BABY MILK FORMULA IS UNETHICAL AND UNHEALTHY by Sharon L. Wallenberg

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and partners will launch a new report on baby milk formula.  This report is the largest of its kind to date and draws on the experiences of over 8,500 women and 300 health professionals across eight countries.  

The report exposes the unethical and aggressive marketing practices used by the formula milk industry in violation of international standards.  The report also highlights the negative impact of this aggressive marketing on the health and well-being of infants and young children from families’ decisions regarding feeding their babies and young children. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends “exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life” with “continued breastfeeding up to two years of age or beyond.”

Human breast milk is the best source of nutrition for human infants.  Nature has designed it as the perfect first food.  In addition, immunities from the Mother are transferred to her Infant through breast milk.  Baby infant formulas most commonly use cow’s milk as the primary ingredient.  Milk from cows is designed by nature to be the perfect food for baby calves, not baby humans.

According to the marketers of baby formula, many parents have trouble producing enough milk for their infants or don’t have the proper support to help them breastfeed, which is alleged to be very hard, and rarely comes easy to anybody.  This is completely unsupported by facts. 

Baby formula ingredients include whey and casein as a protein source (milk proteins associated with allergies and autoimmune disease), a blend of vegetable oils as a fat source, lactose as a carbohydrate source (a milk sugar associated with lactose intolerance), a vitamin-mineral mix from undisclosed sources, and other miscellaneous ingredients depending on the manufacturer.

Nestle is the most famous and infamous brand in child nutrition products.  The Nestle formulas include NAN, Good Start Essentials and Good Start Supreme.  According to a Nestlé Investor Seminar, the infant nutrition market is expected to expand to more than $92 billion globally by 2023.  The focus is on the health of the financial bottom line and not on human health.

Other companies with large market shares in the baby food manufacturing industry include Abbott Laboratories, which makes the Similac, Alimetum and EleCare brands, Mead Johnson and Beechnut.  Other baby formula manufacturers include Danone, a multinational food product company headquartered in Paris, France, Reckitt Benckiser, Abbott Nutrition, Friesland Campina, Bellamy's Organic, Kraft Heinz, and HiPP.

Baby formulas have been responsible for bacterial infections including cronobacter sakazakii and salmonella causing infant morbidity and mortality.

Nature has provided the best nutrition for human babies in human breast milk.  Although there are some circumstances which require nutritional alternatives, such as mortality or morbidity of the mother, or baby adoption, it is best to avoid enriching those individuals who place their own financial greed above the well-being of innocent individuals, including the mother cows and their babies who do without what is rightfully theirs.