“Use my picture if it will help” said the woman in this photograph. The babies are twins: the child with the bottle is a girl - she died the next day - but her brother was breastfed and is thriving. The mother was told that she wouldn’t have enough milk for both children, and so should bottle-feed the girl.
Sometimes I feel like we have to do the same activism over, and over, and over again. OK, a lot of the time.
Nestle and other infant formula companies been hooking poor mothers in to harmful, unaffordable artificial feeding for decades in a variety of countries all over the world, leading to one of the most widespread and longest-lasting boycott programmes in history. These companies have strenuously opposed all legal restrictions on their campaigns to reduce breastfeeding in the most vulnerable of populations.
Now, the Queensland government is reported to be favourably considering a plan to start handing out infant formula and bottles in local Aboriginal communities. The proposal, presented by pediatric surgeon Richard Heazlewood and general practitioner Lara Wieland, is suggested as an social-engineering alternative to the cash baby bonus. There has been an inexorable move toward conditional welfare for Indigenous women over the past year, and this is just one part of that.
ABC: “Qld doctors back Indigenous ‘baby packs’”
The Australian: “Packs to give indigenous infants a good start”
Australia pays lip service to the World Health Organisation infant feeding guidelines and Code for the marketing of breastmilk substitutes. Under the feeding guidelines and Code, infant formula and bottle samples must not under any circumstances be handed out indiscriminately to mothers. An key part of the Infant Feeding Guidelines (which is incorporated into the Australian Dietary Guidelines) is:
Health workers must always ensure that they encourage the initiation and maintenance of breastfeeding and avoid any role in the promotion of breastmilk substitutes.
