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The promotion of products that are "within the scope of the Code", i.e. bottles and teats, as "helping" mothers to continue breastfeeding is a regretable trend, but it is not a new one.  (It is also false advertising.)  Some internet marketing sites, which can be found if "breastfeeding" is used in the search term, have for years rebadged nursing botles in their advertising as 'breastmilk container", as they see greater interest in breastfeedng out there - and greater interest means (pant, pant) a market!  Tap into this market and sales figures don't go down, and may even go up.

Going back even further, to give another illustration of how manufacturers market to breastfeeding women to prevent losing sales if they continue to breastfeed, a leading international manufacturer of artificial baby milk in its Australian marketing in the 1950s/early-1960s addressed this in the booklet it was able to hand out to new Mums in the hospitals.  It told them that, if they were breastfeeding, they should drink two glasses of the ABM in order to make enough milk and good quality milk.  As I pointed out in a research article in JHL in Feb 2003, it was clear that their thinking was, if they couldn't pursuade the mothers to feed the ABM to their babies, sales would be maintained if the mothers drank it, instead.  Trying to tap into breastfeedng mothers as a market often uses sneaky tricks. This one was playing on mothers' common lack, of confidence about supply.  Concerns about supply are also tapped into in the marketing of other drinks to supplement breastfeeding mothers - whether 100 years ago or now.  We need to be wary about what marketing is really doing.

Regards
Virginia

Dr Virginia Thorley
Honorary Research Fellow
School of History, Philosophy, Religion & Classics
The University of Queensland, QLD 4072
Australia

Reference:

Thorley V: Printed advice on initiating and maintaining breastfeeding in mid-twentieth century Queensland. J Hum Lact 2003 (Feb);19(1):77-89.


On Wed, 24 Oct 2007 Rachel Myr wrote:

- From the feeding part of the Evenflo site: "Breastfeeding is the most =20
natural and healthy way to feed your baby. To help and encourage mom =20
to breastfeed as long as possible ... Evenflo also makes available =20
bottles, nipples, milk storage bottles, and bottle accessories. ...
How do bottles, nipples and bottle accessories 'help and encourage mom =20
to breastfeed as long as possible'?  What am I not getting, here?
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