Gonna sound thick here, why is it illegal?
Theres a few reasons why and leaving aside the Breast is best reasons, one of the main ones is because shady companys with questionable ethics (sound familiar!) In the 70s.
Nestle sent reps into hospitals in 3rd world countries dressed as nurses advertising formula to new mothers. This new amazing product that would feed baby keep them fuller for longer and sleep better etc the usual formula stuff you still hear from people today.
They gave the formula free to the mothers. The mothers then went home with no breastmilk and very quickly couldn't afford the formula anymore. They had no access to clean water and sterile bottles etc. They started watering down the formula a d babies became sick and died directly because of Nestle (SMA)
What other Nestle products do we see MH advertise. Smarties? Milkybar Yoghurts? Nesquick?
She most definitely had a payment by Nestle previously and it's very suspicious to me she would include Nestle Formula brand in her poll.
Formula Companies advertised it as a solution to hungrier babies, gave leaflets out that branded BFing as a negative thing and again free tins of formula were given (just incase) HCPs were paid by formula companies to suggest using their brand of formula.
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So all this going on women started to be shamed for Breastfeeding and received no support from either medical professionals or friends and family and turned to formula. Which given the breast is best information was not the best choice for babies.
Aptamil got into a lot of trouble for their their campaign which stated closest to breast milk (all formula is basically the same thing they have a legal standard so one is not superior to the other and none is closer to Breastmilk)
However this slogan is again something you here from women all the time regarding Aptamil. They had another few ads that caused trouble too. One started with a bfing mother and then said when you decide to move on from Breastfeeding...
This implied their formula was as good as breastmilk and didnt say 'at 6 months' so if you decided to stop breastfeeding in the first 3 minutes you could reach for aptamil because it was just as good as Breastmilk. They used to have an immunofortis claim again they got in trouble for that.
All shady advertising by formula companies who just want to make money at the end of the day.
Cow and gate and aptamil are made by the same company. They are like all formula basically the same, but 2 different brands targets two different sections of the market and increases profit. Last year they changed the main ingredient from Demineralised whey to lactose, as it was cheaper to produce. The whey:casein ratio is now 50:50 instead of 60:40 it caused a lot of babies to get sick as.
Follow on milk however if you check ingredients are basically the exact same as first stage milk. It was introduced by Formula companies as a way around the banning of advertising Breast Milk substitutes. Its from 6 months onwards which is when babies are recommended to wean.
I am not anti formula. I was formula fed as were some of my nieces and nephews. Some were breastfed and they're all happy healthy children. However shady advertising should always be called out and not just swept under the rug, which ironically seems to happen all the time. Just remove it and it will go away seems to be a mantra.
Sorry for the huge post