Healthy Skepticism Library item: 14859

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Kaplan DL, Graff KM.
Marketing breastfeeding--reversing corporate influence on infant feeding practices.
2008 Jul; 85:(4):486-504
http://www.springerlink.com/content/82277g292095x388/

Abstract:

Breast milk is the gold standard for infant nutrition and the only necessary food for the first 6 months of an infant’s life. Infant formula is deficient and inferior to breast milk in meeting infants’ nutritional needs. The infant formula industry has contributed to low rates of breastfeeding through various methods of marketing and advertising infant formula. Today, in New York City, although the majority of mothers initiate breastfeeding (approximately 85%), a minority of infants is breastfed exclusively at 8 weeks postpartum (approximately 25%). The article reviews the practices of the formula industry and the impact of these practices. It then presents the strategic approach taken by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and its partners to change hospital practices and educate health care providers and the public on the benefits of breast milk, and provides lessons learned from these efforts to make breastfeeding the normative and usual method of infant feeding in New York City.

Keywords:
Advertising as Topic* Bottle Feeding*/statistics & numerical data Breast Feeding*/statistics & numerical data Decision Making Female Food-Processing Industry* Humans Infant Infant Food Infant Welfare Infant, Newborn New York City Urban Population