10 tips for nutrition (by Nestle)

In article , Notchalk
wrote:

•Â*Breast milk is the perfect food for a baby, it contains all the
nutrition your baby needs for the six months, with the added bonus of
antibodies and other properties important to baby’s health and
development. Health authorities recommend that you breastfeed your baby
for at least six months if possible.
How much misinformation could they get into one small paragraph about
breastfeeding? I don't see antibodies as added bonuses of breastmilk,
do you? I thought they were normal for a baby to be consuming for the
first few years of life! ... and I'm sure Health Authorities recommend
you breastfeed for longer than six months!

Send it in to the ABA -- they might be able to do womething about it.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

In article .com,
"Caledonia" wrote:

Hence, I really do see the need for formula -- and have no issues with
it being advertised. It's not a choice that I had to make, happily ---
and I'll clearly admit I'm *lucky* -- I had the money to walk away from
the job if the nursing hurdles were too onerous, I had no pump
resistance, and all told, my employer was relatively supportive -- but
I don't believe that my experience is typical for most moms (most of
whom are employed.)

My preference is for universal paid maternity leave for at least one year,
with 'right of return' to your position. Apart from that, I agree with you:
most workplaces are going to be difficult to pump in.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

In article .com,
"Caledonia" wrote:

I'll admit upfront I didn't take Psych 101, but I don't see the
original message on the website as conflicting with this. What nuances,
exactly, can you see in this text that are eluding me?

"Breast milk is the perfect food for a baby, it contains all the
nutrition your baby needs for the six months, with the added bonus of
antibodies and other properties important to baby's health and
development. Health authorities recommend that you breastfeed your baby
for at least six months if possible. "

There is actually a direct lie in it. The message is from an Australian
website. Australian health authorities (the National Health & Medical
Research Council, and the Public Health Association, to be precise) recommend
breastfeeding for two years. They recommend exclusive BFing for six months.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

In article .com,
"Amy" wrote:

Again, I think the solution is not to advertise it at all.

Formula is not advertised here, as a rule. There are still some loopholes in
our legislation (they advertise toddler formula, for example), but there
aren't supposed to be any freebies or any advertising. Some of them try it
on, though -- met a community nurse recently who said a formula company rep
*regularly* offers her samples for the mothers -- so obviously there must be a
big enough group of people who *take* the samples for them to be produced in
Australia. Then she mentioned a hospital that used to hand out 6-packs of
formula to new mothers as they left! Fortunately someone put in a complaint
and the practice ceased, but it should never have been started in the first
place.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

Sarah Vaughan skrev:
Jo and Larry were not objecting to formula advertisements per se, but to
the fact that a commentary on child nutrition aimed at mothers in
general didn't refer to formula as 'inferior'. I was objecting to that
point.

It IS inferior, d**n it. It's artificially produced. It probabably
contains additives that I would myself never eat. I truly feel it should
be on prescription.

You may have to feed your child formula, as I have to give my child
Astma medicine, but not as a convenience choice.

I fully agree with Jo and Larry that it should be emphasized much more
that BF is the natural and logical choice - and that formula is for when
all else fails.

Tine, Denmark

Iuil wrote:


As one of those "special needs" mothers (gee thanks for calling me special
Larry ;-) ), I also agree.

I would prefer that my children were exclusively breastfed but they weren't.
However, that doesn't mean that I think that formula is anywhere near
equivalent to breastmilk.

Nobody is trying to claim that formula is equivalent to breastmilk.

What Larry is trying to claim is that the message of breastmilk being
better should be phrased in terms of talking about the bad things about
formula, rather than about the good things about breastmilk. Now, maybe
it genuinely doesn't bother you to hear about how bad the stuff is that
you're giving your baby, to have it presented as not good enough.
(Hell, it didn't bother me either once I'd actually read the research -
I had to go to mixed feeding, and I was comfortable with that.) But
there are a lot of other women whom it does bother.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

Brookben wrote:
why didn't they say 'at least for the first 2 years' if it weren't
simply to discourage breastfeeding.

It's actually more discouraging to think you're facing a big task rather
than a small task. Conversely, one very well-known way of making people
more likely to tackle a task in the first place is to break it down. If
you're in two minds about whether to start breastfeeding in the first
place, having two years worth of breastfeeding presented as the minimum
adequate standard may well leave you deciding that since you can't see
yourself managing that, you might as well not bother at all.

I think there are ways of presenting the message that are better than
either 'at least six months' or 'at least two years' - it would be
better to find a way that focused on encouraging women to try for
whatever length of time they can manage. But between the two, I think
'at least six months' is a message that's more likely to reach the women
who aren't sure about starting in the first place.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell

Sarah Vaughan wrote: "What Larry is trying to claim is that the message
of breastmilk being
better should be phrased in terms of talking about the bad things about

formula, rather than about the good things about breastmilk. "

I don't think that's what he meant. The difficulty is that you have so
many people out there for whom formula is the default and breastmilk is
the "better" substitute. (I saw a mother quoted in a parenting magazine
the other day as being against breastfeeding past a year because "we
wean from formula at a year, why should breastmilk be different?") Just
putting breastmilk where it belongs, in the default position, and
talking about formula as a substitute, which it is, is a question of
plain old accuracy. As your sig line says, "That which can be destroyed
by the truth, should be."

As a mother of twins, I knew very well that there was a chance I'd have
to use formula. I made up my mind that I'd give breastfeeding six weeks
(barring major problems) and then see how things were going. If they'd
been going badly, I'd have switched to formula and let it go, just as I
had to let go the fact that the twins were breech/transverse and I had
to have a section. Life ain't perfect. It happened things were going
pretty well by then, so I didn't have to use formula, but I don't think
I would have felt any guilt, however much regret I would have felt.

--Helen

I think that most women who really wanted
to be able to breastfeed are going to feel a real wrench on hearing the
stuff they give their child described as 'inferior', and being told that
their baby is not getting what he 'needs'.

When will the needs of the baby supercede the needs of the mom? Does
it not bother anyone that the babies lose when, as a society, we
devalue their preferences? Human milk for human babies... even cows
get cow's milk.

How would we respond to a mother who wanted to feed her baby solids at
2 weeks? Just because it's done doesn't mean it's harm should be sugar
coated. Should the fact that releasing the facts surrounding the
potential harm of feeding a baby might make a mother feel guilty mean
it should be sugar coated?!

I hate hearing that breastmilk has the added bonus of this or the added
bonus of that -- that mindset makes formula the standard that
breastmilk is simply compared to. It should be formula is deficient of
this and deficient of that (I suppose they'd just pick and choose the
deficiencies as they pick and choose the 'bonuses').

In America, the press is *finally* discussing that high fructose corn
syrup sets up a child for childhood obesity. Does the fact that moms
will STILL give their kids sodas make them feel guily or whatever
everytime they hear this fact? Well, bless their hearts... If it does
- GOOD. It's high time we take an educated approach to feeding our
babies/children. (hmmm... I wonder what the #1 ingredient is in
formula... hmmm... I wonder why childhood obesity rates have
skyrocketed in the past 40 years...)

And whomever made the comment that millions of babies thrive of formula
is seriously diluted. I guess the fact that the growth charts were
recalculated to reflect the slower growth pattern of formula fed
infants is lost. On a ff growth chart, my 4 mo old is 99.99%ile (she
was off the chart). On a bf growth chart, she's 75%ile. She's
considered healthy by bfing standard, but is by ffing standards, she's
overweight. And, I guess we also ignore the fact that incidences of
childhood illnesses rates are up. Just because we have the science to
help the kids (at least, we think it helps them), doesn't mean they
should have been sick in the first place. Out of 1000 ff babies, 77
will be hospitalized in the first year. Out of 1000 bf babies, 5 will
be. hmmm, doesn't really sound like thriving, does it? We are a
generation of Mylanta -- does that not mean anything?!

I don't expect a formula company to give out literature to potential
clients warning of the dangers of their products -- but, then again,
cigarette companies have to. Isn't it fair? Why don't we see PSAs
about the danger of ffing? Oh, wait, I forgot. It might make someone
feel 'guilty'... Well, maybe guilt isn't the right word for the emotion
these women feel. Maybe it is betrayl (by the doctors -- they only did
what they did because their doctor told them it would be just as good),
anger (at the doctors for not giving better advice -- while KNOWING the
truth), cheated out of a rewarding relationship that can't be obtained
from bottlefeeding - cheated from the hormones that are released with
each nursing session. These women have a lot to feel angry, cheated,
betrayed about... but, to feel guilty? Isn't is suspicious that the
women feel guilty for doing what they are recommended to do? Doesn't
guilt turn the blame inwardly instead of where it should be -- on these
companies who knowingly prey on women and their babies to make a buck
(short term and long term)?

Let's be honest. There are a lot of women who 'try' to breastfeed as
they would try on a new outfit. With the formula companies being so
fraudulent with their marketing tactics, breastfeeding simply is
something only some women can do and that it's not for everyone...
well, maybe it's not for everyone. But, let's not sugar coat the issue
to surpress the truth to future breastfeeding mothers just to make the
past ones feel better. That makes no sense to me!

Brookben skrev:

snip a very well written and true comment

In Denmark we say: Well roared, Lion!! (or should it be Lioness??)

Tine, Denmark