Breastfeeding, Nestlé & How 1.5 million Babies Die Each Year

[Mama_Kitty]

I don't know if any of you have heard about the issues revolving around Nestlé's aggressive marketing of their formula, particularly in the third world, but I find the whole thing deeply suspicious.

From http://www.ibfan.org/english/issue/overview01.html

How does bottle feeding kill babies?

The water mixed with baby milk powder can be unsafe and it is often impossible in poor conditions to keep bottles and teats sterile. Bottle feeding under such circumstances can lead to infections causing diarrhoea, the biggest killer of children worldwide.

Baby milk is also very expensive, often costing more than half the entire family income. This means that bottle feeding will contribute to family malnutrition. Furthermore, poor mothers trying to make the milk go further sometimes overdilute the powder, and the baby may not then receive the nutrition he or she needs.

Bottle baby disease is the name given to the deadly combination of diarrhoea, dehydration and malnutrition which is the result of unsafe bottle feeding.

I was talking to my Hubby about this and while I was explaining it he pointed out a few things which I'm not sure about either. The idea that a poverty-stricken family would sacrifice so much of their income to feeding their children when they could just breastfeed for nothing? I thought maybe that education was the issue, they have been told or lead to believe that formula milk is in some way superior to their own milk.

And what about this poverty-stricken family who can barely afford food, the nutrition of the mother is of paramount importance when it comes to establishing and maintaining a good supply of milk. Though I think that basic biology would overcome this, as much as my supply suffers if I haven't rested enough or eated enough in a day, there must be millions of mothers out there who are starving themselves but still manage to breastfeed successfully.

Acording to the World Health Organisation (WHO) 1.5 million infants die as a result of diarrhoea every year because they are not breastfed.

There is an International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes which was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 1981:

Baby food companies may not:

• Give free supplies of baby milk to hospitals;
  Promote their products to the public or health workers;
  Use baby pictures on their baby milk and bottle and teat labels;
  Give gifts to mothers or health workers;
  Give free samples to parents;
  Promote baby foods or drinks for babies under 6 months old;
  Labels must be in a language understood by the mother and must include a prominent health warning.

It is apparently 'well known' that baby food ocmpanies regularly ignore or deliberately go against these guidelines, I must have received 20 free samples of baby formula since I had my daughter, although I think they get around it by only giving free samples of their 6 months plus formula (which is the same as the usual stuff but with a bit more iron).

Here's a list of examples where companies are breaking the code: http://www.ibfan.org/english/pdfs/btr04summary.pdf
and here, violations int he UK in 2004: http://www.ibfan.org/english/pdfs/lwtduk04.pdf

If there's so much evidence, why are they allowed to carry on? They do fund a heck of a lot of other stuff, research etc, occasionally research which may be interpreted as an attempt to undermine breastfeeding in their favour (such as contributing to research carried out on behalf of the WHO to produce growth charts for breastfed babies, which grow at a different rate to formula fed babies).

There are so many benefits to breastfeeding, even financial ones for governments as breastfed babies tend to have a lot fewer health problems both as babies and children and later in life, it also can help prevent cancer in the mother.

And yet still it's seen by many as a fringe 'hippy' activity and a mother still breastfeeding her baby at 6 months is the exception rather than the norm. I'm not sure the baby food companies are entirely to blame, but they certainly aren't contributing to a reversal of this situation.

I don't know what the solution is, but I still can't figure out how they get away with it! And why the heck isn't breastfeeding more popular?! Why aren't health professionals trained to support a breastfeeding mother?!

Questions questions.

 

[Yithian]

Breast-milk passes antibodies from mother to child which Nestle products do not.
Hence, it's all a health and life matter, not just a financial one.

 

[OneWingedBird]

I have no idea how Nestle continue to get away with this. Aside from the odd bit of inattention on my part, I haven't bought anything made by them since I found out about this in the early 90s.

 

[SniperK2]

My sis has four kids and never breast fed any of them, she said it was too exausting , and as she stayed with us while her b/f fixed the house, I used to make up bottles, sterilise etc, all the time for my neice. It can't be that hard, though, it's natural! My sister in law breast feeds anywhere where she can find a quiet corner, without worrying about it.
So these poor people are supposed to buy this formula, it's not part of any aid agency plan... because I was wondering if severely poor mothers can't produce enough milk, ( sorry I don't know, I'm only wondering ) and the formula feeds their children, so it becomes a kind of UL that this baby-milk is much better for the children. ( of course it would be better than nothing, when properly given ) Still seems highly cynical to me.

 

[Anonymous]

" It can't be that hard, though, it's natural!"

Nothing could be further from the truth, trust me. You go into it with that attitude and end up feeling less adequate than an alley cat because you can't do it well enough to nourish your child.

I too heard about this in the early 90's, but there were supposed to have been restrictions placed on the formula companies as well as trying to educate the people to understand that breastfeeding is always preferred whenever possible.

 

[Kondoru]

I was fed on a bottle and look how big and healthy I am!

There are pros and cons to both I am sure.

Infant mortality used to go on before the introduction of fancy formulas

Its true that poorly sterilised equitment can be a hazard, but surley people are supposed to exercise a modicum of common sense, and if a baby is not thriving, to go back to the tried and tested method.

 

[Jerry_B]

One reason that companies may be able to pursue such dodgy practices without seeming to raise any widespread ire is probably because they're doing such things in Africa and other 'developing nations'. Nestle even went as far as dressing up women as nurses in order to push the efficacy to women in Africa that formula milk was 'better'. Africa is still a testing ground and dumping ground for a variety of products. And it seems still that this is of not much concern to the powers that be.

 

[Ringo]

My GF has just finished a class at uni which had this as an example of western companies trying to tap into other markets. She reckons that in 1981 Nestle gave away free samples without proper preperation instructions. This led to an outcry over deaths through improper preperation and sterilisation. Also, the cost was so high that mothers over diluted the formula or stopped buying it, meanwhile their breats had stopped producing.

In 2001, Nestle volunteerd to give away free formula to prevent the contraction of AIDS through breastfeeding but Unicef, which had banned these products because of Nestles mess up, refused to lift the ban on these products in Low devoped Countries, saying the same would happen again.

Personally, I think it is just what my GF's lecturer said, a classic example of a western company misunderstanding its target audience. They launched a product without understanding the culture that would be using it, with dire consequences.

 

[Kondoru]

Personally, I think it is just what my GF's lecturer said, a classic example of a western company misunderstanding its target audience. They launched a product without understanding the culture that would be using it, with dire consequences.

A very valid theory.

My friend who lived in Africa was involved in a babymilk scam in the 60s. Some aid organisation had handed out samples of babymilk, and the mothers, not seeing any reasons to use it, simply put it on the shelf. So he bought up as much as he could find for a pittance, relabeled it, and sold it to hospitals who could use it.

He was left utterly destitute when an unnamed government confiscated his farm, he went over the border with his young wife, set up camp on a spare patch of land, started a garden, and managed to rear four healthy kids without hardly any outside help.

He said the secret is to `eat` your non milk producing cattle instead of keeping them as grass guzzling wealth as the locals did. He was shocked to find the local headmans children were malnourished, in spite of him being the richest man in the district. (a man with over 500 cows would be wealthy in pretty much any society.)

 

[OneWingedBird]

Personally, I think it is just what my GF's lecturer said, a classic example of a western company misunderstanding its target audience. They launched a product without understanding the culture that would be using it, with dire consequences.

Possibly, but that may be a rather charitable view.

It's impossible to know how much they didn't understand or how much they didn't want to understand if it got in the way of business. If they are still conducting their business in much the same way after 20+ years of the consequences being known, it's difficult to see misuderstanding or indifference there as being anything other than deliberate.

 

[Kondoru]

I rather suspect people will stop using a product that doesnt work, whoever they are.

 

[OneWingedBird]

I think perhaps you have to put this in the context of dealing with people who are uneducated to a standard that's almost unfathomable to those of us in the west. Many people in third world countries don't even understand basic higiene or sanitation, and have all sorts of strange cultural and deep seated UL-type beliefs about the causes of illness.

Some people in our own culture have enough trouble dealing with aggressive marketing of things that aren't particularly good for them and UL type beliefs, it's difficult to see how people in developing countries are going to stand a chance at critically analysing these kinds of things at all.

 

[Kondoru]

A valid point, but ignorance or no, I still feel that most people are not going to continue on a plan of action that has been proved to have negative results.

This thread got me to thinking about the subject of smallpox innoculations. In victorian times people made sure their children had the `Noculation` and I doubt that they were of a very medically educated group.

(No doubt there were those who were superstitious about it)

(You or I would hardly like the idea of someone sticking a scalpel in an infected calf, then jabbing it in us, after doing the same to umpteen other people, with minimal or no sterilsation...)

innoculations do not always give an immediate, obvious benifit, but no doubt there were plenty of people to say `Its a good thing, I had mine and last epidemic, I didnt catch it.` So no doubt parents took the advice.

Its probable that some or all of use are here today because their ancestors made sure they took advantage of cutting edge medicine and not traditional cures.

 

[Mama_Kitty]

Its probable that some or all of use are here today because their ancestors made sure they took advantage of cutting edge medicine and not traditional cures.

How does that relate to breastfeeding? Are you saying that's a traditional thing which will be replaced by cutting-edge medicine? I don't think people would necessarily use it if they 'knew' it would make their children ill, but if you have a lot of professional looking people, doctors and nurses, telling you that formula is best for your baby, and you haven't been told anything different, it's going to take a while for the negative effects to outweight that sort of authority.

It's impossible to know how much they didn't understand or how much they didn't want to understand if it got in the way of business. If they are still conducting their business in much the same way after 20+ years of the consequences being known, it's difficult to see misuderstanding or indifference there as being anything other than deliberate.

I'm trying to find a section I found last time about this, there was a report by Nestlé quoted a saying that it was aware of international issues regarding language and labelling but that changing the labels for 'minority' languages was not economically viable, or words to that effect, so they did know what they were doing.

 

[OneWingedBird]

Victorian England was a rather different proposition to the backwaters of Africa/India/Indonesia. By Western standards we're talking about isolated villages in vast areas of land, often with no schools or education of any sort. Bizarrely certain kinds of trade still get through - there was a case a few years ago where the women of a village in India were picketting a liquer store that had opened. Women and children were malnourished through a combination of poverty and low status, but the men could spend what little pay they got on booze.

It's very common in developing countries from children to die purely from being given infected water, and the mother doesn't realise and believes there's some other reason, or they die from diseases like diarrhea that could be cured quite simply and cheaply, but they've been sold all sorts of expensive and useless medicines instead. This kind of thing continues because the people really don't understand enough to make what to us would seem to be a basic appraisal of the situation. They realy don't stand a chance when a bunch of people purporting to be doctors/nurses/experts turn up and start telling them what's 'best' for their babies.

 

[Kondoru]

Were they any better educated in Victorian England? Im not sure.

Certainly in this day and age there is the problem of `technobabble` which was less so in times past.

Its a problem we all suffer from...Also that of fashionable remedies.

 

[wembley8]

"I still feel that most people are not going to continue on a plan of action that has been proved to have negative results. "

You might think so, but unfortunately for us it doesn't work like that, as a quick look at the history of medicine shows. Bloodletting? Purging? Pretty much any form of medicine practised before the 18th century (and many afterwards)?
Even in the 20th century there was a whole completely useless industry based on non-'cures' for TB.

Even now there are myriad old wives tales about health and illness that are misleading or downright dangerous.
And even these days...well, look at MMR.

 

[OneWingedBird]

Add to that the non-stop removal of children's tonsils in the 70s and the later fashion for putting gromits in their eardrums for glue ear (studies later found it cleared up by itself anyway). And removal of asymptomatic 3rd molars, which may still happen.