BREASTFEEDING

SUCK ON THIS only encourages mothers to give their babies highly processed infant formulas from birth, but also to believe that these breastmilk substitutes are as good as, if not better than, the real thing. Infant formulas were never intended to be consumed on the widespread basis that they are today. They were conceived in the late 1800s as a means of providing necessary sustenance for foundlings and orphans who would otherwise have starved. In this narrow context – where no other food was available – formula was a lifesaver. However, as time went on, and the subject of human nutrition in general – and infant nutrition, in particular – became more ‘scientifi c’, manufactured breastmilk substitutes were sold to the general public as a technological improvement on breastmilk. ‘If anybody were to ask ‘which formula should I use?’ or ‘which is nearest to mother’s milk?’, the answer would be ‘nobody knows’ because there is not one single objective source of that kind of information provided by anybody,’ says Mary Smale, a breastfeeding counsellor with the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) for 28 years. ‘Only the manufacturers know what’s in their stuff, and they aren’t telling. They may advertise special ‘healthy’ ingredients like oligosaccharides, long-chain fatty acids or, a while ago, beta-carotene, but they never actually tell you what the basic product is made from or where the ingredients come from.’

The human species has been breastfeeding for nearly half a million years. It’s only in the last 60 years that we have begun to give babies the highly processed convenience food called ‘formula’. The health consequences - twice the risk of dying in the fi rst six weeks of life, fi ve times the risk of gastroenteritis, twice the risk of developing eczema and diabetes and up to eight times the risk of developing lymphatic cancer – are staggering. With UK formula manufacturers spending around £20 per baby promoting this ‘baby junk food’, compared to the paltry 14 pence per baby the government spends promoting breastfeeding, can we ever hope to reverse the trend? Pat Thomas uncovers a world where predatory baby milk manufacturers, negligent health professionals and an ignorant, unsympathetic public all conspire to keep babies off the breast and on the bottle. All mammals produce milk for their young, and the human species has been nurturing its babies at the breast for at least 400,000 years. For centuries, when a woman could not feed her baby herself, another lactating woman, or ‘wet nurse’, took over the job. It is only in the last 60 years or so that we have largely abandoned our mammalian instincts and, instead, embraced a bottlefeeding culture that not

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022 THE ECOLOGIST