We expose companies still violating the baby milk code
Improving breastfeeding rates could save 3,800 children a day. But some manufacturers continue to promote breast milk substitutes.
Tuesday 15 May 2007
A generation on from the start of one of the biggest public boycotts in corporate history, almost 1.4 million children are still dying every year because they are not getting enough of their mother's milk. Globally, improving breastfeeding rates could save the lives of almost 3,800 children a day. In Bangladesh alone it could cut infant mortality by one third saving the lives of 314 children everyday from killer diseases such as diarrhoea and pneumonia.
Save the Children have found that despite a UN approved code to regulate the marketing of baby milk and food, manufacturers continue to make a mockery of the rules and are still promoting their products unethically without sanction - a major part of the problem.
Our research revealed:
- all companies still openly market certain baby foods and drink (e.g. flavoured baby water and juices) to babies from four months - contravening World Health Organisation (WHO) guidance, which recommends exclusive breastfeeding until six months
- supermarkets and pharmacies violate the code by undercutting each other's prices through promotions and low pricing. These account for almost three quarters of all sales of baby milk substitutes in the UK
- telephone support lines and increasingly websites are all used to reach mothers - a type of indirect promotion banned by the code.
We encourage baby food companies to change their policies
The findings are revealed as Save the Children calls on the public to challenge all companies to put children before profits. One of these, Gerber, recently became the first company to meet the FTSE4Good index, proving to other companies that it can be done, but has since been taken over by Nestle, leaving the FTSE4Good index with no manufacturers on its lists yet again.
It has been 25 years since a UN approved code to restrict the promotion of substitute baby milk and food was introduced, but with no proper monitoring or more stringent laws, the violations will continue. Official Government campaigns promoting breastfeeding continue to lag well behind marketing campaigns for manufactured baby food. In the UK for every £1 spent by the Government to promote breastfeeding, over £10 is spent by leading manufacturers on advertising and promoting manufactured baby foods. This disparity is even more pronounced in developing countries, where most deaths occur. For example, in Bangladesh, the total value of baby milk and food imports is almost £16 million per year - 100 times more than the government of Bangladesh can afford to invest in supporting breastfeeding promotion.
"It's incomprehensible why - when we know that breastfeeding can make the single biggest contribution to a baby's survival - that companies, for over 25 years, have been allowed to flout a UN approved code with little fear of retribution.
"We must engage with baby milk manufacturers to convince them to put children before profits. Children cannot wait another generation until this is fixed. All food companies, governments, the WHO and UNICEF must put their full weight behind the code." Jasmine Whitbread, Chief Executive, Save the Children
We are calling for:
- all manufacturers to stop violating the code
- the UK Government to go further in tightening the legislation on the promotion of breast milk substitutes and to increase funding for the promotion of breastfeeding
- the WHO to be bolder in ensuring companies are held to account and regularly monitored for code compliance
- UNICEF to ensure that compliance with the Code becomes a measure of progress on countries' implementation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.
More information
Download our briefing: A Generation On: Baby milk marketing still putting children's lives at risk (PDF 125Kb).
The International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes (PDF 126KB) was adopted at the World Health Assembly in 1981. The code and subsequent WHA resolutions state that there should be no advertising or any other form of promotion of infant formulas, follow-on-milks, feeding bottles or teats. Complementary foods, such as cereals and baby food in small jars, should not be promoted for use below the age of six months.
