British Journal of Midwifery joins forces with Cow and Gate

By Lisa Lactivist, on December 24th, 2011

Cow and Gate violate code of infant formula marketing The British Journal of Midwifery (BJM) is supporting the Innovating for Life Awards, in conjunction with Cow & Gate and Infant journal. You can read about how Cow & Gate break the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes here – http://www.babymilkaction.org/CEM/cemdec05.html

The awards, were launched in September 2011 to recognize and celebrate innovative approaches to improvements in infant and maternal care in the midwifery and neonatal professions.

Alice Hall the editor of the journal has written:- “I’m happy to announce that the deadline for entries has been extended to Friday, 20 January 2012, to give you time for any last-minute entries over the Christmas break! We’d like to urge all of you to share your experiences or ideas for innovations in practice that could make a significant difference to maternal or infant care. The winners of the maternity care and neonatal care categories will be presented with £10,000 each to support their innovation. With an extended deadline, why not throw your hat into the ring?”

Thank you to Carol for this conflict of interest statement from IBFAN:

“Because health care workers and health professionals play an essential role in guiding infant and young child feeding practices; Because encouraging and facilitating breastfeeding and optimal infant and young child feeding practices and providing objective and consistent advice to parents about the superior value of breastfeeding is a major contribution to better public health and more particularly to improving child survival, health and development; Because most manufacturers of baby milks and foods, feeding bottles and teats have been using the health care system as promotional channels”

http://www.ibfan.org/art/389-1.pdf

www.ibfan.org

Lorna has set up a facebook group – British Journal of Midwifery- You can’t be Serious!

she says

“THIS IS NOT OK and I don’t think that I need to spell out why to you.

I have written the letter to Alice at alice.hall@markallengroup.com

It would be great if we could get midwives and other health professionals such as health visitors and neonatal nurses to respond.

Dear Alice

I was shocked on receiving your email inviting me to apply for funding for the Innovating for Life awards to discover that this is a collaborative venture with an infant formula company. In light of all the current evidence that we have around the benefits of breastfeeding and the hazards of artificially feeding a baby with infant formula, this would seem to be a singularly inappropriate relationship. There is additionally a conflict of interest, how could a midwife promote breastfeeding when she is being funded by an artificial baby milk producer? This is endorsement by association and no self respecting midwifery journal should play any part in this ‘bedsharing’ exercise. I would be interested to know what your editorial board think of this association.

I would ask that you seriously reconsider this relationship which is ethically dubious and philosophically at odds with everything that midwifery represents in relation to infant feeding

Yours Sincerely