The Impact of Infant Formula on Breastfeeding Rates

How we feed babies and young kids greatly impacts their health, growth, and future. This affects not only the children but also women and society. While baby formula has its uses, and it literally be a life saver in certain circumstances, it also comes with significant health, economic, and environmental costs. On the other hand, breastfeeding has proven health benefits for both mothers and babies in high-income and low-income settings alike. Despite that, according to the World Health Organization, less than half of babies and young children are breastfed as recommended. How did this happen? According to a three-paper series published in The Lancet in 2023, the lack of breastfeeding is due to multifaceted and highly effective strategies used by commercial formula manufacturers of infant formula. The strategies are designed to target and influence parents, health-care professionals, and policy-makers. This episode explores the roots of this problem: the infant formula industry in the early 20th century captured doctors and medical associations in order to sell their product. And when they reached the limit of infant formula market in the United States, they simply aggressively sold their powders to mothers in poor countries, with disastrous and deadly consequences. REFERENCES Breastfeeding 2023 https://www.thelancet.com/series/Breastfeeding-2023 Apple, Rima. Mothers and Medicine: A Social History of Infant Feeding, 1890–1950. University of Wisconsin Press, 1987. The Baby Killer (1974) https://waronwant.org/sites/default/files/THE%20BABY%20KILLER%201974.pdf Stevens EE, Patrick TE, Pickler R. A history of infant feeding. J Perinat Educ. 2009 Spring;18(2):32-9. doi: 10.1624/105812409X426314. PMID: 20190854; PMCID: PMC2684040. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2684040/ Why The Breastfeeding Vs. Formula Debate Is Especially Critical In Poor Countries https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/07/13/628105632/is-infant-formula-ever-a-good-option-in-poor-countries Ziegler EE. Adverse effects of cow's milk in infants. Nestle Nutr Workshop Ser Pediatr Program. 2007;60:185-199. doi: 10.1159/000106369. PMID: 17664905. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17664905/ APPLE, RIMA D. “‘TO BE USED ONLY UNDER THE DIRECTION OF A PHYSICIAN’: COMMERCIAL INFANT FEEDING AND MEDICAL PRACTICE, 1870-1940.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, vol. 54, no. 3, 1980, pp. 402–17. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44441272. Walters DD, Phan LTH, Mathisen R. The cost of not breastfeeding: global results from a new tool. Health Policy Plan. 2019 Jul 1;34(6):407-417. doi: 10.1093/heapol/czz050. PMID: 31236559; PMCID: PMC6735804. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6735804/pdf/czz050.pdf Munblit, D., Crawley, H., Hyde, R., & Boyle, R. J. (2020). Health and nutrition claims for infant formula are poorly substantiated and potentially harmful. bmj, 369. https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/369/bmj.m875.full.pdf Boatwright, M., Lawrence, M., Russell, C., Russ, K., McCoy, D., & Baker, P. (2022). The Politics of Regulating Foods for Infants and Young Children: A Case Study on the Framing and Contestation of Codex Standard-Setting Processes on Breast-Milk Substitutes. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 11(11), 2422-2439. doi: 10.34172/ijhpm.2021.16 https://www.ijhpm.com/article_4169.html Nancy E. Zelman, The Nestle Infant Formula Controversy: Restricting the Marketing Practices of Multinational Corporations in the Third World, 3 Transnat'l Law. 697 (1990). https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/303871848.pdf Infant nutrition : a textbook of infant feeding for students and practitioners of medicine / by Williams McKim Marriott. https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/pdf/b29929453 Wattana, Melissa. The Baby Bottle and the Bottom Line: Corporate Strategies and the Infant Formula Controversy in the 1970s (2016) https://hshm.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Wattana%20senior%20essay%202016.pdf