Transcript:
The reality is Heather and I don’t hate formula. We hate formula companies. So like, we need to mention that. It is really important because it’s a life-saving technology for some babies. But the reality is that these companies have so severely damaged breastfeeding in this country and others, which I will get to.
Welcome to the Milk Minute Podcast. This is Maureen Farrell and Heather ONeal we’re midwives and lactation consultants. Most importantly, where two breast friends on a mission to bring you accessible information about lactation, body positivity, boobs, relationships, and mental health with a few laughs along the way. Join us for another episode.
Hey guys. Hello. So before we start our episode today, I just wanted to read an email we got and some of our recent reviews because we love feedback. And we want to shout out to you guys for doing that and encourage you for more. So our friend Heather, not the one in the alcove here, our friend, Heather sent us an email saying, hi there.
I just listened to the episode about DMER and thought I’d share my experience with you guys. It starts probably 10 to 15 seconds before every let down. The feeling I experienced most is disgust. I just suddenly feel like whatever I’m in the middle of doing or thinking about is disgusting and shameful.
At the same time, I feel anxious and irritated. It doesn’t matter whether I’m nursing, pumping, washing the dishes, et cetera. The feeling is so terrible every time I have a letdown. It only lasts for a brief moment, probably five to 10 seconds. But you were right when you described it as a rollercoaster, actually thought it was normal to experience this until I listened to the episode.
So thanks for pointing out that there are ways to manage it. That’s awesome. Yeah. Thanks Heather. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with DMER. I hope that our episode was helpful to you and you know what? If you try any of the stuff we suggested and it works or doesn’t send us another email. Yeah, for sure.
We definitely want to know if we’re helping and what’s helping you in particular. And we had another sweet listener who sent us an email and she let us know that her baby was born in June, but then shortly after her father passed away. And it sounds like they had a pretty complicated relationship and she just basically was letting us know and acknowledging the fact that it’s really difficult to experience so many different emotions at once. When you have a baby it’s supposed to be really happy and it’s not always for some people, but then dealing with such intense grief, especially around a complicated relationship is really difficult.
And meanwhile, you’re parent caregiving responsibilities don’t go away to give you time to grieve and, you know, with COVID going on, we’re all grieving the loss of something, you know. It’s the loss of life as we knew it, it’s the loss of friends and family that we used to see, the loss of school, that loss of routine.
And, you know, I just wanted to let you know, for those of you that have had babies in the middle of this experience, I’m just acknowledging your grief and acknowledging that complicated emotion that’s happening within you. And we’re the only way to move through it is to move forward and just wake up every day and just look for the little gifts that we have.
Yeah. And thank you so much for trusting us with that to the person who sent this email and, you know, if you’re out there and you’re like, wow, I’m really struggling with stuff. If you feel like it would feel good to just spill your guts to a stranger, we’re here for it. Yeah, for sure. So that one’s for Leah in honor of her brand-new daughter and for her dad.
Okay. I wanted to read a couple of our recent reviews too. Yeah. So we got one from a non-breastfeeding listener on Monday and it says, I’m going to be honest here. I’m a friend of Heather’s and subscribed slash listened to the show to support, but after listening to one episode, it’s safe to say this podcast is amazing.
As a nurse, I love listening and learning from discussions about the body’s physiological function. So keep talking hormones to me, ladies, little Winky face. Also you two are hilarious. It’s impossible not to laugh aloud while listening, keep up the podcast work. Oh, I love her. And I also love that she doesn’t have any kids.
I know. I knew exactly, I knew exactly who that listener was the second that I saw that I was like, Courtney, love you. So this one says, love this podcast, love that there’s an informative podcast platform to provide great information to moms. I struggled breastfeeding with my first baby and wish this was available then. However, I’m excited these podcasts are available now, as I’m expecting my second and plan on breastfeeding. Everyone should listen. Congrats to you. Congrats. We’re excited for you. Love it.
Let’s see, here’s another one from July 22nd from Alison Core. It says Breast Friends are my best friend. Oh my God. I love you. These two women are amazing and the Milk Minute Podcast has been wonderful for me and my little one during our breastfeeding journey. They hit on so many relevant topics and they talk about them, honestly, with honesty, humor, and respect. I’m a member of their Facebook group, Breastfeeding for Busy Moms and I’m so thankful to have them join alongside us on our journey. I would encourage any pregnant or breastfeeding mama to join the group and definitely listen to their podcast. Breast Friends has truly become one of my best friends these days. And we fucking love you. Bless her, oh my gosh. That’s amazing.
Thank you guys for tickling our funny bone and making us feel so good. Gosh, we have seriously over 65 reviews. Yeah, and I just feel warm and fuzzy every time I look at them. So, so fuzzy, if you want to help Heather and I feel extra warm and fuzzy, please leave us a review. Really it. So these reviews are on Apple Podcasts.
I don’t actually know if you can review in any other platform, but most of our listeners are on Apple Podcasts. So if you’re listening on Apple and you’re like, oh right, reviews, ratings, please just take like two minutes, give us however many stars you think we deserve, but it’s five. And just write us a little blurb, you know, whether it’s just saying like, Hey, I exist and I listen and I’m awesome.
Cool. Or like, Hey, you really helped me or. You know, if you think we can help some way, some different way, like send us an email at milkminutepodcast@gmail.com and be like, hey guys, I love your show, but I really need X, Y, and Z. And we’ll be like, fuck. Yeah, X, Y, and Z coming up, bitch. This is the time to do it when we’re new and we’re, we’ve got tons of topics to do.
So if there’s something that you want to hear sooner than later, we’re all ears. And also this, these reviews actually help us get this information out to the people that need it. The more ratings and reviews we have, the more that, like the algorithms boost our podcasts. Yeah. So by helping us, you’re helping others as well.
So thank you. Thanks guys. We love you.
All right, buckle up bitches. I’m not really sure that I’m mentally and emotionally prepared for this episode that Maureen’s prepared for us today. So Heather and I, a few weeks ago, we like made some plans and we’re like, okay, you research this, you research this, we’ll get back together.
We’ll do some episodes. And then I had this day that was really full of like undirected rage. We’ve all been there. I decided that was the perfect time to research the history of formula and its impact on breastfeeding in the United States. Strap in. Which may have been a mistake, but also might’ve been brilliant.
PS were starting in 2000 BC, so get ready. Do you need a pee break? Cause its gonna take a while. Okay. Everybody take your pee breaks or just take us to the bathroom with you. Get in the bath, put it, get in a hot bath, put some bubbles in, cause we’re going to be here for two hours. If you’re not ready to rage at the system, just go to the next episode and then come back.
Come back to us when you need a good cathartic cry. Yeah. Or you just want to like punch some pillows. Cause we’re here. This is it. My aunt used to get a pound cake and literally pound it. My aunt used to pound a pound cake, instead of a pillow, she’d get a pound cake and she would just, seems messy, beat the shit out of it. No it just mushed real nice. And it was just like, really sort of like that, like when you squish your PB and J sandwich, really. Yeah. But better. Cause I’ve gotten, you did that too, because I wasn’t sure what your reaction was going to be.
When I said that there are people who squished their PB and J’s, and there are people who don’t have their, I prefer them square too. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, so today’s episode. The history of formula pretty much in the world, but we’re focusing on the USA. So like I said, way back in the BCs, right or BCE, before common era.
So we’re talking like the negative years. Humans have a really long history of using animal milk substitutes for human babies. Right. It’s ancient because people have always had issues breastfeeding. You know, it hasn’t been as common as it is now cause those people just died and their babies just died.
But we have evidence going back to at least 2000 BC that people did this. So they took milk from other animals and used it to help feed their babies. That’s very interesting because you think that we would have evolved to not have problems like other animals. I mean we’re too smart though, right? Oh, that’s true. If we could outsmart our problems then we live.
We’re so smart that we created formula, so we couldn’t evolve. Shit. Okay. Anyway, so. More commonly than that though, babies who needed milk that they weren’t getting were simply nursed by another lactating person in that community. Right. And so that practice has been around probably longer than using animal milk substitutes.
That’s probably the most ancient infant milk substitute thing. Now, as far as we know animal milk, other mammalian milk. Say it again, mammalian milk, mammalian milk, other animals’ milk has been the most common human milk substitute until the 19th century. So that’s the 1800s. Okay. So I’m going to take us from 2000 BC to 1700.
Just roll with me, okay. In the 1700s, people began to look into like, what the fuck is human milk and actually analyze it, which is really cool. Or at least that’s what we have evidence of that. Is that right around the time that one scientist jacked off onto a little slide and discovered sperm? This sounds exactly like that time period.
So 1760 John Charles Des-Essartz published a treaties on the, on the physical upbringing of children discussing and comparing human milk composition to cow milk, sheep, milk, donkey milk, mare milk and goat milk. And he concluded that human milk was best for human infants. Shocking. I know. You can’t see it out there in podcast land, but utter shock on this face.
Utter, utter. Fucking puns. We did it again. Okay. 1760. Some pretentious dude is like human milk is best for human babies. Duh! Revolutionary. Right? Okay. Fast forward 1800s. So this is the century that we have people starting to actually make infant milk replacements. So 1845, this dude, Elijah Pratt, he invents rubber nipples, which sets off a whole chain reaction because now you can actually feed your baby from something that looks like a nipple.
1846, the first time we see scientists noting adverse health outcomes from replacement infant food. I’m still stuck on the rubber nipple. Like how easy was rubber to get at that point in time? Hard. You had to like extract it from trees and do this whole process.
And I mean, you still have to do that now, but like that, you know, rubber came from India. I’m pretty sure. I thought it was like an African tree. We don’t know this, but anyway, you know, it came from these exotic trees, probably fucking English colonial bitches were extracting it, importing it ,processing it.
1845 dude invents a rubber nipple. And what was the instigation? Was his wife like a severely inverted nipples? Right? I don’t know anything about Elijah Pratt, but he did that. And before then we’d been seeing people make their own infant milk replacers from like, you know, the cow down the road, the goat in the backyard, stuff like that.
Huh. But then. This is a big one. So right. 1846. People are starting to notice that like replacing infant milk, human milk with other stuff, like might kill babies. Shocker, but 1865, write this down y’all, there’s this chemist, whose name I’m going to say wrong probably, Justus von Liebig. And he developed, patented, and marketed infant food in liquid and powdered forms.
And he created Liebig’s soluble food for babies. That sounds delicious. Sounds like it’s going to kill babies. Can I have some soluble food? Right. So this formula consisted of cow’s milk, wheat and multi, multi flour and potassium bicarbonate. And he branded it as the perfect infant food. Yeah. Gluten, dairy, and chemicals. It’s perfect.
Right. And before then we had been seeing people like sometimes they’d take cow milk and mix it with some sugar and who knows what the fuck else and feed it to their babies, but nothing was actually sold as far as we can tell and marketed and patented. But this motherfucker was like, here, let me do exactly what you do at home and just sell it to you instead, because everybody could get milk and wheat and multi flour.
And he was, was he marketing to the masses or was he marketing to babies that were just not, well? As far I can tell to everybody. The beginning of the end. That’s interesting. I feel like he, he started big. Right. You know, he went big. I don’t know though. Hard to find information about that 1865. I was actually looking to see if I could find like a newspaper ad or something, but I was not able to find one.
Yeah. I mean, maybe I didn’t spend enough time. I was on a roll folks. Just getting angrier anyway. So adding to this development of marketed formula, around that time industries developed modern food preservation techniques. So like sealing food in sterilized containers. So that just opens up this whole different food industry.
And that opens up a big door to selling formula because before then, if you couldn’t preserve it, if even if you made a formula to market and I had to be kept, you know, in a bottle, in a fridge, it’s just not going to reach that many people. Yeah. It’s not going to reach them in time. Right. So then we have the development of evaporated milk and that was patented oh, before then. Sorry, this is wrong. In 1835 by William Newton.
Sugar was added in 1853 and the substance that was canned and sold as Eagle brand condensed milk, which became a popular infant food was created. And a lot of your parents or grandparents might remember Eagle brand condensed milk as something they ate as children.
My mom ate it. Right. Or her mom was old school. Yeah. That’s what she got. That became like the most popular infant food substitute was sweetened condensed milk. And when doctors would recommend a “formula”, it usually had sweetened condensed milk in it because that stayed preserved. You could buy it in bulk, keep it in your house and it wouldn’t go bad. And it’s delicious.
Right. And it’s full of sugar. Okay. Anyway, I’m in my notes just for your information. I wrote, oh my God, I hate this timeline. Getting addicted to sugar in infancy since 1853. What the hell fire shit?
Guys. I gotta publish these. Okay. I love Mo’s research papers. Anyway, so after that, right, we’re in the mid 1800s. There are so many more commercial products and formulas just rapidly were marketed and produced, you know, and the, the two big, there were some big gateways for that, but it’s like Liebig’s infant formula opened the door a little bit.
The mention of evaporated milk, you know, food sterilization and storing techniques, like just blew that door wide open. By 1883, that’s like 20 years later, there were 27 brands of infant food, minimum, that we can find. Now that’s a lot. Yeah, that’s a lot. That’s a lot. And products often came in powdered forms, had added carbohydrates and they were made by some possibly familiar brands like Nestle foods, Imperial Granum and SKS food.
Fucking Nestle is evil, y’all. And just side note, these products lacked protein, vitamins and minerals. Pretty much they were just sugar and carbs. Hmm. So as you can imagine, it was really common for babies who were fed infant milk substitutes at this point to have rickets or scurvy even, to be very vitamin deficient, to die from infections because people couldn’t sterilize things.
Yeah. And rickets is where, just in case you don’t know if you’ve seen any pictures of skinny little kids with bowed legs, it’s literally your bones are so soft that your legs bow out. Vitamin D deficiency. Yeah. We don’t really have that anymore because infants are, infant food substitutes are fortified with vitamin D and breastfeeding mothers even are told to supplement with it and to supplement their babies because of this big rickets scare with giving infants inferior formula. Wow. Yeah. And scurvy too. Holy scurvy. Yeah. That’s a babies and pirates who would have thought they had anything in common, right? Yeah.
So anyway, my next title of my notes is called death and destruction. So right use of these formulas was associated with a lot of seasonal deaths. So a lot of babies died in the summer because of product spoilage and the fact that not everybody had an ice box in their house. So once they opened these products that then needed to be refrigerated, they couldn’t do that. You know, I’m just, I’m sorry, may I? I’m confused about, did babies, did people just think that babies were supposed to cry all the time?
I don’t know, but like germ theory wasn’t a thing. I know, but, but like this day and age, a parent eats some broccoli and their baby has gas and they’re immediately like oh my God! We’ve done something terribly wrong to my baby. It must have been the broccoli I ate. Where people back in the day just being like, fuck, I don’t know.
They just cry all the time. Every single one of them cries all the time and we don’t care and it’s not our fault. And it can’t be something we’re doing. I’ll have to find the oldest person we know and ask. Yeah, because I feel like my grandma breastfed so she wouldn’t know. My grandma did not, oh, we should ask her. Is she alive? Well, one grandma is, and I’ve already talked to her about it.
She fed Similac, but she was on the government program, but my other grandma, they actually had some money, so they didn’t qualify for the government program, but she was an older mother. She was like 38 when she had my mom. So she was old school. So my mom got the bougie Carnation instant milk with vitamin drops and the splash of orange juice.
Wow. Because the splash of orange juice prevents scurvy. How crazy. Yeah. Anyway, so. I don’t know what people thought about their babies at this time, but you know, infant mortality was really high just in general. Babies died all the fucking time. Maybe just don’t get attached. I, that, I mean, and that might’ve been some people’s mindset. Who am I to know? You know, but the reality is nobody linked these quote summertime deaths with formula until after germ theory was widely accepted.
And that was at least the 1890s. So that was a long time of babies simply dying from diarrhea and bacterial infections, you know, needlessly. So then between 1890 and 1910 people actually began to realize that like cleanliness and hygiene were important and that began to be applied to milk feeding supplies and production.
And on top of it, most homes at that point had an icebox. So it took, you know, until about 1900 for people to know they had to really seriously wash and boil their, you know, bottle nipples and their glass bottles and for people to just fucking have refrigeration. And even then it’s an icebox, it’s not a fridge.
So they literally that’s like they had deliveries of ice every week. Yeah. Okay. But also, maybe, I don’t know a ton about this era, but did they have clean water at this point? It completely depends where people lived. Like now. Yeah. Yeah. Just still like now, but yeah, people who lived in cities, they didn’t have like mass water treatment plants.
Okay. I listened to “This Podcast Will Kill You” a lot, which you should, if you love infectious disease, like I do. And there are many episodes where they’re like, oh yeah, you know, somebody tracked an outbreak of whatever to this one well in this part of town. Yeah. Right. Oh man, the cholera. The beginning of community health.
Right. And probably around the same time period. Right. I dunno. Anyway, so yeah man, water was also not clean. Also people drank a lot of alcohol because water wasn’t clean. Just that’s how it is. Okay. So I’m bringing us into the 20th century. Welcome everybody. It’s 1900. Yeah. We’re having babies. Welcome to prohibition.
Are we there yet? Close. We’re close. We’re close to prohibition. Here in Appalachia, we’re about to build some hot rods and run from the cops. So anyway, 1900s, early 1900s. It’s very common for doctors to prescribe homemade formulas, right? Evaporated, milk, Karo syrup, maybe a splash of orange juice or Cod liver oil to, sounds disgusting, to help babies not have scurvy and rickets.
Maybe not. Who knows? And are they recommending this to all babies? So not yet. At this point, it appears that some doctors are recommending it, some aren’t. Who knows? But then in the 1920s, we see scientists begin to develop non-dairy infant formulas. The first one was based on soy flour and was available in 1929.
Wow. That’s so early. Yeah. It also lacked vital nutrients and vitamins and minerals. By the way, side note, soy is the worst formula you can give your baby and if it’s the only formula your baby can tolerate, then obviously you have to feed your baby, but in the hierarchy of milk, soy is on the bottom, right?
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Anyway. And with this, Alfred Bosworth releases the Similac brand, which is named so because it is similar to lactation. Oh wow. Fucking handy. The light bulb just went off above your head.
Yeah, it did. And at that time manufacturers, manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and other health products were allowed to advertise directly to physicians. Just go into their offices and say, Hey, and yet they still do this FYI, but this was new then. Like before then you couldn’t advertise your medications publicly and to physicians.
So now they could just send in a rep to a doctor’s office and be like, here’s a case of Similac. Why don’t you give this to all your patients? And that’s what started that cascade of like every doctor recommending formula. Yeah. That still happens actually. Like when I had my daughter, who’s 18 months old, I went in for her appointment, like one of her first appointments and the nurse there was like, Hey are you breastfeeding?
And I was like, yeah, she goes, oh, okay. Well, I’m going to give you some formula just to hang onto in case you need it, because we’re trying to get rid of it because it’s going to expire soon. And I was like, okay. And I just took it home. She gave me like three cans of Similac. Yeah, give them to WIC. Like Jesus, give them to anybody. I don’t know if they’re allowed to do that.
Well, Heather, sounds like it hasn’t much has not changed. Not there. And it used to be when I had my son, I got, I don’t even know how they knew I was pregnant, maybe cause I was on Medicaid at the time, but I got a box delivered to my house with all kinds of Similac shit in it. Fuck Similac y’all. Fuck that corporation. Yeah.
Here’s the coupons and some cans. And that was damaging to breast feeders. And think about this. You’re somebody who’s breastfeeding in the 1920s and you go into your doctor’s appointment and they say, “Well, scientists have developed a better formula for your baby. It’s better than what you’re giving it. So let me give you a free sample.”
And so you go home, you start feeding your kid, this what, maybe you have a week’s worth of this formula. And in that time you feed them only formula, and then you run out and, but you try to lactate again. You barely have any milk and then you have to go back and buy more and buy more. And then you’re done breastfeeding.
Yep. And your baby did not need that. And. I mean up until very recently, the, the hierarchy of medicine was very patriarchal. So if you’re a woman and you’re going into the physician, you are not going to actually tell them your feelings. You’re going to sit there and you’re going to probably dress up for your appointment, even though you have crazy postpartum depression.
And, and they’re going to talk down to you and tell you what the recommendation is. And if you don’t take their recommendation, they’re probably going to shame the shit out. Right. So then one kind of good thing in 1929, the American Medical Association formed a committee on foods to approve safety and quality of formula.
So like, okay, thanks. Because the reality is, Heather and I don’t hate formula. We hate formula companies. So like, we need to mention that. It is really important because it’s a life-saving technology for some babies. But the reality is that these companies have so severely damaged breastfeeding in this country and others, which I will get to. Hold, hold on.
Okay. We got to keep going, moving on guys. Okay. So shortly after that, I think it’s like 1932 some advertising regulation was passed to that manufacturers could only speak with medical personnel. Like they couldn’t speak with the secretaries and stuff. So that forced them to form even closer relationships with doctors because they had to speak directly to them.
What the fuck? And are they getting kickbacks? Oh, I’m sure they are. I don’t know. The result that is that by the forties and fifties physicians and consumers, widely regarded formula as superior to human milk and breastfeeding just sharply declined until the 1970s. So by 1950, and you ready for this guys?
This is a big one. In the 1800s, at least in the US, more than 90% of babies were breastfed. By 1950, over half the babies in the USA were formula fed and it keeps going down. That’s not even the peak low. But what keeps going up? I’m guessing money, money, money, money! Infant mortality. Shit. Yeah. You’re right. Not as funny.
Okay. No. So in the 1960s companies start ramping up their marketing efforts because US birth rates are declining and the United States is the biggest market for formula at that time. So these companies are like shit, people in the USA aren’t having babies anymore. What are we going to do?
Oh, let’s just aggressively market formula worldwide, especially in developing countries. Oh no. So this is evil and let me tell you why. So these formula companies are going into developing countries who do not have easy access to sanitation. They do not have clean water. Right. This is still a thing, but it was more prevalent then. A lot of these places didn’t have even reliable heat sources.
I mean, you know, it is fucking evil to go in then and market infant food replacements, right. To market formulas as superior to breast milk when, which is a lie, but also when the people they’re marketing to cannot safely prepare that formula and it’s going to kill their babies. They created a need for that product when these people can’t safely prepare it and they also cannot sustainably purchase it. They don’t have enough money to purchase it. So again, we’re in that situation where they get a bunch of free samples, they feed it to their baby. And then by the time they’re out of that sample, their milk has dried up and they can’t afford more.
So we ended up in that situation that we still do today, where people water down their formula and babies fucking die. Oh, no. Yeah. And also they’re just feeling like they’re not enough. Yeah, on top of everything else, they just feel like, I guess the only thing I have to give my baby is breast milk and that’s not good milk.
So I guess I’m a piece of shit, right? Sorry this episode is so fucking depressing. This, we need to know this though. Yeah, no, we do. I, I really think it is just so important to understand why it is so hard to breastfeed right now in this country and in this culture. And it is not your fault. It’s the fault of fucking formula companies.
Yeah, because at this point, at the point when your parents were being born, assuming you’re between the ages of 25 and 40 right now, which most of our listeners are. At the time when your parents are being born, they’re not being breastfed most likely. Nope. And that has broken this chain of cultural knowledge.
It has. And that’s why we are so busy because a lot of people will ask their moms like, how do I do this? And then they’re like, just give formula. And then they call us crying and they’re like, nobody can tell me what to do or show me what to do. I’ve never seen anybody breastfed before and it’s like, holy shit.
So this movement is just that, like we, it’s a resurgence and we’re gonna hopefully do it correctly and dispel a lot of these myths. You know what Heather? What? I’m not even done. Are you serious? There’s more. Oh my God. Okay guys. So here’s kind of a brighter spot. 1967, companies fortify their infant formula with vitamins.
My God. It takes them like 200 years. And no more splashes of orange juice? No, we don’t need orange juice and cod liver oil. Now they put that in the formula like they fucking should have to begin with. Anyway okay, so then we start to have like things looking up a little bit. I will say it does get a little bit better from here out.
It never gets good though. It’s never great. Sorry. I’m so sorry. That sucks. Okay. So in the 1970s, this is when we actually start to see breastfeeding rates picking up again. We have groups like the Infant Formula Action Coalition taking, you know, doing a lot of efforts and making noise. LA Leche League, which was actually founded in the fifties, but it’s really starting to gain popularity in the seventies.
And they’re just groups like that are launching these widespread worldwide campaigns about the importance of breastfeeding. Right. So that’s bad ass. In 1974, a report called, “The Baby Killer” is released in the United Kingdom, accusing formula companies of introducing formula to impoverished countries knowing that the families there would be unable to properly prepare and use the formula, which causes infant death. And they accused them of doing that simply to turn a profit. And let me tell you what that accusation is fucking true. Did they win? Well, I don’t think it was a court case. It was just like a big report that was released.
My brain immediately went to justice and it was like, I hope so. No justice, Heather I’m so I’m so sorry. Damn, fuck. No justice. Anyway. Okay, so then another shitty thing happens. 1988 formula companies begin to advertise to consumers directly. TV, newspapers, everywhere. They’re like, Hey you do you breastfeed? You should just use Similac instead. Are you tired of feeding your baby all day long? Take a break. Just feed them a fucking bottle. Get a job. Go back to having two incomes. At the same time, the American Academy of Pediatrics did release a statement against the, but it didn’t change anything. You know, that was one good thing they did.
They don’t always do good things. Overall over all this time our breastfeeding rate in the United States, as I mentioned before, went from over 90% in the 20th century, down to 42% by the time we get to the 21st century. Right. The beginning of the 1900s were at 90%. Formula. No breastfeeding. Oh, okay.
So 18 something. Yeah. Turn of the century, 18 something beginning of the 1900, over 90% of babies are breastfed. Throughout that whole century, we get to the 21st century, 42%. Hm that’s terrible. So that’s the power of marketing, right. And research of course, shows us, we have seen a market increase in childhood obesity, diabetes, and other health issues.
Auto-immune, so many things. Some more recent history stuff. Interesting things to contextualize what’s going on. In 1981, the World Health Assembly passes the international marketing code and this requires infant formula companies to preface their product marketing info with statements that breastfeeding is best and that substitute should only be used after a consultation with a healthcare professional.
PS. They still don’t fucking do that. No, but every formula company is required by law to do that, but they don’t. I will say that in my time as a nurse, I did see a change in the system where if we were going to give formula, we had to have a physician order in the chart. Good. Instead of nurses just going and grabbing a formula. If your baby is, you know, if your milk’s not in yet or whatever, they just used to just go grab formula.
Well, the mom requested it and the mom can do whatever she wants. Yes. But not without a physician order. Yeah. And there are a lot of advocates today that are really pushing for formula to be prescription only. And in some ways I really like that. And in some ways I don’t, you know, I’m 50 50 on that. I mean, I think it definitely would place formula in an appropriate medical category because it really should be something where that transition for most people is supervised by a physician, but healthcare isn’t that accessible. Right. That’s the thing like when you start formula, some other things can happen.
It can be a slippery slope of digestive stuff that you need to be closely monitored, but also there’s that feminist side of me, that’s like, if you don’t want to breastfeed, you don’t have to fucking breastfeed. Like you don’t have to do that with your body but be educated about it. Right. Make sure you’re picking the formula that’s correct. Make sure you have access to healthcare where you can make sure your baby is being followed up with and, and you know what you’re doing. Like, you know, that you’re preparing it correctly. And I mean, my God, I’m not stupid, but I definitely prepared it incorrectly several times. I made formula for my son who was, you know, a late preterm er and had all kinds of stupid shit going on.
Right. Well, and I just acknowledged too that so many people can’t even get in to see a doctor for anything, you know, they don’t have the money, they don’t have health insurance. So of course they can’t get in to have formula approved for their baby. But I’m just thinking like, man, if we were able to provide that kind of intervention and assistance then like how many more people would be able to continue breastfeeding?
Gosh, it’s, it’s such a complicated issue. It really is. Well, we have made some strides since all that bad shit happened, Heather. Yeah. Tell us something good. Okay. Well, in 1992, the baby friendly hospital initiative launched with the goal of removing formula advertising and product placement in hospitals.
Wait that launched in 92? Yeah. 92. That’s funny. It is 2020. Yeah. It’s 2020. And I swear to you, I just really started hearing about this at our level one magnet hospital in West Virginia. I think in the past five years, I think we have three or five baby friendly hospitals in West Virginia, pretty low. It also requires that their staff are better trained to support breastfeeding.
For the most part, I like this initiative. They’ve definitely made some mistakes but have really overall made a lot of good changes. I think the changes would be better and more effective if the nursing staff wasn’t already so overwhelmed. I’m sorry if nurses weren’t the bitches of the hospital and had to do fucking everything.
And the nurses are like, oh, I’m sorry. We’re supposed to incorporate this new initiative where I’m also supposed to be a lactation consultant on top of having all these other responsibilities. So, you know, as a nurse, I totally sympathize there. But, you know, overall I taught the baby friendly initiative to the nurses and I walked in there with my tail between my legs like I was about to get my ass chewed and I did. Yeah, I did buy a couple. Because they’re so fucking over worked. I wasn’t even mad. Yeah. I was just like, listen, I get it. Like, I totally get it. Like, I’m glad you guys are even being paid to be here right now. But like I had to, it’s not perfect is what we’re saying, but, but at least it’s something. It’s a start, you know, and maybe we’ll, we’ll keep making improvements.
Sure. Yeah. And you know, the World Health Organization and other leading health organizations worldwide are still working to undo the harm that’s been caused by formula companies. And you know what? They’re still doing that today. Do you, so today, as far as I could tell, the global infant formula market is estimated to be worth more than 7.9 billion. Billion with a B dollars.
Yeah. The amount larger than a billion is than a million is like unthinkable guys. It is, this is a lot of money and 33% of the market is Asia and Western Europe, or sorry, USA and Western Europe. 53% of the market is in Asia. Oh, that’s interesting. Isn’t that interesting? Out of that five companies account for 60% of the infant food market worldwide.
Oh, wow. Can you guess? That’s on purpose. Nestle. Yep. I don’t know. Similac, their parent company is called Abbott and then Nestle Abbott, which is Similac. And then Mead Johnson. They own 98% of the US infant food market total. Wow. Well, they’ve pushed everybody else out. And in 2018, those three companies together spent a total of $790,000 lobbying.
Ha! Well, and you’ll wonder why we can’t win y’all. So let me just also note really quick that there’s three companies that are big, but when you go to Walmart, for example, another company that’s crazy. And you go to the formula aisle, there’s like a hundred different kinds of formula. So one day I actually had a minute and I was trying to delay going home, as we do.
We’re going to stay in Walmart for three hours. And so I decided to start reading the ingredients on the back of each of those. I was like, how different are these? They are microscopically different. Like there is no difference, really. And I bet they’re all owned by the same company, Heather. Exactly.
But it’s marketing. So it’s like spaghetti. The sale of spaghetti sauce went up when they added different kinds of spaghetti sauce that were barely different. Just because a hint of garlic. Yeah. When people are overwhelmed with choice, they tend to pick one and it’s like, well, if I’m going to pick one, I’ll the chances that I pick one of that company goes up if there’s more products to choose from.
So, you know, don’t stress out. Just if you’re going to do formula, check with your doctor and then start with the most basic form. Don’t go with like, don’t go with the pro iron fortified bullshit in here. They’re pretty much all the same. Just look at the back and make yourself feel better. It’s a marketing ploy.
Do you want to hear something else that’s marketing ploy? Yeah. As of 2018, there is not a single infant formula company that adheres to the WHO’s marketing restrictions. What? They technically don’t allow any texts that idealizes the use of formula or might discourage breastfeeding in any way. So, you know when you see things that say “inspired by human milk”, they’re not allowed to say that. “Most similar to human milk.”
They’re not allowed to say that. Really? And companies still push products to doctor’s offices, hospitals. Women are sent home from the hospital with a fucking bag of samples, you know and that simple act, that sample bag of formula has been shown to negatively impact breastfeeding rates. That’s it. That one intervention.
That’s the whole thing about the baby friendly hospitals. That’s like their biggest ask is that you don’t fucking send people home with formula. Because can you imagine you’re day four, you’re at home, you’re not sure if your milk is in yet, your baby’s feeding constantly. You had a C-section right. Your milk’s probably not in yet. Nobody actually talked to you at the hospital about when your milk’s coming in or even that it comes in on day four at all. You’re like, I thought I had milk and my baby is starving. And your partner who also doesn’t have any idea, you know, she, or he is like, why don’t you just feed them something?
Cause they’re starving, you know? And then there you are and you’re formula feeding before you even started. Yeah. And then your milk comes in and then your baby can’t remove it. And then you’re engorged. Just to round up that story. Sorry. Yeah. Mastitis, clogs. Anyway, we, we know the sequala of events here.
The reality is right now, things are getting better. Breastfeeding rates in the US and worldwide are on the rise. Yeah. And there are lots of advocacy groups that are still fighting to restrict formula marketing. And, you know, like I said before, they’re aiming to have this classified as a medical product or a medication so that it can’t be openly marketed in the same way because different marketing restrictions apply to medications. The state of the state, it sucks, but it’s getting better. Yeah, it’s getting better because of money also. You know, like for, for example, you know, always follow the money. Like that’s, that’s my thing.
Like if you follow the money, you will see what’s going on and so yeah, they pushed this formula, but then once you get enough people on formula, oh, guess what? Medicaid and WIC and all these governments subsidy programs have to provide it. Oh, oh. So then they have to pay for it for these people and then the states start tallying it up and they’re like okay.
So how about we spent a total of $1.8 billion supplying WIC programs with formula in one year. So, I mean, obviously tax dollars at work, that’s a little rough. Like I think I’d rather have sidewalks to push my kids on. You know I think I’d rather have the government hire more lactation counselors, right?
Hello, bro. Sidewalks are great too, but I mean, fuck a sidewalk. I want an IBCLC. If that’s the choice I’m going with IBCLC. Sidewalks have nothing to do with breastfeeding. I don’t even know why I’m sitting here right now. So anyways. Yeah. So basically if you follow the money, they start to realize maybe this isn’t in the best overall economic health, like, oh, babies are dying.
Oh, we don’t care. Our money is being affected, we got to change some of this. There’s a fine line they have to walk before the scales tip. Oh guys, this has been a roller coaster of disappointment. It has, but you know, I just want to reiterate, I gave some formula as a supplementation to both of my children.
And I would talk about that in a different episode, for sure. I’m not ashamed of it. I still feel like I had a good breastfeeding experience. I think that it could have been avoided if I knew more, but I don’t beat myself up about it by any means. And both of my children are happy and healthy. You know what? I was lucky enough to not supplement my child.
I had some resources and some help. A lot of determination, grit, but actually what I did use formula for, which is interesting. I’m a very outdoorsy person. If you didn’t know this about me, we hike a lot. We bike a lot. We boat, we do all the things outside. My husband needs to take our son for like hikes, basically as long as he could every day, because I had one of those babies that just like so constantly fed, I was gonna kill one of us.
And so I actually made him a little survival kit for the baby. Just in case like he fucking fell and broke his leg two miles from the house and I wasn’t going to find him, you know, cause I was a little bit. Anyway, it was, it was safe, also paranoid. So I made him this baby’s survival kit and I put in like a space blanket.
I put in two little canisters of those pre-made like shelf stable formulas. The R T S the ready to feed. Yeah. Those. And I was like, these are great. I’m really glad we have these because if my husband got hurt and couldn’t make it back, you know, in a reasonable amount of time, my baby was hungry, he could feed him this.
That’s a great point. Yeah. And, and like, I, I so recognize the absolute need for infant food replacements and the need for that to be a safe and effective food for babies. Yeah, there’s a responsible way to do that. And you know, for, for those of you who are out there, who are like, you know, you might not be listening to this podcast, but they’re like, you know, I have absolutely no desire to breastfeed.
I just, I’m a working woman and I want to have my baby and I’m going to have a different relationship. Fine. Yeah. Mental health is really important and being yourself is really important and standing behind your decisions is really important. So that’s what we’re really just trying to highlight how we got here and why you feel so bad about your decisions when you make them.
And know that these companies don’t have your best interests in mind. I think that’s being brought to light. I think that started in the late sixties. Wouldn’t you say? Where in the fifties I still feel like people were like, yeah, the government has my best interest in mind. I mean, it’s really when that report in the seventies came out in the United Kingdom, The Baby Killer, I think that’s when a lot of people realized just how fucking evil some of these companies are because they routinely and still, we see lots of corporations do this.
They just place profit over people. Hmm. Hmm. That’s why you will probably never hear an ad from us about like a stretch mark cream or like a magic nipple healer, or, you know. Not that we’re against those things, but we are just really, really cautious about the products that we promote until we are confident that the company is standing behind their product and their consumers. Yeah, like actually right now, Heather and I have been recording some pitches to different companies cause we really want sponsorship because that makes this a more sustainable project for us. You know, if we can get paid for this, then we can create more content for you guys and help more people.
So. We, you know, we were going through this list and we’d look at this one company and be like, Nope. Like we don’t want people to think that they need that when they don’t. And then we’d look at another one and be like, wow, like actually, like our listeners do need that. I think we have a big need for this specific product in our community.
And I think it really helps people and they’re not trying to sell some bullshit. Yeah, I promise if you ever hear an ad on our show, it’s because we have highly vetted them and we truly do stand behind it. Yeah, absolutely. Because we’re two angry feminists sitting under the stairs and we’re not going to take any shit.
Nope. Also, if you guys, if any of you out there have a product that you think would be placed well on this show, like send us an email. We’ll think about it. Holla. We’d love to talk to you about it. All right. Well, we hope we didn’t depress you too much and we hope we just inspired you to help us make change.
I’m feeling a little depressed, Heather, but we’ll get through it together. I’m going to go get some chocolate.
