Old Marketing Tactics Used To Sell Baby Formula And Undermine Breastfeeding – New Technologies Claiming To Copy Human Milk
Cecília Tomori, Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing
New products that claim to replicate mother’s milk have entered the lucrative market for infant formula.
To an anthropologist and public health scholar who studies breastfeeding, these claims appear to be built on old patterns of misleading scientific statements – and reveal the power of marketing to exploit gaps created by inadequate societal support for breastfeeding.
The costs of undermining breastfeeding are enormous. Globally, over 823,000 child deaths could be prevented annually with appropriate breastfeeding. Additionally, 20,000 maternal deaths could be averted each year worldwide from breast cancer. Poor communities of color around the world disproportionately shoulder this harm.
The rise of commercial formula
Through...