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On Monday, March 18, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) announced that it will no longer publish announcements of manufacturers of infant formula. This decision, which was made after several months of internal debate, will cost the BMJ about £ 300,000 ($ 396,645) by 2020 and fits in as part of a growing reaction. against "Big Formula", an industry producing and marketing $ 70 billion. substitutes for breast milk.
This is an important step for one of the world's oldest and best-known peer-reviewed medical journals, following a similar Royal College decision. of UK Pediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) to no longer accept financial contributions. of the infant formula industry. And this is particularly important in the UK, where one of the breastfeeding rates is one of the lowest in the world.
In 2018, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) released a global report on breastfeeding and found that, with 81% of cases, the United Kingdom had one of the most low proportions (pdf) of babies fed to a select group of income nations. And dropout rates are high in the country, so that in six months, 34% of new British mothers were still breastfeeding at least part of the time, compared to 49% in the United States, "according to the Washington Post. (Paywall).
Studies have shown that breast milk protects babies from infection, supports their healthy physical and brain development, and can be beneficial for mothers' mental health and physical recovery after birth. This is why most medical professionals recommend that mothers breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of life and breastfeed until they are two years old. But in many countries of the world, only a small percentage of women have the time, resources or ability to do so. Thus, they supplement the diet of babies with formula, produced by large companies like Nestle, Danone, RB, Abbott, FrieslandCampina and Kraft Heinz. This is important because, as Annalisa Merelli says in Quartz, "When breastfeeding mothers feed their babies exclusively with formula, they quickly stop producing breast milk, which makes it impossible to turn back."
Experts say the problem with formula manufacturers is that they violate existing rules governing the promotion of breast-milk substitutes – with little consequence – and insist that breast milk is equivalent to milk infant. According to Save the Children (pdf), a nonprofit organization that advocates for children's rights, six companies have developed "the perception that it is simply an artificial replica of the previous one". But formula does not have the same properties as breast milk. And in places where the water is dirty and the quality of the preparations poorly regulated or so expensive that people dilute it, it can even be dangerous.
The BMJ echoed this concern in its statement announcing the severance of its links with industry: "BMJ has recently been reminded of the considerable harm caused by the promotion of breast-milk substitutes and the biases introduced in research. and clinical practice by the influence of the industry, "he writes. "After decades of advertising for breastmilk substitutes to readers of The BMJ, we decided that it was time to stop."
Learn more about our series on the rewiring of childhood. This report is part of a series funded by a grant from the Bernard van Leer Foundation. The opinions of the author are not necessarily those of the Bernard van Leer Foundation.
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