The body as a machine 

The companies’ aggressive efforts to replace something safe and naturally perfect with a manufactured commodity is a continuation of a long campaign that began during the Industrial Revolution. It has its roots in the mechanistic philosophy that viewed the human body as a machine that could be rationally managed. 

The first breastmilk substitute was sold in the mid-1860s, and Henri Nestlé, a chemist working in Frankfurt, brought his product to market soon after. Mixing meal and cow’s milk in “correct scientific proportion,” he said in 1867, results in “a food which is all that could be desired.” But he was wrong, along with any number of others who promoted supposedly ‘scientific’ techniques, such as bloodletting. 

The move towards infant formula became epidemic in the industrialized countries after the Second World War and is spreading in rapidly urbanizing parts of the developing world. Despite their claims, though, industry has never developed a product on a par with breastmilk. In fact, the best that science has done in this area is to prove that women’s bodies know better than any manufacturer what to feed their babies, and when. 

Of course, the impact of inappropriate infant feeding is immeasurably greater in developing countries. Lack of safe water for mixing the formula and contamination of feeding bottles are the main reasons why formula-fed babies die; another is that families cannot afford adequate supplies of formula, so they dilute it too much. 

Compared to babies who are exclusively breastfed, those who are fed formula have 10 times the risk of incurring bacterial infections requiring hospitalization, 4 times the risk of meningitis and 3 to 4 times the risk of developing middle ear infections and gastroenteritis. 

The risk, though, is not just in the developing world. In terms of lifelong chronic illness in industrialized countries, formula-fed babies have increased levels of asthma, allergies, eczema, diabetes and ulcerative colitis—and 5 to 8 times the risk of childhood lymphomas. Children who are not breastfed have lower scores on mental development tests and their vision is not as sharp. It is all noted in the scientific literature. 
 

Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life promotes healthy growth and a strong immune system.

No one wants to impose breastfeeding on mothers. When women have the resources to afford adequate supplies of formula, safe water and fuel to sterilize bottles and synthetic nipples, formula may be an appropriate alternative for those who do not wish to breastfeed. 

Formula is not the optimal choice, however, and women should be told that. Quite frankly, I question how much true ‘choice’ is involved when doctors, mothers and all the rest of society have been inundated with messages that disparage breastfeeding, in ways both subtle and blatant. 

Some few mothers are unable to lactate, but there would be far fewer if all mothers were helped to begin breastfeeding immediately following delivery, rather than having a bottle thrust right into the baby’s mouth. 

The industry, along with many women’s groups, says infant formula frees women who work outside the home from the tether of breastfeeding. That, they argue, is why bottle-feeding spreads in tandem with urbanization. 

But is bottle-feeding really more convenient than breastfeeding? Is it easier to buy, prepare, tote, refrigerate and heat bottles of formula? The perceived inconvenience of breastfeeding should also be weighed against the later inconvenience of having to stay at home from work to care for formula-fed children, who, statistics tell us, are more sickly than breastfed children. 

Employers undoubtedly need to do more to accommodate breastfeeding mothers, and they should be encouraged by supportive government policies. Adequate, paid maternity leave, high-quality infant care at or near the workplace and facilities to express and store breastmilk would go far to encourage working mothers to begin breastfeeding and continue it after returning to work. Given its benefits for babies’ health, it is in employers’ interest to support the practice—to reduce absenteeism. 

People in poor countries are often persuaded by advertisements that bottle-feeding is the modern thing to do. Having lived in Nigeria and travelled through much of Africa and Asia, I can report that formula manufacturers regularly use images of white doctors surrounded by black or Asian babies to promote their products as being the modern, healthy, ‘first world’ way to bring up a baby. It is a very potent and persuasive message, trading on images of modernization.