Babies' health not in formula

by Pieta Woolley on September 21st, 2006 at 7:00 AM

The Nestlé booth was abuzz with pregnant women and new parents at the Baby and Family Fair on September 16 and 17. The attraction was free Baby Einstein and Disney DVDs, free rice-cereal samples, free infant formula samples, and a send-away card for a free diaper bag, a baby-magazine subscription, and more formula. It was one of the juiciest giveaways at the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre event.

Meanwhile, Douglas College's perinatal program manager, Kathleen Lindstrom, was trying to entice the thousands of orb-bellied women to come to her breast-feeding workshop.

“I said, 'Come find out how to save thousands of dollars a year and feed your baby free,'” Lindstrom recounted to the Georgia Straight. “But I couldn't tear them away from the formula booths. I felt like getting on the loudspeaker and saying, 'Do you not care about what's going into your baby?'”

Lindstrom said she was disgusted that at a trade show designed to “nurture the parent-child bond” she was forced to compete with formula companies. “There isn't close to the same amount of money to market breast-feeding as there is to market formula,” she said. “If there were, we wouldn't have a problem.”

That scene would be illegal had Canada implemented the World Health Organization's 1981 Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. The code, which prohibits the direct marketing of baby formula to families, marks its 25th anniversary this year. Breast milk beats formula, according to the WHO, because it promotes cognitive development and protects infants against infectious and chronic diseases, reducing infant mortality. In developing countries, this is especially important, as formula is relatively expensive and water is not necessarily safe.

Handing out formula samples is prohibited in Brazil, India, Bolivia, and Botswana, among other countries, according to Elisabeth Turkin, executive director of the pro-breast-feeding lobby group InFact Canada””and, she said, it should illegal be here, too. “We let companies bombard women from pregnancy with samples, book clubs, ads in parenting magazines,” Turkin told the Straight in a phone interview from Toronto. “Even doctors offer free samples. It's a huge interference on the part of the industry in competing with breast-feeding practices.”

Breast-feeding, which is promoted by Health Canada as the best nourishment for most infants, is still far from universal in this country. About 85 percent of today's mothers try to breast-feed, according to Statistics Canada's 2005 Health Reports. (However, one third of moms can't breast-feed for health reasons.)

But the report found that just 17 percent of women fed their babies exclusively with breast milk to six months, which the WHO recommends. Plus, just nine percent are still breast-feeding even occasionally at one year. Of the women who didn't breast-feed, the number-one response was that bottle feeding was “easier” , followed by statements that breast-feeding was “disgusting” or “unappealing” . Also, the less a family earns, the less likely a mother is to breast-feed.

Along with Nestlé, Abbott Laboratories' Similac and Mead Johnson Nutritionals' Enfamil were at the recent baby fair. Playtex was also there, marketing bottles. None of the companies returned the Straight's calls or e-mails by deadline.

The show's producer, Tracey Anderson of Shake Productions, is familiar with both the popularity of the formula booths and the uproar they cause.

“We get hate mail,” Anderson told the Straight. “People come into our office at the show and tell us they're disgusted with us and that we're antibaby.”

Before each of the four annual shows, Anderson discussed with her two business partners whether to include the formula companies. So far, they've always been included. The organizers provide balance by also including the La Leche League, doulas, Douglas College's perinatal program, and breast-feeding seminars, she said. And the show's mission statement is to provide information, not act as a gatekeeper, Anderson pointed out.

“We try to remain neutral on everything,” she said.

The WHO isn't the only UN agency trying to prevent formula-marketing. UNICEF's Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative prohibits medical units from handing out free and low-cost samples of baby formula. Canada lags behind most industrialized countries, according to UNICEF, with just eight baby-friendly centres; seven are in Quebec, one in Ontario. The United States has 25; Turkey, 83; Mexico, 692; India, 1,250; and China, 6,312.

InFact spearheads the Canadian Nestlé boycott, which raises awareness about formula-marketing here and in developing countries. In the 1980s, the Nestlé boycott was InFact's only project; now, Turkin explained, it shares the nonprofit's time with National Breastfeeding Week, an annual conference, newsletters, and information campaigns.

“We work so closely with health care and the mothers' sector,” Turkin said. “The information doesn't go to younger people as it should.”

Lindstrom noted that good information about formula is essential, because, she said, moms who formula-feed in a baby's first few weeks generally are not still breast-feeding at six months.