Baby Feeding Law Group-UK achievements in 2019
First Steps Nutrition Trust took on the secretariat role for the Baby Feeding Law Group UK from Baby Milk Action late in 2018 and started work in earnest in 2019. Our main achievements in 2019 have included the following:
Consolidating and growing our membership and clarifying our objectives:
We formalised group membership by creating terms of reference and asking members to sign up. A key requirement is adhering to or working towards adhering to the WHO Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.
We also grew our membership, from 23 members in February to 28 by December.
We convened four members meetings.
We also went to Dublin to meet with several members of the leadership group of our partner, BFLG-Ireland, enabling us to learn about our respective contexts and to share ideas about how to work together for mutual benefit in respect of our shared objectives.
Raising our public profile:
We designed a new logo and launched this new website. Its key purpose is to share information about the group, the Code and UK laws and our activities towards our objectives.
We also created a twitter account which has 326 followers and counting, including group members, health care professionals, NGOs, academics, peer supporters, mothers, civil servants, journalists and politicians. Please do sign up!
We designed and printed postcards as handouts to raise aware of the group and signpost to website and twitter.
Work towards our objectives:
We had two meetings with the nutrition regulators at the DHSC, in June and October. These were a useful means of sharing our concerns and raising specific issues, as well as enabling us to better appreciate their understanding and knowledge related to our asks. A key achievement was highlighting and successfully challenging Nestlé’s use of the term ‘human milk oligosaccharide’/’HMO’ in its marketing, drawing on this evidence review by First Steps Nutrition Trust: click here.
We attended several meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infant Feeding and Inequalities , presenting on the BFLG at May 21st.
We launched a report calling for the removal of comfort milks, lactose-free infant milks and anti-reflux infant milks from shop, supermarket and pharmacy shelves, sending it to a large number of MPs. It generated some interest, including raising a question in parliament , the response to which suggested a meeting was in the pipeline. Unfortunately, because of wider political issues and a Brexit-dominated agenda we have been unable to take this ask further as we would have hoped, and the report will need updating if/when the regulations change (see below).
We wrote letters and emails to various individuals and in response to published articles, to highlight issues around the Code and Code compliance.
We submitted five responses to relevant government consultations, highlighting the importance of protecting breastfeeding and the role of the Code.
We publicised the group at a presentation at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on the theme of advertising of infant milks to health professionals and alternative means of information provision.
Dr Chris Van Tulleken, Natalie Hickman, Dr Vicky Sibson
Ahead of the general election we signed up to a joint statement developed under the leadership of group member, the Breastfeeding Network, created to call on the new government to invest in the health of women and children by supporting and protecting breastfeeding.
Through 2019 we took an iterative approach to better understand the extent to which compliance with relevant laws are monitored and enforced by:
Making enquiries with the Local Authority Enforcement Monitoring System,
Making several formal complaints to trading standards, and
Filing a number of freedom of information requests to the home authorities of the five largest supermarkets for data on numbers and natures of reported violations and enforcement actions.
The responses serve to highlight the lack of monitoring and suggest a lack of reporting of what we think are commonplace violations. They also indicate poor enforcement in relation to the DHSC’s interpretation of the law as outlined in their Guidance Notes.
What next in 2020?
We eagerly await forthcoming changes to the UK regulations which cover the marketing of infant and follow on formulas and also infant ‘foods for special medical purposes’. These are due at the end of February, and if they do become mandatory they will be an improvement in various areas, as outlined by First Steps Nutrition Trust here although still far from close to the Code.
The APPG-IFI has just re-convened and we look forward to the first meeting, date to be announced soon.
Watch this space for new and updated guidance as the year unfolds.