Who Wrote the Breastfeeding Ads?
You’ve probably seen the ads- the pregnant woman riding the mechanical bull, the logrollers. The text reads, “You wouldn’t take risks before your baby’s born…why start after?” A voiceover informs us that babies who are breastfed are less likely to develop ear infections, respiratory illnesses, and diarrhea. “Babies were born to be breastfed.”
According to this 2004 report from ABC News, these are the watered-down versions of the pro-breastfeeding campaign. The original ads, which were to be released in December of 2003, also mentioned that babies who are not breastfed are at an increased risk of developing diabetes and leukemia. (They also included a roller derby spot.)
Why the changes? According to ABC news, lobbying efforts from formula companies convinced the Department of Health and Human Services to edit the campaign. The American Academy of Pediatrics (which, ABC notes, receives millions of dollars from formula companies) also objected to the original ads.
According to the report, former Secretary of HHS Tommy Thompson met with formula company representatives, but turned down requests for meetings with breastfeeding advocates.
I’m not a fan of these ads myself - I think they make assumptions about formula-feeding, or supplementing, mothers that are unfair and insulting. Also, if breastfeeding is in the public interest (and it certainly is) then let’s not guilt the mothers over it - let’s get government and business involved in helping mothers breastfeed.
But the idea that formula companies had any say in this campaign? That’s infuriating.
Posted by MommaSteph
June 16th, 2006 at 10:44 am
You seriously DON’T think the formula companies had any say in this? That’s naive.
Of course the ads present unfair and insulting images of mothers — the point is to shock, not to coddle and hand you a pamphlet of info.
I don’t really understand why all this is coming back into news when the campaign and ads were all in 2004; why are they calling this a “new” campaign? Maybe I live in the “test market” and saw them already? Oddly, I recently went to the Ad Council website to review the campaign stuff and couldn’t find a single trace, though all of their previous campaigns are archived there….
June 16th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
I swear I can remember seeing the ad with the roller derby. Did you see it? It was awhile back and just once.
Steph, why would you think the formula companies had no say in the ads? Are you saying ABC is lying?
June 16th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
I’m not saying that. I’m sure they DID get the script changed. That’s what’s infuriating.
I guess I wasn’t clear. My bad.
June 16th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
Shocking or “coddling”, both are insulting. Give women the facts, then put supports in place to help women succeed at breastfeeding.
June 18th, 2006 at 1:27 am
Maybe women should be given examples of women who have breastfed their children for the recommended two years. I did not see anybody in my own neighbourhood breastfeed past 6 months growing up in 1970s NZ. What I did see in about 1985 was Phil Keoghan’s Mum [yes, he of Amazing Race fame] breastfeed his then 4 year old brother. It was a shock. This was extended breastfeeding to an extreme in my conservative little world. But it put the seed in my head. Later as I travelled around often through underdeveloped nations I saw women breastfeed with their babies swinging on the breast. So it was nothing later when I was pregnant myself, now as a doctor, with the knowledge that scientifically nothing else was good enough to convince myself that I would breastfeed for a minimum of 6 months no matter what and preferably one year. And then that comment from a past Surgeon-General spurred me on to two. Besides both kids have had no desire to slow down.
That doesn’t mean that breastfeeding was easy - the first week with my eldest was awful. The one piece of info I needed to make breastfeeding easy I didn’t find out until Day 6. By then my daughter had mulched my nipples and areolas. It was on a video that the community midwife dropped off on that day. On the 5 days we had been in hospital due to jaundice issues I had been unaware that this video existed despite it being there.
I hope the neighbourhood girls, having seen me breastfeed my kids over the past 5 years, have breastfeeding in their heads as the default pattern now. They’ve seen the hungry kid, the kid being comforted, the tantrum being defused - breastfeeding is a powerful parenting tool.
June 18th, 2006 at 8:42 am
I think that’s an excellent point. My mother and her friends were advised NOT to breastfeed, so for many women my age, breastfeeding is not a family tradition. And when my mother came out to help me with both of my babies, she was helpless in the face of my nursing difficulties.
The girls in your neighborhood are lucky to have you as an example.