The baby formula industry has been accused of using “exploitative marketing” and “underhand” tactics that mislead vulnerable new parents.
Studies published in the medical journal ‘The Lancet‘, and supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), have drawn links between the profitable industry and low rates of breastfeeding worldwide.
Around half of all newborns globally are breastfed within the first hour of life while fewer than half of infants under six months are exclusively breastfed, the WHO has found.
“For decades, the commercial milk formula (CMF) industry has used underhand marketing strategies, designed to prey on parents’ fears and concerns at a vulnerable time, to turn the feeding of young children into a multi-billion dollar business,” the papers, published today, warn.
The experts are critical of how anyone promoting breastfeeding is framed as making a moralistic judgement on women who do not breastfeed:
World Health Organization scientist Nigel Rollins said: “This new research highlights the vast economic and political power of the big formula milk companies, as well as serious public policy failures that prevent millions of women from breastfeeding their children.”
He added: “Actions are needed across different areas of society to better support mothers to breastfeed for as long as they want, alongside efforts to tackle exploitative formula milk marketing once and for all.”
The papers state the marketing impacts parents by “framing typical baby behaviours as pathological and offering commercial milk formulas as solutions”.
They point to the lack of safe spaces for breastfeeding or expressing milk at work which can mean breastfeeding is not practical, and urged governments to fix this.
The authors go on to state: “The industry’s dubious marketing practices are compounded by lobbying, often covertly via trade associations and front groups, against strengthening breastfeeding protection laws and challenging food standard regulations.”
This is despite the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes developed by the World Health Assembly in 1981.
University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa Professor Linda Richter said these marketing techniques violate that code.
“The formula milk industry uses poor science to suggest, with little supporting evidence, that their products are solutions to common infant health and developmental challenges,” she said.
Paid maternity leave should last at least six months, to align with the WHO recommendation of exclusive breastfeeding for that long, they urged.
Yale School of Public Health Professor Rafael Pérez-Escamilla said: “Given the immense benefits of breastfeeding to their families and national development, women who wish to breastfeed need to be much better supported so that they can meet their breastfeeding goals.”
The Irish infant formula industry supplied 13% of the world market in 2021.
