New Charity, First Steps Nutrition Trust Page 1
Hot Milk-May 2012
In this edition;
New infant sleep site launches page 1
New charity, First Steps Nutrition Trust page 1
Feeding Infant Formula when away from home page 2
Baby Milk company news page 3
Nestle buys SMA page 3
SMA Lactose Free Infant Milk page 3
Conflicts of Interest? page 3
Baby Milk Company targets mothers with weaning sessions page 3
Advertising campaign attracts complaints page 3
New infant sleep site launches
Durham University Parent-Infant Sleep Lab, with support from La Leche League, NCT, and UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative, has launched a new website – Infant Sleep Information Source, or ISIS.
The website has been designed to provide parents and health professionals with clear, evidence-based information on ‘normal’ sleep. It is hoped that this will help parents who want to make informed choices about how their baby sleeps, and health professionals whose role is to support parents.
New charity, First Steps Nutrition Trust,
This new charity provides evidence based information and resources about the importance of good nutrition from pre-conception to 5 years. The Trust Director is Dr Helen Crawley, the author of the excellent “Infant Milks in the UK”. The report is aimed at health professionals and provides information on the composition of infant milks available for sale in the UK and summarises some of the key issues related to the artificial feeding of infants. This has now been updated and they are hoping to regularly update it on their website. The latest document is here;
Feeding Infant Formula when away from home.
There are good reasons for making up powdered infant formula one bottle at a time to reduce the risk of infection for the baby. This is explained well in the Department of Health (DH) Leaflet “Guide to Bottle feeding”. Unfortunately this leaflet is no longer available to order, but can be freely downloaded. It is under review at the moment by the DH
What is less well known are the options explained if feeding the baby away from home, these are featured on pages 19 and 20 of the leaflet, and is replicated here;
Feeding away from home
If you need to feed your baby away from home, take with you:
• a measured amount of infant formula in a small clean and dry container;
• a vacuum flask of hot water that has just been boiled; and
• an empty sterilised feeding bottle with cap and retaining ring in place which can be removed when you are ready to make up the feed.
Make up a fresh feed only when your baby needs it. The water must still be hot when you use it, otherwise any bacteria in the infant formula may not be destroyed.
Remember to cool the feed before giving it to your baby by holding the bottom half of the bottle under cold running water. Make sure that the water does not touch the cap covering the teat.
The vacuum flask does not need to be sterilised but should be clean and only used for your baby. The boiling water should kill any bacteria present in the flask. If the flask is full and sealed, the water will stay above 70oC for several hours.
KEY FACTS:
If you need to feed your baby away from home, take:
• a measured amount of powdered formula in a clean dry container;
• a vacuum flask of hot water that has just been boiled; and
• an empty sterilised feeding bottle with cap and retaining ring in place.
Make the feed up only when it is needed.
Alternatively, you could use ready-to-feed liquid infant formula when you are away from home.
Transporting a feed
If it is not possible to follow the advice above or if you need to transport a feed – for example to a nursery or childminder – you should prepare the feed at home and cool it, for at least one hour, in the back of the fridge.
Take it out of the fridge just before you leave and carry it in a cool bag with an ice pack – and use it within four hours.
If you do not have an ice pack, or access to a fridge, the made-up infant formula must be used within two hours.
KEY FACTS:
• If made up formula is stored in a fridge: use within 24 hours.
• If made up formula is stored in a cool bag with an ice pack: use within 4 hours.
• If made up formula is stored at room temperature: use within 2 hours.�
Baby Milk company news
Nestle buys SMA The company owning SMA baby milks was bought from Pfizer for £11.85 billion. We will watch with interest.
SMA Lactose Free Infant Milk
We have reported two incidents of children having a reaction after being fed SMA LF. The children developed swollen faces, rashes. They had been on SMA LF without reactions before.
SMA informs us that they changed the formulation 2 weeks ago. The old tins had a white lid, the new ones are turquoise (although confusingly the turquoise tin lids have been on the website for months as we said they were that colour in our January Hot Milk update). There have been other adverse incidences reported.
The change is the addition of omega oils, which they have in the rest of the SMA range. The source is marine plants. We are aware that babies in the US have had adverse reactions to these changes in fat formulations (for which there is no evidence of benefit), but it is increasingly difficult to find milks without them.
Conflicts of Interest?
Cow & Gate are firming up their relationship with CPHVA (Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association), by producing a branded supplement entitled "Feeding for Life Magazine" for the May Edition for the Community Practitioner Journal. As we are striving for objective information for parents this undermines those efforts. If you are a member of CPHVA or Unite, please do let the editor of the Community Practitioner Journal know you have concerns about this. Also RCM have recently announced that they have “joined forces in a partnership” with Philips Avent. There is great concern over sponsorship with a company who manufactures teats and bottles.
Baby Milk Company targets mothers with weaning sessions
IFIT wants to alert health visitors to this practice; Cow & Gate have launched a new activity. designed to promote their weaning foods, run by employees known as “Ambassador Mums”. Mothers with babies between 17 weeks and 7months are recruited and weaning sessions take place either in mothers’ homes or in community settings. Clearly this is a promotional exercise and contravenes the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. At the moment it is being trialled in other parts of the UK and we hope it does not spread to Lancashire.
Advertising campaign attracts complaints
You have probably noticed the recent SMA advertising campaign that includes full page advertisements on the back of newspapers and on billboards around the country. After consulting the Infant Formula and Follow-on Formula (England) Regulations 2007 UNICEF has submitted a complaint to both Trading Standards and the Advertising Standards Authority, as they believe these adverts to be in breach of the regulations. If you want to know more or want to complain too contact us at
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Report from the Infant Feeding Information Team, Blackpool and North Lancashire: May 2012
For further information contact