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Boycott Nestle

They're providing free milk, for God's sake... boycott them? Ever think that some babies don't have mothers able to express milk? Perhaps the mother died... boycotting Nestle for this is just bizarre.
 
Mr Manifesto said:
Yes, Nestle give away free formula at hospitals purely out of the goodness of their bottomless hearts. I believe it. Like I believe in Santa Claus.
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It helps their image and perhaps leads to increased sales. What have you done for these mothers? Let me guess - nothing.
 
Okay, I guess I'll chime in here.

This get's the the eart of the issue in the modern world.

We have a large group of Americans who take everything at face value, and implicitly believe the establishment in everything they say and in all their claimed motivations.

They have an explanation for everything.

The corporrate methods for "gettnig people hooked" when they are young are well documented and a well established part of major marketing schemes.

Giving away free products is a common way to promote a product. You see, in this case its likely that Nestle is getting a tax deduction for their "giving", which is really marketing.

Now, obviously the attempt here is to promote the use of their product outside of the hospital. This is not just abotu babies, but also conditioning of the mother.

If they get mothers accept and prefer bottle feeding then mothers will likely continue that behavior outside the hospital as well. It get's mother swho may have never considered an alternative to breast feeding to then consider it, and favor the Nestle product.

That's what its all about. Now, you can say that there is no problem there, thats' fine, but recognize this for what it is, its marketing, and in this case its for something that has been proven scientificaly to have drawbacks for the health of the baby, which is especially important in the 3rd world where disease is more common.

There are pages and pages of internal documents from various companies, such as cigarette companies, Coke, Pepsi, cerail companies, toy companies, etc, about marketing to children, infants and mothers.

Companies in America do simlar things with schools, giving breaks and even paying schools to exclusively carry their proucts, like Kraft, Coke, etc.

Its all about getting people hooked and dependant.
 
Conjecture upon conjecture. The old trick of backing up your lie with another lie.

For example when a priest was shown that the moon was not a perfect sphere via Galileo's telescope, that the moon in fact had craters, the response was "well maybe there is glass filling in that crater."

As for this baby milk thing, it sounds like an urban myth. Perhaps a prank, based on fears of american corporations, which according to some do bad things all the time, and fear of artificial products vs "traditional" country-style organic foods.

Sorry but it'll take more then a quick and dirty link, backed merely by sensationalism, to convince me of a claim as outrageous as this.
 
I am of mixed opinions on this,

aginst the boycott:
- I can't find any evidence of Nestle doing this recently. So far, the only online articles I can find say it started in 1977, and I haven't found an end date.

- Yes, there is a difference between bottle feeding and breast feeding. My opinion is, though, if baby's hungry, it figures out how to eat. From ancedotal evidence, a baby can and will figure out the difference between bottle and breast and suck accordingly.

for the boycott:
- Breast milk gets produced on demand. The primary motivation for Nestle to give out free formula is to reduce demand for breast milk.

Baby formula is agressively marketed to expecting couples. Right now, the diaper bag I'm using comes from Enfamil, and the insulated bag I use to carry the bottles is from Isomil.
I would say that, for each child of mine, we received at least 2 weeks worth of formula, more for the first than the second. Plenty of time to reduce milk production to nothing. Knowing what I know, I didn't get a better impression of these formula companies. Some mothers I know, who fully intended to breast feed their children, resented these "free" gifts.
 
athon said:
Breastfeeding for an infant uses a different sucking motion than it does for a bottle. This is well documented, and most mothers who have used both methods can back it up.

The sucking reflex is both innate and learned. Infants know to purse their lips and 'suck' using their tongue whenever anything is put near their mouth, however depending on how the milk is expressed, the quantity etc. the sucking reflex can change slightly, varying the use of the tongue and the soft palate.

Breasts naturally 'squirt' milk out in a particular fashion. Babies learn how to suckle in the first few months to respond to this. Babies who are bottle fed and then breast fed tend not to make accomodation for this extra pressure (the reasons aren't fully understood, but they seem to involve a gag reflex apparently - according to the midwife at the hospital I worked at). Going from breast to bottle is often an easier transfer, although not always without difficulties.

While this article does seem to attack from a capitalist angle, I do see where it is going. I would be more worried about the mother's milk, than the baby's response to suckling. Milk changes as the feeding process goes on, and what the baby gets on day one is very different to what it gets at six months.

Athon
(JK, once again, try doing some homework rather than stating just what you assume is the truth)
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That is ridiculous.

JK
 
Sadly I must agree, Athon really needs to back that claim up. I really fail to see why bottle feeding would impede breast feeding, and whether. Also how common is this? Common enough to become a profitable marketing ploy?
 
DialecticMaterialist said:
Sadly I must agree, Athon really needs to back that claim up. I really fail to see why bottle feeding would impede breast feeding, and whether. Also how common is this? Common enough to become a profitable marketing ploy?
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All evidence I have is anecdotal, between my experience, other parents and advice given from medical staff.

Breast and bottle feeding are different. Switching between them requires both baby and the feeder to adapt. There is always some difficulty and frustration involved while this adaptation is happening.

I don't know how many of you have had kids, but you're already struggling to find your way with this new little person. Voluntarily adding difficulty is usually not on a new parent's agenda.

Still, I think that issue is fairly minimal. Like I said, if baby's hungry, it figures out how.
 
The reason powdered baby-milk is bad is that it doesnt help the babies immune systems along. Thus, breast fed babies tend to have a lower morbidity and mortality rate than bottle fed ones.

Theres also the big problem of the neccessity to sterilise or at least sanitise the water that bottled milk is made from.
 
Any evidence that this will cause huge damage? Also what about a combination of breast milk and bottled? I'm sure not all women who get free bottled milk use that solely.
 
BTW, the only time a mother should bottle feed instead of breast feed is when for example the mother is HIV+
 
I wonder how much control Nestle even has on the subject.. As far as I can tell Nestle only provides hospitals with free milk substitute to be used at their decision. Considering the amount of starvation in the 3rd world countries, I cant help but wonder how well can a malnutritioned mother provide breast milk for her baby.
 
DialecticMaterialist said:
Any evidence that this will cause huge damage? Also what about a combination of breast milk and bottled? I'm sure not all women who get free bottled milk use that solely.
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You should be able to find everything you need to know about breastfeeding compared to bottlefeeding here.

Originally posted by DialecticMaterialist
As for this baby milk thing, it sounds like an urban myth. Perhaps a prank, based on fears of american corporations, which according to some do bad things all the time, and fear of artificial products vs "traditional" country-style organic foods.
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If it is an urban myth, it is a persistant one. My university was campaigning against Nestle back in 1993. I assume that there would be something on snopes if it was a myth. You can post the link yourself if you like, instead of yelling from the bleachers for once.
 
DialecticMaterialist said:
That sounds a bit extreme Jon.
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No. I grew up in the third world. Breast feeding is really much better for the baby than bottle feeding.

Better to give the milk powder to the mother and let her breast feed her baby.
 
One area of interest (and as per the sites requirements, I'll credit www.breastfeeding.org) is this link which mentions health and illness.

(Breastfeeding)Significantly lower rates of diarrhea, ear infections, lower respiratory illness, and childhood lymphomas occur among breastfed infants and children in the United States. Breastfeeding has also been reported to protect against necrotizing enterocolitis, bacteremia, meningitis, botulism, sudden infant death syndrome, urinary tract infection, early childhood caries, juvenile diabetes, and inflammatory bowel disease. Health care costs to federal and state governments, and private healthcare systems because of NOT breastfeeding run into billions of dollars.
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This site has not been tacked up by a group of quacks. So it remains that the only argument is, are Nestle in fact encouraging mothers to use their product over breastfeeding in African hospitals? As I've mentioned, if they aren't it shouldn't be hard to locate the relevant debunking information (especially since we are after all on a skeptic's forum).
 
If a mother doesn't breast feed regularly her milk supply will dry up. There are many people in the UK who try combination feeding but they often fail because the less you breast feed the less milk you produce. The baby then seems hungry so you supplement with a bottle thus starting a cycle.

Once she is dry then she stays dry. Otherwise bottle feeding mothers would spend a good deal of time walking round with painful swollen and engorged breasts.

Jon is also right - bottle feeding does not pass on any antibodies to the baby and there is the problem of a regular clean water supply.

Anecdotally - I breast fed my first child and tried to get her to bottle feed expressed milk on the odd occasion. It was an abysmal failure. You could get the teat into her mouth but she would just roll it around. I even tried squirting some of the milk on her tongue - she still didn't cotton on how to get that milk out. It could have been for a number of reasons of course but it sure looked like she couldn't suck on a rubber teat having been used to breast feeding.

Athon is also correct in that a mothers milk changes as her baby grows. For the first few days the milk is basically colostrum which then changes after a few days. Here's a link for anyone interested:

http://health.discovery.com/diseasesandcond/encyclopedia/1875.html

When I was pregnant we were told that this colostrum was of great benefit to the baby - even if later you started to bottle feed.

I'd love to know exactly what junk science the thread starter was referring to:)

I've also e-mailed Nestlé to see if they still continue this practice. I'll let you know if I get a response.

Sou
 
www.unsystem.org/scn/Publications/foundation4dev/03Population.pdf+%22breast+feeding%22+%22bottle+feeding%22+africa&hl=en&ie=UTF-8]From this Link[/URL]



By 2020 populations in urbanareas of developing countries,where malnutrition iscommonplace,may double to reach 3.4 billion.In manypoor and congested urban areas,diarrheal diseases andundernutrition are frequent because of poor foodhygiene,inadequate water supplies and waste disposal,poor housing,and the declining prevalence and dura-tion of breast-feeding and the corresponding increase in bottle-feeding
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Also

....Bottle fed babies are 14 times more likely to die than those that are breast fed.
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