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Few people are as defenceless before the onslaught of modern marketing as new parents. Sleep-deprived, drowning in dirty laundry, and desperate to do the right thing by a tiny person who depends on them utterly, they are bombarded with all sorts of promised fixes. This Mozart CD will make your baby a genius! That white-noise generator will send her off to sleep (or your money back)! Never mind breast-feeding: have you thought about infant formula instead?
This week’s column looks at that last question. Substitutes for breast milk go back to the 19th century. But these days, formula milk (one estimate puts the market at $87bn globally) comes with
a slick coating of modern science.
This milk is fortified with prebiotics; that one boasts long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids. This one boosts brain development; the one over here claims to fortify the baby’s immune system.
Is it all just flummery? The medical advice on feeding babies is pretty unanimous—breast-feeding is the way to go, if you can. But medical advice is only one part of what is an intensely personal question. As we wrote a few weeks ago, many
women struggle to produce enough milk
to breast-feed. Others may find that a switch to formula is at some point inevitable, perhaps when they go back to work.
As the column notes, the fancier claims for additives that will give your baby superpowers seem, unsurprisingly, to be overblown. But formula milk is perfectly safe and very nutritious. Winston Churchill once opined that there are few better investments than putting milk into babies. The exact sort matters much less than the marketers would have you think.
If you’re a parent, what’s the weirdest marketing claim you have heard about baby products? You can reach us at
wellinformed@economist.com.
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