On Saturday, I attended the annual conference of the Irish Home Birth Association. I have been going to HBA conferences since I moved back to Ireland from the UK with my then four-month-old first baby, who will be six years old in May. I also attended some conferences as a child, when my mother was having her home births. Many of my friends have been or are still on the HBA committee, or have written their birth stories for the HBA newsletter. Home birth has always seemed as natural to me as breathing. I feel lucky to have been brought up with this attitude. I also feel lucky that home births were a legal, viable choice for me when I had both my children, that I had access to home birth services, and that the experiences themselves were absolutely amazing. Access to choices in childbirth and unbiased information should be a basic right for women. In many cases, the full spectrum of choices is simply not available for a woman to give birth as she wishes, or even to inform herself fully about the experience. I am aware of the prevailing attitudes in this culture-that birth is painful and dangerous, and that you must be “selfish” (compromising your child’s safety or life), peculiar (for wanting to remain fully awake and aware through such an excruciating event) or “brave” (read a bit naive, foolishly lucky or simply ill-informed) to actually want to have a home birth “in this day and age”. I have encountered all these attitudes and more. Of course not everyone “should” have a home birth if they do not want one, and of course not all births are suited to a home setting, some carrying higher risk factors than others for the participants involved. In a culture where the right to all the facts before making a decision is viewed as so important, however, there seems to me to be some imbalance with regard to how two different sets of “risks” are represented in the field of birth.

The risks involved to a mother and baby as a direct result of certain birth interventions are glossed over in damning popular media articles like this one. They are vaguely, fleetingly referred to here, as opposed to the fully researched account of the early “development of the mother and baby bond” explored in this article by French obstetrician Michel Odent. The targets of the first author’s negativity and rage – female advocates of natural childbirth – are described as “smug, sanctimonious harpies”. Attitudes like this are so culturally sanctioned that the facts are in danger of being totally lost in irrationality. Homebirth, on the other hand, widely regarded as being unsafe and irresponsible, associated here with angels, crystals and bongos, has been proven to be at least as safe for most women as hospital birth – and for the women cited in the next paragraph, a hell of a lot more enjoyable than hospital birth and the episiotomies and abdominal surgeries which often go hand in hand with it. As for the risk factors, almost all high-risk women who would not be suited to home birth can be identified during pregnancy by the skilled midwives who provide them with personalised care. Oh, and good healthcare and nutrition can prevent many of these factors from arising in the first place – but let’s not get into that. Why bother analysing the fact that companies make money out of all medical interventions and drugs, as well as vitamins, iron tablets and other “necessary” pregnancy paraphenalia. Who cares that vested interests may have some part to play in the fact that our healthcare services, in the main, necessitate the use of such products, since they concentrate on what so do when something goes wrong, rather than how to prevent it from going wrong in the first place. I suppose I’m a killjoy harpy for mentioning the fact that we are at least partly responsible for our own health and wellbeing, and can empower and inform ourselves by taking control of these things. Whew, now I’m getting angry too.

Ina May Gaskin, a highly experienced, pioneering and skilled midwife in the US has statistically and practically proven the effect of the mother’s emotional state and the attitude of any birth attendants toward the mother on the experience of birth. She has proven beyond doubt that a healthy lifestyle, good relationship with a knowledgeable, respectful midwife and continuity of pre- and post-natal and labour care all add up to a safe and – shock, horror, here it comes – often an ENJOYABLE, birth. Her reasearch and wisdom are available in the “Guide to Childbirth” and “Spiritual Midwifery”, as well as in medical journals and elsewhere. These evidence-based facts have obviously not gotten through to mainstream cultural understanding or to the popular press. Sadly, the common assumption is that natural birth is awful and you’d hate it, trust us, and that medically managed birth is “progress” and the best way for everyone. Such attitudes prevent real education on how positive birth can be, as well as propagating the devastating trauma which can result from unnecessary intervention and disrespectful attitudes of some medical professionals toward labouring women. Once again, vested interests and who profits from birth medication should be considered before any attempt at an objective conclusion can be reached. While we’re on the subject of who profits, I’d like to respond to the statement in the first article linked to above that breast feeding is “not a make or break issue for the planet either way”. Hmm. Do you really think so? We’re struggling for resources on the aforementioned planet. Of course it may not be any big deal to us here in the cushy, cosy developed world, but some people are already short of water and food. They have been for years, in case you’re interested. It might really open your eyes to investigate a bit of world history, and how nations which are now powerful and rich achieved their power and riches. And where does formula milk come from? How are the animals which produce the milk fed and managed? How is the formula processed, contained and transported, and what are the pollution rates, and energy and resource requirements of these activities? Do you know what the developing-world marketing strategies of the same companies who produce baby formula for the developed world might be? I challenge anyone to read Gabrielle Palmer’s Politics of Breastfeeding or facts provided by Baby Milk Action and ever look at these issues in the same way again.

I was also excited to hear that Ricki Lake would be speaking at the conference, the fact of which means that the HBA conference got its first ever (very brief) mention on the Late Late Show where Ricki was a guest last Friday. I enjoyed hearing Ricki speak, and I’d love to think that her high profile as a talk show host and film star might raise the profile of home birth. The fact that a high profile showbiz woman can have the same powerful, positive experience of birth as me, some of my friends or the women in Ina May’s book might actually make people sit up and take note that this is possible, rather than dismissing home birthers as hippies, earth mothers etc. Ina May is, unbelievably, still not exactly a household name – maybe because of her quiet, low-key working life in an intentional community in Tennessee. Since she is a more “mainstream” celebrity, I admire Ricki very much for her wonderful film, the Business of Being Born, and having the courage to speak up for natural childbirth in this hostile culture. I know the puzzling, hurtful accusations and the dumping of issues which this can leave one open to. I am saddened every time I read another ill-informed, stereotyping, negative article about birth. I look forward to when the facts about birth and all the different ways of doing it will be freely available, without (will this ever happen?) the distortion of facts by company interests. Hopefully one day, birth as a normal, natural event will become just as much a part of the public consciousness as the current assumption that it is an occasion of pain, danger and fear.

Prime Minister John Key sees opportunities for New Zealand to help China with its food safety standards.

He’s right but with the opportunities come risks, one of which is an association with New Zealand or New Zealand companies and their products if standards aren’t up to scratch.

Another is the difficulty of  transferring our standards to a country with a very differenct culture, customs and ethics.

The significance of Fonterra chairman Henry Van der Heyden accompanying Key hasn’t been missed. The company was badly bitten by its involvement with Sanlu but is looking for fresh opportunities in China.

They will have learnt from the Sanlu disaster, but I’m not yet convinced they have learnt all the lessons and realise all the risks.

One of these is the danger of selling infant milk powder in a country where companies don’t abide by the International Code of Marketing Breast Milk Substitutes.

The code was developed by the World Health Organisation in 1981 and prohibits almost all advertising of breast milk substitutes to the public.

If Fonterra is associated in any way with companies which disregard the code it risks an international backlash.

Baby Milk Action is an organisation  which monitors the baby food industry. Its website shows Sanlu advertisements which contravene the international code and it has a campaign to boycott Nestle because it breaches the code.

 If Fonterra wants to invest and operate in China it must not only ensure that the animal welfare and food health and safety standards which it requires in New Zealand are adhered to there, it must also ensure none of its produce is advertised in breach of the ICMBMS.

Nestlé is promoting its plastic-packaging free Easter eggs – you would think such a thing would lighten my liberal, environmentally-guilt-stricken consciousness, non?

Non. It is of course a Good Thing for anyone who is going to buy a Smarties egg anyway, but like its Fairtrade coffee, I can’t buy into it. Not while the multinational company continues to lead the way in violating the World Health Assembly marketing requirements for baby foods.

Baby Milk Action details the problems and publishes Nestlé’s rebuttal of the accusations in careful and, in my opinion, reasoned tones. It covers the pseudo-medical marketing to mothers in the poorest parts of the world, who could, and should, be breastfeeding. Not just because breastfeeding improves the baby’s immunity to disease, but because access to clean water to mix the formula can be impossible. You know the wrench you feel in your gut watching kids drinking filthy water in Comic Relief films – imagine putting that water in a baby bottle…  This, to keep a long rant short, is why I boycott Nestlé.

Baby Milk Action is a good place to learn about the ongoing boycott of Nestlé – if nothing else you will be amazed how many pies the firm has fingers in, and how many products boycotters have to avoid. If you can’t give them all up – try boycotting Nescafe at least – and tell the company exactly why you’re doing it.

This may be another upside to the global recession, perhaps the boycott will actually begin to hurt shareholder profits and Nestlé  may begin to see the light – even if it’s not for altruistic reasons.

This is the kind of post that really benefits from positive comments, so if you do sign up, or already boycott Nestle, take half a minute to say so.

I’d like to take the marketing execs at Cow & Gate and smack them upside the head. Where do they get off advertising their formula with the slogan

Trust Cow & Gate…because healthy babies are happy babies

FFS, argh and argh again. And rollercoaster, shame on you for sending me such advertising in my email, have you no respect for the International Code at all?

And I’m sorry but who is uploading their babies to be used by a formula company for advertising purposes? There are babies on the site younger than 6 months, but of course it’s not formula advertising, it’s a search for Ireland’s happiest baby, isn’t it? And OMG if I upload my baby I could even win a maternity shirt or baby hat, isn’t that cool. Oh, it is too infuriating.

Rant over, there’s no point really is there. These people have infinite resources to throw at circumventing the Code and our ridiculously weak advertising laws, as long as they don’t actually say “Buy our formula for your newborn” every thing is legal.

So far on Irish forums, we have seen C&G advertising their “baby club” with the slogan “Your newborn’s tummy is only the size of an eggcup” but that was ok, because it was not an ad for formula, it was an ad for a “Baby club”. Okaayyyyyy.

And we had SMA actually sponsoring the entire Mums to be section on rollercoaster.ie, but the FSAI advised that they could do nothing as SMA was just advertising their brand not a specific formula product, gosh if there was ever a loophole that’s a loophole, their brand is predominantly baby formula, duh! Hmmm….

And that C&G laughing babies ad, again perfectly legal according to the FSAI who did admit that

…Your concerns in respect to advertising of follow-on formulae and its impact on breastfeeding are shared by the FSAI. These concerns are supported by recent surveys carried out by the FSAI and also in the U.K, which appear to show that consumers do not differentiate between advertising of infant formulae and follow-on formulae….

And most recently, Nestlé have started sponsoring Childline, at a coincidental time when they are planning to relaunch their formula into the UK market, Nestlé who had this gem to share about the China formula contamination

“All our products are 100 percent safe…Sales in China are rather being favoured,” Peter Brabeck-Letmathe told reporters in India’s capital, when asked whether the scandal would affect the company’s business.

“It’s rather positive than negative,” Brabeck said.

Nice.

Of course, many parents choose to formula feed, this is not an attack on them. It is important that they are given full, unbiased information on all the options available, but there is one source of this information that is shockingly unreliable, and that is the formula companies themselves, each of whom after all is a business, out to make a profit and convince you, the consumer, that their product is best. False advertising and exaggerated claims of wonderfulness should have no place on baby formula, it’s not right and we really shouldn’t stand for it.

There are many groups worldwide campaigning for more widespread and robust adoption of the International Code, Baby Milk Action, Baby Feeding Law Group & IBFAN are good starting points to learn more. In the meantime, complaining to the relevant authorities (FSAI in Ireland, ASA in the UK) is about all we can do, if they get enough complaints they might take notice, or more than likely, they won’t take notice but at least they’ll have to deal with the complaints!

And if you think this is all storm-in-a-teacup type complaining by “militant” (how I hate that phrase) breastfeeding mums, please take a few minutes to download & look through some of the reports on formula advertising that have been published by Baby Milk Action, it is eye-opening reading. It’s something all parents should be concerned about, regardless of how they choose to feed their babies.

disclaimer: this is not an attack on parents who formula-feed, this is about the companies involved and their often-illegal claims & advertising methods!

It’s the start of Nestlé-Free week (see I told you October was a busy month), and today marks the 20th anniversary of the most recent incarnation of the Nestlé boycott.

So, what is Nestlé-Free Week? Mike at the Boycott Nestlé blog explains:

What is Nestlé-Free Week? It is a week to tell people about the boycott. If you are a boycotter, you will probably know people who say they can’t give up one or other Nestlé product. Ask them to do so just for Nestlé-Free Week, this year and every year until Nestlé makes the required changes to its marketing policies and practices.

If you don’t boycott all Nestlé products yourself (the focus in the UK is on Nescafé coffee) then give it a try during Nestlé-Free Week. You and your friends and colleagues may find alternatives that you will stick with. Fairly traded products are a good way to go as Nestlé is also criticised over its treatment of coffee farmers and for failing to act on child slavery in its cocoa supply chain.

Sound like something you’d be interested in? If you’re new to the boycott, pop on over to Baby Milk Action’s boycott HQ, which has all the information you need to know! You can also check out this post for some ideas on things you can do during Nestlé-Free week.

And even if none of this appeals to you, consider this: The recent baby deaths in China were a tragedy, but to Nestlé they represented a positive! Do you really want to give your money to a company that uses dead and ill babies as a marketing opportunity? From Reuters:

“All our products are 100 percent safe…Sales in China are rather being favoured,” Peter Brabeck-Letmathe told reporters in India’s capital, when asked whether the scandal would affect the company’s business.

“It’s rather positive than negative,” Brabeck said.

Are their products 100% safe? Boycott Nestlé has evidence that would disagree with that statement.

A new portal site, Nestlé Critics has been launched which will be bringing together information on the many different issues with Nestlé. It seems to be making an impact, there has already been an attempt to shut it down.

Nestlé are making a bit of a comeback in the UK recently, they are about to launch into the formula market and coincidentally have been getting involved in many high profile sponsorship deals with children’s charities, including the ISPCC in Ireland, hmm….

Anyhoo, give the boycott a go for one week or if you already boycott Nestlé try and get a friend to join you, the more the merrier!

You can see a list of Nestlé’s products here, they do seem to have a finger in every pie, but after a while I find you get used to avoiding them!

If you’re a fan of Nescafé, you could try Cafédirect. And if it’s Smarties or jellies you miss, you can get very yummy alternatives (which also happen to be vegan!).

And I know there are many people out there who think the Nestlé boycott is a waste of effort, after all it’s been going on now for years, but it’s not always about an instant result, sometimes you have to do something even if you don’t see an immediate return. For every one person actively boycotting Nestlé there are probably loads more people who have considered it but think it’s too much trouble.

Yes, it can be a hassle, but I think we have no idea here in the media-savvy developed nations how insidious their tactics are, we are educated, we understand advertising, we know to look beyond the gloss. Many people don’t and because of this babies have died and are continuing to die. And that is why I boycott Nestlé, because they have targeted women at their most vunerable and tricked them into choosing formula (their reps used to dress as nurses and hand out free formula samples) when they have no access to clean water knowing full well, even if the mothers don’t, that this action was risking the baby’s life, because they drive down standards and continue to exploit loopholes in order to advertise their formula and because they think dying babies in China are a positive marketing opportunity. For shame. Even if there was no official Nestlé boycott, I couldn’t in my heart support such a company.

I guess we all have to make our own choices in these matters, the facts are there, and they make for stark reading. As about a gazillion people have said before me “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything“.

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A microscopic glimmer of positive out of the Chinese milk tragedy…  But it’s not just a Chinese thing – whilst other countries don’t tend to put melamine in their milk, don’t imagine for one moment that formula is 100% safe, wherever in the world you are.

When you breastfeed, you control the milk production – from the beginning of the process to the end.  You know what you eat, you know what your baby eats.  You’re not reliant on a multinational who, chances are, will be putting profit ahead of ideal.  Of course, formula manufacturers don’t want to kill the end user of their product – that would be commercial suicide, if it was to happen on a regular basis.  However, formula can and does kill babies, worldwide.  Problems such as enterobacter sakazakii and salmonella, which can be found in powdered formula (one study found it in 14% of samples taken), is seemingly considered by the industry to be a manageable risk.  Tell that to the babies it affects – mortality rates for babies who succumb to this infection are between 20 and 50% – and that doesn’t include the babies who are left permanently disabled by it.  And that’s something that kills babies in developed countries – I’ve not even touched on

Before you panic, the risk of these bugs can be minimised by either using ready-to-feed cartons or by making up formula with recently-boiled water (no less than 70 degrees) and discarding any your baby doesn’t drink within an hour.  But the fact remains that these fluffy companies, the ones that tell you, with cutesy slogans (SMA’s “Love the milk you give”, Aptamil’s “Inspired by breastmilk” and “Best infant milk” and Cow & Gate’s “Complete nutrition”) and pictures of teddies and ducks, are NOT there to help you, they are there to make money.  There is no mention on the packs that infant formula isn’t sterile, not one of them explains the reason you need to use water of no less than 70 degrees to reconstitute the formula and their websites and marketing material frequently undermine breastfeeding – in fact, the very existence of any of it by definition undermines breastfeeding.

This is why I support calls by Baby Milk Action for all advertising of infant formula to cease.  Advertising doesn’t tell us anything useful about the product, which in turn doesn’t allow parents to make informed choices about what they’re feeding their babies.  I know many people who visit this site find their way here because they’re feeling guilty about feeding their babies formula (I see the search engine terms people use to land on this site).  If formula wasn’t advertised, many people say this guilt would increase, but I see it differently.

One of the things you do when you’re pregnant, particularly for the first time, is read pregnancy and birth magazines.  In these magazines are adverts for formula and related products (bottles, teats, sterilisers, etc).  OK, fair enough, free country.  However, the very presence of those adverts affects the content of the magazines.  After all, as a magazine editor, do you bite the hand that feeds you by writing articles with a “these are the risks of formula feeding” tone?  Or do you write “balanced” articles, ignoring the fact that you’re comparing apples with oranges when you do a comparison of breastmilk and formula?  In fact, even apples and oranges aren’t a decent analogy – breastmilk is a living substance that alters in response to your baby’s needs throughout the feed, throughout the day, depending on the weather, the age of your baby, etc.  Formula is the same stuff, whether you feed it on day one or day 365 or day 700 to your baby.  It contains nothing living.  It tastes identical at every feed.  But you’ll never see that in a baby magazine…

I’m going to post this, then revisit it when other things occur to me and edit it, I think!

I got a reply from the FSAI (Food Safety Authority of Ireland) today to my recent Cow & Gate complaint. And just in case I felt even a little bit special and listened-to, I soon discovered that many of my online buddies got the exact same, word-for-word, reply today. And it doesn’t really say much, what do you think? I’ve bolded the bits I think are especially interesting…

Thank you for your e-mail of complaint in respect to the current Cow and Gate advertisement for follow-on formula. The FSAI supports the National Breast Feeding Policy and recognizes the importance of breastfeeding in public health.

Infant formulae are breast-milk substitutes for infants in good health during the first four to six months of life and are designed to satisfy all the nutritional requirements of infants of this age. Follow-on formulae are intended for children over this age and as such form part of an increasingly diverse diet.

Although there are stringent regulations in respect to the advertising of infant formula these do not apply to follow on formula as long as it provides appropriate information the use of the product and does not discourage breast feeding.

Your concerns in respect to advertising of follow-on formulae and its impact on breastfeeding are shared by the FSAI. These concerns are supported by recent surveys carried out by the FSAI and also in the U.K, which appear to show that consumers do not differentiate between advertising of infant formulae and follow-on formulae. While further work is needed to investigate these concerns, the FSAI does not advocate the showing of advertisements which would serve to undermine a woman’s wish to breastfeed or National policy on the promotion of breastfeeding.

In addition to current regulation the World Health Organization’s International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes provides more rigorous standards and many individuals and organizations have signed up to these on a voluntary basis. The FSAI continues to work with industry with the objective of achieving best practice in this area.

The FSAI has considered the issues raised in your letter and in the first instance will write to the company seeking a response to these concerns.

So does that say “we agree with your complaint, surveys agree on how misleading follow-on formula advertising is and yet all we are going to do is write to Cow & Gate and ask them nicely for their opinion?” or am I reading it wrong? And I’m fairly sure that the industry’s concept of “best practice” would differ significantly from the WHO’s! Hmmmm….

Ah well, we shall keep on complaining! And supporting the groups that put in so much effort to highlight these issues and push for legislation changes, such as Baby Milk Action & The Baby Feeding Law Group in the UK. Why not pop over to Baby Milk Action and buy something nice from their store, they have t-shirts, mugs, fridge magnets, calendars and lots, lots more – you might find some lovely Christmas presents there!

disclaimer: this is not an attack on parents who bottle-feed, this is about the companies involved and their often-illegal claims & advertising methods!

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Earlier this week I watched a programme (I sense a theme running through here but believe me I am very selective in what I choose to watch on tv, or at least attempt to be) which is part of channel four’s G-Spot series called “Other people’s breast milk”. Now, I am very open minded greatly thanks to my upbringing and I am very pro anything natural, I have a complete fascination with pregnancy, child birth and babies (as well as mental illnesses and sex but that’s another story). So the programme pretty much does-what-it-says-on-the-tin, “Kate Garraway investigates the pros and cons of cross-feeding, breast-milk donation and wet-nursing by meeting some of the growing numbers of women who share each other’s milk”.

She states “I am on a quest to find people who think milk has to be from the breast, no matter what”

This programme features lots of inspirational women but I feel like this programme is geared up for those who find breast feeding a “bit icky” and who don’t really agree with breastfeeding in the first place, rather than promoting the benefits of breast feeding. It seemed to be filled with the Garraway’s feelings of guilt for not breast feeding her daughter for longer. Garraway starts by interviewing her husband who exclaims…

“I think it’s hard enough thinking you’ll be sharing it with your own child…most guys feel ‘those breasts are mine’ and suddenly there’s a little baby sucking on them…I think it would be quite hard to get your hard round sharing it with the baby round the corner…I think that would be tough for most men”

Oh God. I hope most men don’t feel like that! I beter find one who doesn’t! I dislike any sense of “possession” in a relationship, even if it’s in a playful way. It scares me, and makes my skin crawl to think that any partner thinks that. Him, and men like him need to get over themselves; breasts primary function are for food for offspring, not for your titillation!

And I can’t understand for the life of me why anyone would think breast feeding is “disgusting”. I see mothers feeding their children from a bottle (and yes I know it could be expressed breast milk) and think “how can you possibly not give your child something that is obviously the best option for them?” To me it seems extremely selfish to not breastfeed your child, and if you are one of those people who think it’s a “bit icky” then are you really mature enough to be procreating in the first place? Probably not.

There is no doubt that breast is best, and although I appreciate our freedom to do what we want with our own bodies – when you bring another life into the world as a parent YOU are the one with control over them and therefore the responsibility falls on you to do the best by them.

I think the most interesting part of the documentary was when a man with prostate cancer drank Breast Milk he had bought and then mixed it with fruit and made it into a smoothie – and claims it cured his cancer. I wouldn’t be surprised as breast milk is pretty fantastic, but would like to see a bit more evidence first before I believe it.

So, if you’ve got enough breast milk to share then why not? Pump it and donate it, breast feed someone else’s baby straight from the source and help someone have a better start in life. I can’t say until I get there (and I am quite a long way off so far) but I hope I don’t lose my open minded attitude by the time I come around to having children.

This woman was also featured…

And from having a look at the Nestle Boycott website I also found this image.

“Use my picture if it will help,” said this mother at the Children’s Hosptial, Islamabad, Pakistan. Photo: UNICEF.

A baby dies every 30 seconds from unsafe bottle feeding
The photograph above tells the tragic story of the fatalities that occur due to unsafe bottle feeding. The babies are twins: the child with the bottle is a girl – she died the day after this photograph was taken – but her brother was breastfed and thrived.

The mother was told by her mother-in-law that she would not have enough milk for both children, and so she breasted her son and bottle-fed her daughter. But she would almost certainly have been able to feed both her babies, since the more a baby suckles, the more milk is produced.”

I was wandering around Rollercoaster today, you remember them, the Irish forum that had their mums2be area sponsored by SMA and that frequently hosts dubious formula ads, like the Cow & Gate ones in their breastfeeding forum last year? Why do I still wander around it then? Well, a huge amount of Irish women use it and their breastfeeding forum is very busy and full of questions, so rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater (so to speak) I still visit, but I keep lodging complaints whenever I find stuff!

Anyhoo, today I noticed that their parenting section is now sponsored by Nestlé. Hmm. We’ve been boycotting Nestlé here since forever (well since college) so I do get a little jolt when I see their name on parenting sites, I mean you just tend to presume that everyone is boycotting them. Obviously not.

Not only are Nestlé sponsoring the parenting section, but they also have a “ask the Nestlé nutritionist” section and stuff like that. Interesting. Did you know Nestlé are planning on expanding their range of infant formula in the UK soon? Interesting!

But another thing I noticed was a big banner ad linking to the ISPCC’s website, so I wandered over for a look. And here’s what I found… Nestle are sponsoring the “Cheerios Childline Breakfast Together Week” on the 6-12th October. Wow, the same week as International Nestle Free Week, funny coincidence eh?

Setting aside that coincidental coincidence, and setting aside the fact that Cheerios are chock full of sugar and salt and inappropriately marketed at children, this is a sad (and very familiar) situation we are looking at.

Childline is woefully underfunded, last year they could only answer 47% of the over 630,000 calls they received. They are aiming for a 100% answer rate by 2011. But the fact is the ISPCC isn’t well funded, over 90% of their funding is raised through the public.

And they have corporate sponsors, one of whom is Nestlé.

Nestlé donates over 100K to the ISPCC annually, small change to Nestlé but absolutely crucial to the ISPCC. And for that small donation, Nestlé gets so much more…

Sponsoring the ISPCC will benefit your company in the following ways:

• Bring a positive image to your company by addressing specific objectives
• Help you reach an intended target audience
• Increase your brand awareness
• Motivate your staff
• Show your company’s commitment to the local community

This is followed on the same page by a little heartwarming blurb from Nestlé:

“…Cheerios and Childline are a natural fit and we are delighted to be associated with such a vital service for Irish children”.

We can see that they’re getting priceless consumer goodwill, warm and fuzzy feelings about their benevolence, brand recognition, the list goes on. Childline & the ISPCC are charities that everyone in Ireland will give money to when they are collecting on the streets, it breaks your heart to hear of all those calls going unanswered, all those children not getting the help they need.

So in that regard, it’s great that the ISPCC is getting 100K from Nestlé, better in their pockets than in Nestlé’s.

But at the same time, it stinks. It stinks that Nestlé is just flinging cash around to improve its image, Baby Milk Action have noted that Nestlé tends to approach children’s charities in order to divert criticism away from its formula marketing practices. It stinks that the ISPCC is in a situation where it needs to get into bed with such unethical companies. And it stinks that it’s not something that is likely to change.

If the ISPCC said “no” to Nestlé, then Nestlé would just find some other charity to stick its logo on, but the ISPCC would lose 100K a year, that’s a lot of unanswered phone calls. There’s no real easy answer, and Nestlé knows that, and preys on that and puts charities in the unenviable position of having to choose between dirty money or no money. It’s not right. And it’s happening everywhere, Nestlé are nothing if not resourceful.

So, if you want to get involved in Cheerio Week, why not organise your own breakfast morning for Childline? You could tie it in with International Nestlé Free Week and have some information there for anyone interested in learning about the boycott. Perhaps send a letter with your donation letting the ISPCC know that you still support them but have issues with their bedfellows.

And if you don’t already boycott Nestle or feel that boycotting is pointless, or if you have a weakness for Nescafé, a fondness for Smarties or a love of Rolos, please take a few minutes to read up on why people are boycotting Nestlé, and think about doing the same, even if it’s only for one week. Be the change you wish to see in the world!

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I’m sure most of you folks in the UK & Ireland have seen Cow & Gate’s latest tv advertisement with the laughing babies. It’s on YouTube if you haven’t (is everything in the world on YouTube now one wonders?). It’s been around for a few weeks now, but we don’t have broadcast tv so I only saw it last week.

Basically, it’s more of the same, only now Cow & Gate are essentially making a mockery of all the known facts about formula feeding. Formula fed babies are more likely to experience tummy problems, catch more bugs & experience a range of health issues which breastfed babies are not as susceptible to.

This ad is using “idealising imagery” to push C&G’s formula and with all the lines “Do I look like my tummy’s unhappy” etc. along with the voiceover is implying that formula is best for babies.

Now I realise they are advertising their Follow-On formula which, although it is nearly identical in packaging to the their newborn formula, is allowed under Irish Law, but if you watch this ad I think you’ll agree some of these babies look very young, and very close to the 6 month threshold. And we all know that Follow-On milk was only created to circumvent the ban on advertising formula for newborns.

These kinds of formula ads perpetuate the idea that formula is as good as breastmilk, it’s not, and it should not be allowed to be marketed as such. This type of advertisement is not a source of reliable information for parents, it is more akin to a Coke or Pepsi ad, trying to sell their brand based on a feel-good factor.

The argument that parents need advertising in order to be informed consumers just doesn’t wash, especially when it comes to formula, have a look at Baby Milk Action’s analysis of the claims of the major formula brands.

Cow & Gate are clearly doing what all of the formula companies are doing and are skirting around our insanely weak formula advertising laws. Do you remember the recent SMA ads that were on a popular Irish parenting forum? The FSAI were unable to stop those ads as despite the fact that they were targeting pregnant women, they made no mention of the word “formula”, so the ads were ok!

Anyway, if you haven’t done so already, please take a minute to watch the ad and pop an email to your relevant advertising standards group to complain. In Ireland this is the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (The FSAI handles all issues to do with formula advertising in Ireland) and in the UK it’s the Advertising Standards Authority.

The FSAI responded to my complaint with the following:

Thank you for contacting the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.  We have received other complaints regarding the Cow & Gate advertisement and are currently looking into this.  We will get back to you as soon as the matter has been reviewed.

In the UK, the Baby Feeding Law Group is actively monitoring the marketing practices of the various formula companies. Their most recent report was in May 2008, and is well worth a read (pdf).

As well as lodging an official complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority, the BFLG asks people to let them know about dubious formula marketing through their monitoring page.

The BFLG is coordinated by Baby Milk Action who are currently pursuing a complaint about this ad with the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards in the UK.

This is all an uphill struggle, the formula companies have massive advertising budgets and are constantly skirting around any new restrictions, just think of SMA’s logo change last year!

If you’re reading this and wondering what all the fuss is about, please pop on over to IBFAN’s website and read their guide to the International Code, both Ireland and the UK’s laws are based on extremely watered-down versions of this Code.

Still though, a watered-down version of the code is at least a starting point, have a look here for some advertising from the US, which has no such restrictions, it is absolutely astonishing the claims that are made over there!

I’ll keep you all posted if I hear anything more from the FSAI, hopefully if enough people complain about these ads, they may be eventually inclined to strengthen the laws here!

disclaimer: this is not an attack on parents who bottle-feed, this is about the companies involved and their often-illegal claims & advertising methods!

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This week:

Weight: Still at 79kg (target: 73kg); Miles run so far this week: 17.78
Total funds raised now over £200 – hurrah and thanks: £212.82 (including Gift Aid) Only £787.18 to go.
Sponsor me at my Justgiving page by clicking here.
Days to go to the New York Marathon: 92

Regular readers will notice a change to the look of RunAllanRun since last week. This is because my wonderful colleagues in the NCT Marketing Department have been helping me to build interest and therefore raise more funds. So we have a hilarious banner for the blog. We have a facebook group (RunAllanRun) and we have a little paragraph on the NCT website.

And it is working. Sponsorship has gone up 100% in just one week, which is a very impressive uplift. So thanks for all the input NCT Marketing!

Marketing is mostly a very good thing and it works. My job at the NCT would not exist without the need for marketing. Commercial organisations wish to market and advertise their products and services to NCT members and supporters. I enable these organisations to do this while ensuring that NCT gets the benefit of valuable funds in return.

I myself am a sucker for most good marketing. I understand there may be mp3 players out there which are better value, or technically better than an iPod. But it is an iPod that I have. I think this may go back to my childhood (hello Mr Freud!). When my father bought me a toy car racing set, being an engineer, he went for the best one technically that he could afford, which was called “VIP Raceways“. Unfortunately, VIP Raceways went bust, probably because the much bigger and more popular (and better marketed) – but, according to my father, not as good – Scalextric put it out of business. As the two systems were not compatible, this meant that I could not get any new cars or extra track for my VIP set. Whereas, Michael, my next door neighbour could fill his living room with a massive labyrinthine Scalextric track that he just kept adding to and adding to, damn him.

So because of this – well, let’s just call it “painful” – early experience, then, I often give in to popular trends. We already know that I have the GPS thing because it looks really cool and the running magazines talk lovingly about it. The fact that I am running a marathon in the first place is probably down to all the marketing there has been about running marathons over the last few years. I recently bought the “I’m in” official ING NY Marathon T-shirt, which I have been wearing proudly since it arrived this week. It cost me £11 for the shirt and £16 for the postage, but there you go. The marketing worked.

Although as with most things, of course, I don’t need it.

And as this is for NCT, we know that the marketing of formula baby milk continues despite the World Health Organization Code. As Baby Milk Action points out: “The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 1.5 million infants die around the world every year because they are not breastfed. Where water is unsafe a bottle-fed child is up to 25 times more likely to die as a result of diarrhoea than a breastfed child.”

So do some research before giving in to the marketing I suppose is my fatherly message today. Because it can be fun to give in to the marketing and indulge oneself. And this blog is a bit of self-indulgence for me, and I believe the marketing and imagine myself a great comic writer with literally seven or eight fans. Oh no! I’ve gone all postmodern again!

Marketing is good
Marketing is also bad
So do some research.

Right kids!

The little pregnant & breastfeeding mum fridge magnets are back in stock at Baby Milk Action.

They are just too cute! They also have a handful of breastfeeding dolls left too. They’re handmade in Brazil and have been out of stock for ages. I have some on the way in the mail as I write, yay!