to supplement with formula, reduce their milk
supply, and purchase formula. Look closely at some of the stuff being given
mothers and you will see the pressure put on new mothers to avoid or abandon
exclusive breastfeeding. Nurses and physicians help the formula marketing
effort when they give out formula-containing discharge bags. Formula is
portrayed as equivalent to breast milk and many of these publications help
mothers to assume that supplementing is part of breastfeeding. Companies use
LCs to legitimize their marketing materials, trying to keep our minds off of
the acute and chronic diseases their products contribute to. Breastfeeding
advocates who succumb to formula company tactics of trying to obtain
credibility from the lactation community usually regret this when they find
out that they are being used, their integrity becomes eroded, and they lose
the ability to criticize the company and protect the public.

Formula companies have no business trying to educate about breastfeeding.
Their materials are designed to promote their products, not the health of
mothers and babies. NABA found that in the US, the health care system was the
major conduit for formula marketing. The endorsement of a health care
provider goes a long way in helping a mother use formula. After all, if the
hospital uses it, gives it to the mother when she is discharged, and the
pediatrician gives her a "Breastfeeding Transition Kit" full of formula at
the 2 week check up, what is she supposed to think?

The complicity of the health care system in marketing formula is staggering.
I have seen nurses defend the formula rep and all the trinkets left around a
maternity unit as if these were something of actual importance. I have seen
nurses and nursing supervisors refuse to allow nurses to wear buttons that
refer in any way to breastfeeding, but distribute name badge holders with the
brand name of the formula written on it. I have seen Peter Rabbit name tags
for stethoscopes with the brand name of the formula on them. This allows the
nurse to lean over the mother and engage in the most blatant form of
in-your-face formula marketing that I know of!

Time for us to just say no. Let them publish what they want. There are plenty
of good materials already out for mothers. Anyone who runs across formula
company materials is urged to send them to me as I catalog these for future
Code monitoring updates.

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html