Comments on: Medela Bites its Thumb at the WHO Code

By: Valerie W. McClain

Valerie W. McClain — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:56:41 +0000

Is this issue just about Medela’s marketing of bottles and artificial bottle nipplies and violating the WHO Code? I believe that there is more to this issue than is being publicly discussed. Medela owns quite a few patents at the US Patent & Trademark Office that are what I call “mechanical” patents– pumps and medical devices. But in 2008 they have applied for 3 patents that are very different from these mechanical patents.
Patent application# 20080075819 called, “Treatment of mother’s milk,” patent application #20080118615 called, “Method for Analysing & Treating Human Milk and System Therefore,” and patent application #20080187619 called, Human Milk Fortifiers & Methods for Production.” All three patents are invented by Peter Edwin Hartmann et al. (Hartman and his team are Australian) To read them go to the US Patent & Trademark Office and go to patent applications (right side of screen)
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/
These patent applications are not on devices but on a product and ways to modify it–human milk. The commodification of human milk has changed the politics of infant feeding. Mark Cregan and Peter Hartman are co-inventors of a patent application dated in 2007 called “Method for isolating cells from mammary secretion.” (application # 20070059822). This application is on ownership of stem cells in human milk and I believe that the research on this was funded by Medela. What is Medela’s intent with this patent applications? There are over 2000 human milk patents and patent applications owned by corporations, medical schools like John Hopkins and Baylor, and the US Government at the US Patent Office & Trademark Office (other patent offices throughout the world). I have written about this for a decade. I have encountered a “wall of silence,” from the breastfeeding community regarding this issue and I expect that has not changed. But Medela’s patent applications show a business interest in human milk. There is enormous interest in the properties of human milk by the infant formula, supplement, food, and pharmaceutical industries. Protecting breastfeeding will become an enormous task in the midst of this biotechnological drive for ownership of human milk components or its gene constructs.

By: Judi Hall

Judi Hall — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 22:11:35 +0000

I am saddened to read this discussion. We have found the enemy and he is us. When we go after a company that has been tremendously helpful to breastfeeding women and to lactation consultants, we fight ourselves and the formula companies win. I agree, there should be reasons given for pumps and bottles, but these comments are full of hate. We know that many women are turned off by such a strong view of breastfeeding at the breast and nothing else is acceptable. In addition, it is offensive to read these posts and see the foul language. It has no place in our care and outreach to mothers. I was sad to see how this blog would turn some away from breastfeeding. I for one am thankful for breastfeeding support devices such as pumps and even bottles. We need a kinder gentler approach to this issue. I work with women every day who keep breastfeeding going because of their Medela pumps, the only pumps available at my hospital. I guess Ameda is having a good time.

By: Lauredhel

Lauredhel — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:54:01 +0000

To the person whose comment has been moderated:

1. We don’t publish comments from fake email addresses.

2. Using rape metaphors for percentage-point price increases is unacceptable on my threads.

3. If you have a financial interest in any breast pump or breastfeeding related products, please declare it in your post.

By: Lauredhel

Lauredhel — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:44:57 +0000

Jenny… can I just ask you for a little more nuance on the issue of EPing, as apart from the issue of bottle marketing? I’d be happy to help you with your blog research privately, as I support some mums who EP elsewhere. Some do it by choice, some by circumstance, some desperately wish to nurse and can’t; there’s a whole range. Some of your clients are very likely to have issues that they will _not_ tell you about at a pump rental station, issues caused by the spectrum of patriarchal indoctrination and violence and domestic, family, and religious/cultural abuse. (Not all religions, of course.) When I catch a whiff of victim-blaming on that, it makes me twitch.

The one constant I’ve found in the mums who want to nurse and can’t, is that many of them are successful – often very successful! – with real, present, knowledgeable peer-to-peer support. And some even get their babies to breast later, even many months down the track (for example, after cleft surgery, or just with persistence, and so on.) It does run many ragged, especially in the first weeks, but it’s not invariably a death knell to breastmilk production.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 01:19:47 +0000

This all just blows my mind. We sell Medela at work, and I love their products. It’s going to take me a while to process all this.

I am in the US, by the way, and I have never seen a Medela ad on TV here. Just formula ads. But the thing is, a lot of the formula ads say “breastmilk is best, BUT if you can’t, our formula is…” The Medela ad just says “using these bottles and this pump is best for both of you.” It’s like they’re saying “don’t torture yourself, just get a pump!” I did pump, but it was aggravating. I did it to increase supply in the early days (probably would’ve been better to just sit with baby and nurse nonstop for that). Then later I pumped for work. It is not fun, no matter how cheerful the cute little yellow pump looks. It is a better option than formula if you have no choice.

Sorry to ramble, but here is my main concern. I work in a hospital boutique where we rent the pumps. I’ve seen a lot of young moms on government assistance who think they want to breastfeed but they decide to pump exclusively because the baby won’t latch and they don’t take the effort to straighten out the problem or (more commonly, perhaps) they are grossed out by the idea of a baby directly nursing. They ASSUME they will be handed a pump on a silver platter, because that’s the way everything else works: hospital bills paid in full, most of their formula for free, food vouchers, etc. Well, that isn’t the way it works. There are pumps, but they are selectively given to moms of preemies who cannot breastfeed yet or moms who are medically unable to breastfeed. (Even if the mom can get a pump, they make her wait a couple of weeks because for that time the mom should be nursing on demand and shouldn’t have introduced a bottle yet.) They’ve already screwed up by pumping in the hospital and giving the baby nipple confusion, and they have no money to buy a pump. That’s when they switch to formula. I think it’s irresponsible for Medela to encourage pumping this aggressively when they KNOW no one is going to furnish a pump for all these parents!

I mean, I know they think “well, at least we’re advertising breast milk. Pumped milk is better than formula!” But my point is, exclusively pumping almost always translates into formula. If not, it runs mom ragged.

And it goes without saying that pumping cuts out all the benefits that the act of nursing offers. Geez. I feel a blog coming on.

By: Lauredhel

Lauredhel — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:45:53 +0000

Until reading your posts on this topic Lauredhel I had absolutely NO idea that breastfeeding was so political (beyond the ‘breasfeeding in public’ stuff) and I certainly wasn’t aware of the code.

Awww, that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me for a while :) Really. Realising that domestic and family work – ALL kinds of domestic and family work – are political, are larger than what happens inside my doors, has been a huge part of my feminism.

By: Deus Ex Macintosh

Deus Ex Macintosh — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:16:10 +0000

As a non-Mum, I have to admit my own reading of the ad was more along the lines of “well we can’t make any money out of your breastmilk, but our bottles don’t have to ONLY be used for formula…” (I’m not sure there are any people willing to accept the suggestion that an advertiser can know “what’s best for them or their child”).

By: OuyangDan

OuyangDan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:36:12 +0000

It hadn't occurred to me, either, until you pointed it out. The thought of exclusively pumping when I had no other obstacles is crazy! I pumped enough to be able to work, but even that was a struggle to keep up. As it was, I was feeding on one breast while pumping the other. I have no idea where I would have found all the free time to do all of that extra pumping. One of the things I loved about breastfeeding is that I didn't have to be fully awake to feed a crying baby at 3AM. No mixing, heating or anything. There is no way I would have been able to handle pumping at night for comfort. If that is what the adverts are suggesting then I don't find that very reasonable or mother friendly. I know plenty of people who had to pump due to latching issues or work, so I don't blame them one bit, nor would I assume that they were somehow doing it wrong or try to otherwise shame them. I just can't imagine how much work it has to be to exclusively pump. Part of the beauty of breastfeeding is the not having to fuss w/ it. It's literally on demand. OuyangDan's last blog post..Warrior by Marie Brennan

By: Ariane

Ariane — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:26:16 +0000

@Lauredhel: Just goes to show my obliviousness. My youngest is 16 months and I completely missed this. In fact, every time I hear that “Why can’t she just pump?” I think “You haven’t pumped have you?”.

I should also mention that I have never had a problem bf in public. I have done it in all sorts of unlikely places, including work sheds at the RTA (full kudos to the RTA for not even balking at it, and the guy I was mostly working for doesn’t have kids). Given my obliviousness on the first count, it is highly likely I was being heavily frowned upon and didn’t notice on numerous occasions.

I agree that this advertising has an impact, even if it doesn’t on me. Just adds to the need for MUCH more conversation about all aspects of parenting, especially the hard bits. I can’t imagine too many mothers who have pumped full time or part time advocating it as the best option.

By: Rayedish

Rayedish — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 06:04:08 +0000

My son (now a healthy 3 year old) was born on a wed afternoon. We went home Thurs and were back to hospital and into emergency on Fri morning as he had been vomiting copious (for a newborn) amounts of blood. He stopped feeding and they put him on a drip ‘nil by mouth’ for 4 days, during which time my milk came in. Friday we spent in emergency from 7am, and it was 5pm before they finally admitted him, he didn’t feed all day and I was in all kinds of agony with engorged boobs. The nurses were awesome in the children’s ward. They organised an electric pump for me (it had to be delivered from the maternity wards – due to the fact that we’d left the hospital Isaac wasn’t put in NICU we were put in children’s ward together) and bottles and told me to pump as often as I would feed him if I was able and insisted that I keep the milk that I pumped as it was full of colostrum. So when we were discharged I went home with all these bottles of what looked like orange juice. Isaac had little trouble feeding after several days of being on a drip, and I had a nice little stash of milk for occasions when I might need it. Anyhow the point of all this is to say that it felt absolutely awful not being able to breastfeed my newborn and I couldn’t wait until they gave me the all clear to feed him again. For me pumping was a good stop gap measure, and the electric pump was amazing compared to doing it by hand, but I was certainly pleased when it was no longer required. I have a lot of admiration for women that pump for extended periods of time due to work or latching issues.

In hindsight, knowing what I know now (primarily from posts on the topic here) I would have seen about donating some of that milk, but at the time it never occurred to me and certainly nobody mentioned the possibility. I was just pleased then that they’d organised the pump so I wouldn’t lose my supply.

Until reading your posts on this topic Lauredhel I had absolutely NO idea that breastfeeding was so political (beyond the ‘breasfeeding in public’ stuff) and I certainly wasn’t aware of the code.