Launch of Binit! campaign

When I had my first baby I went along to the ante-natal classes and met other women, we talked about feeding babies, everyone wanted to breastfeed,- if they could- bar one, and everything seemed ok. We had a session with a really nice nurse from SMA, she showed us how to make up feeds, and we got to hold the bottles and to talk about teats and sterilisers- just in case breastfeeding didn't work. we had a talk from the health visitor about breastfeeding, that wasn't as memorable. We had lots of information about feeding babies at the clinic. there was a balance between breastfeeding and formula feeding materials, they were all produced by formula companies.

Afew weeks later it was time for weaning. The health visitor gave me a pile of leaflets, plus I had received lots of information from the hospital. Almost every peice of information that I received about feeding my baby was produced by a formula milk company. There was other stuff, the mugs we had coffee in at the under ones group, the wheels used to work out how old the baby was, the pens, the post-it notes, diary covers.......

I was suprised then that of the fifteen new motherrs there was only one other who was still breastfeeding, but having learnt more about the laws on marketing formula milk and the World Health Organisation and UNICEF's attempts to stop it, I now realise that these companies use these methods for a reason. It is effective.

So, to mark the 9 years since my first letter of complaint, and the fact that we still have no policy to protect pregnant women and new mothers from commercial pressure through the healthcare system, I have started an amnesty of marketing materials.
The website is
http://www.binit.org.uk
go see.....