Formula Companies Don't Need Help Advertising
And certainly NOT from IBCLCs
That’s why I’ve been working with a group called
(they’re also here on Substack) on a strategic plan to stop predatory formula marketing.As you know, infant formula companies have a long history of aggressive and underhanded marketing that makes the work of lactation professionals all the more challenging.
In the digital age, a crop of smaller, savvier formula companies has found new (and pernicious) ways to target vulnerable new moms online: they have recruited birth workers, lactation professionals, and natural birth advocates to push formula on social media.
The activist group Radical Moms Union has been waging a strategic campaign to end this virulent form of predatory marketing.
I am learning so much about grassroots advocacy and union organizing tactics every time we meet.
These folks are experts in how to do this.
I believe it’s exactly what we need to move the needle on this issue.
This is your invitation to learn more about the campaign and explore opportunities for collaboration.
Look, it’s up to us.
No cavalry is coming in to do this work.
We’re the cavalry.
We need to organize, we need to be strategic, and we need to show up for the families we serve.
And I know, I can hear you thinking it: “How come This Organization or That Organization isn’t doing anything about it?”
Honestly, we don’t have time to waste talking about that.
Let’s just do it.
The day I learned that my first breastfeeding journey had been sabotaged by predatory formula marketing was the day I knew I had to become an IBCLC.
I worked SO HARD to become an IBCLC.
I work equally hard every day to be the best IBCLC I can be, to maintain my credential, and to represent the credential with dignity and honor.
How dare these companies try to corrupt my credential by using IBCLCs to advertise formula?
If you’ve been reading here for a while, you already know how I feel.
If not, here’s a little taste for you.
There’s no need to disparage breastfeeding in order to sell formula.
We all know the truth: formula companies spend more money than most of us can even imagine on marketing (and not enough on making their product better or safer for babies).
They do it because it works.
They do it because every time someone stops breastfeeding or expressing their own milk for their baby, they need to use/buy formula.
So they’ll say anything to make people doubt breastfeeding, question its importance, resent it, be confused and overwhelmed by it.
We have to be willing to do more to stop them.
As a lot of the online business folks are saying lately, What got us here won’t get us where we need to go next.
Let’s do something different.
Thursday, Nov 7 at 5:30 Eastern/2:30Pacific
Questions? Hit Reply to this email and I’ll be glad to chat with you about this.
Seriously.