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Warning Labels on Formula

by kate baggott on June 15th, 2006

There is a very interesting breastfeeding article in the International Herald Tribune this morning. There is a push underway to put warning labels on cans of formula to encourage breastfeeding and discourage the switch to formula.

• Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, has proposed requiring warning labels, on cans of infant formula and in advertisements, similar to those on cigarettes. They would say that the Department of Health and Human Services has determined that “breast- feeding is the ideal method of feeding and nurturing infants” or that “breast milk is more beneficial to infants than infant formula.”

• Child-rearing experts have long pointed to the benefits of breast-feeding, but critics say the new campaign has taken things too far and will make mothers who cannot breast-feed, or choose not to, feel guilty and inadequate.
• “I desperately wanted to breast- feed,” said Karen Petrone, an associate professor of history at University of Kentucky in Lexington.
• When her two babies failed to gain weight and her pediatrician insisted that she supplement her breast milk with formula, she said, “I felt so guilty.”
• Public health leaders say the scientific evidence for breast-feeding has grown so overwhelming that it is appropriate to recast their message to make clear that it is risky not to breast-feed.

The article then goes on to quote a mother of three who quit her job when her oldest was born, nursed that child until she was four and is now nursing an infant. I often wonder why, when talking about breastfeeding, the media has such an intense interest in long-term breastfeeding? Now, my first son was on the boob until after his second birthday and I am not insisting that the baby eat purée because she hates, so I obviously don’t think there is anything weird about the practice, but the idea of nursing a 4 year-old is scary for many, many women.

Wouldn’t it be more convincing to women wary of breastfeeding if journalists interviewed people who breastfed their children for 6 months, or a year, whose children reaped the health rewards of nursing and then the mothers got their bodies back?

Interviews with very new mothers would also be helpful. If women have trouble breastfeeding in the first six weeks, that is when they need the most help and encouragement. If they don’t get that help, breastfeeding can be a painful, frustrating excercise that brings everyone to tears. Correcting those early problems, not treating long-term nursers like freaks, is what is going to promote breastfeeding and improve the health of our children.

And then, once the media is over it’s long-term nursing fixation, perhaps there would be column inches left that could be used to discuss why formula is so pervasive? Why, exactly, are women — whether they nursed or not — being encouraged to give children over a year-old formula when their stomachs are capable of digesting cheese and yogurt and drinking regular milk? Are the formula companies just creating new markets for a product that is mostly just not necessary?

Maybe that should be a warning label. Caution: This product is designed to rip you off.

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POSTED IN: Breastfeeding