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Baby bottle advert ban

Miss Chicken

Miss Chicken

Little three legged cat with attitude
Admiral
Not so much a ban but the scene concerned was cut from the ad

Images of All Black hero Piri Weepu bottle-feeding his baby have been cut after protests by breastfeeding crusaders.
La Leche League, a pro-breastfeeding organisation, has taken offence from a few seconds of film showing the All Black tenderly feeding a bottle of milk to daughter Taylor. The brief scene has been cut from an anti-smoking ad, due to complaints from the league.
One email said: "The damage that this shot of a celebrity All Black will do to breastfeeding in New Zealand Aotearoa will be significant."
Weepu became a national hero during the All Blacks' World Cup-winning campaign.
The Health Sponsorship Council's TV ad is part of its "Smoking, Not Our Future" drive and features Weepu at home with his two daughters: 6-month-old Taylor and toddler Keira. In it Weepu speaks about the positives of having a smoke-free home and car
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rest of story here

I think this is very stupid. Firstly the child was 6 months old, whose to say that she wasn't breastfeed for the first few months of life. Secondly, the milk in the bottle could have been expressed breast milk. Thirdly, if the baby was being feed formula there might have been a reason why his wife couldn't breastfeed.

I am very pro-breastfeeding but I think these breastfeeding crusaders are taking their protests too far.
 
But what if it was some poor african country where babies were dying from unsanitary water and diluted formula and breastfeeding had fallen out of favor and needed to be constantly promoted? What are the breastfeeding issues in NZ? If the breastfeeding rate was very low I could see why this was an issue, stupid as the circumstances are.
 
I think it's fairly simple. If mothers choose to breast feed thats fine, if they choose not to. That's also fine.

But that's not the point in this instance. We have a father feeding his baby, how else is he supposed to it except from a bottle.

Men can get critised for not being involved enough with the looking after children. Plus we are also living in the 21st century, society doesn't really apply the stigma it used to a role reversal where the man looks after the child whilst the women works.

So are pro-breast feeders saying that a woman's place is in the home looking after children, I thought we had moved beyond such notions. Unless anyone knows of a way for men to breast feed a child?
 
MacLeod said:
Unless anyone knows of a way for men to breast feed a child?
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Well exactly. :lol: That's the most ridiculous thing about this - if it's a man with the baby then obviously he won't be breastfeeding anyway. The apparent idea among this group that a message of "I'm bottle-feeding, so implicitly turning my back on, or condemning, breastfeeding" is stupid anyway. It's a bit like saying "he's wearing a green coat! Such blatant anti-blue coat messages pose a serious threat!" But on top of that we're expected to believe such a message is being sent by a male? The only possible logic is either that the mother should be on hand full-time or a wetnurse be employed.
 
teacake said:
What are the breastfeeding issues in NZ? If the breastfeeding rate was very low I could see why this was an issue, stupid as the circumstances are.
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But this hasn't got anything to do with bottle-feeding. It's not intended to promote bottle-feeding anyway, it's just a clip featuring bottle-feeding that happened to be included. It's like doing a documentary about London, seeing a shot of a pigeon, and concluding that the piece is about pigeons. And if breastfeeding were so low anyway, then what threat could one more advert not even about the subject pose? If bottle-feeding is triumphant enough to make it an issue, this would surely just be another drop in the ocean, not worth singling out as a threat.
 
I'm totally pro-breastfeeding. I think that if it can be done, it should be, for the health benefits it gives the infant.

But this is completely nuts.
 
teacake said:
But what if it was some poor african country where babies were dying from unsanitary water and diluted formula and breastfeeding had fallen out of favor and needed to be constantly promoted? What are the breastfeeding issues in NZ? If the breastfeeding rate was very low I could see why this was an issue, stupid as the circumstances are.
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I agree with what you're saying. In fact, I do my best to stay away from Nestle products because of the way they pushed formula in developing countries. However, it sounds as if this baby is 6 months old, not a newborn, and there's no way of knowing if the father is bottle feeding formula or expressed breast milk. I could understand the outcry from pro-breastfeeders (of which I am one) if the mother was bottle feeding, but what other choice does the father have? Better to show an involved father than cut the scene IMO.
 
How the hell else is a man supposed to feed his child? People need to calm the fuck down.

What could be a better example than a father taking care of his children, you know, like a responsible adult. If people get upset about that, then something is seriously wrong with them.
 
On their Facebook site they have started that he could have been shown bonding to his child in some other way i.e. cuddling her, changing her nappy etc rather than showing a bottle.

It isn't surprising that many women are made to feel guilty about bottle feeding, even if there is a good reason for them not breastfeeding, if showing a short clip of a man bottle feeding an infant draws criticism.
 
Sadly a lot of these pro-breastfeeding groups are downright militant. There are a myriad of reasons why some women can't breastfeed, and some simply don't want to. I'm a breast-is-best person myself and was lucky that I had no issues with breastfeeding, but as I'm not a health professional how other parents feed their babies is none of my business, and these militants need to shut up about it, too.
 
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