by Mary Jessica Hammes
March 09, 2009

There’s a new lactation toolkit on the scene designed to help low-income working mothers pump breast milk at work—and it’s caused a bit of a fuss, mostly because one of the kit’s sponsors is a company that manufactures infant formula.

This isn’t the first time a formula manufacturer has sponsored a lactation toolkit. In 2003, Ross Products Division Abbott Laboratories caused a similar flap when it produced “Business Backs Breastfeeding.”

The accuracy of the information contained within Corporate Voices for Working Families’ new program, “Workplace Lactation Programs: Good for Working Families. Good for Business,” has uniformly been accepted as sound—that’s not the problem. Rather, critics are focusing on more subtle nuances.

One complaint is that the graphic design focuses more on potential breastfeeding problems than benefits. Indeed, there are two small breakout boxes that say, “Breastfeeding is good for working families: It’s a natural choice with many advantages for both you and your baby” and “Remember: Talk confidently with others about your decision to breastfeed.” Meanwhile, there is a much larger box called, “Troubleshooting for Working Mothers” that actually spans two pages. Another complaint is that the reading level of the brochure is higher than is normally expected in public health literature, and presumably higher than that of some women in low-wage jobs.

But what is the overwhelming cause for suspicion among critics is the fact that Corporate Voices for Working Families (CVWF)—a non-profit business membership organization that focuses on public policy issues involving working families, including workforce readiness, mature workers and workplace flexibility—partnered with Working Mother Media and Abbott Nutrition (formerly Abbott Laboratories) to produce the toolkit. Abbott produces Pedialyte, Ensure and ZonePerfect bars, but it also makes Similac brand infant formula.

“Because infant formula directly competes with breastfeeding for market share in infant nutrition, any successful breastfeeding program would cut into Abbott’s sales and profits,” wrote Dr. Melissa Bartick, an internal medicine physician in Massachusetts, in a recent article on The Huffington Post. “The only way to sell more formula is to sell less breastfeeding. With a formula logo on the bottom of every page of materials, Abbott’s motives here are unlikely to be pure.”

It’s true that Abbott Nutrition’s logo is on every page, as are the logos of CVWA and Working Mother Media. The toolkit offers links to websites for International Board Certified Lactation Consultants, La Leche League, the National Women’s Health Information Center and various companies that make breast pumps and feeding bottles, but it also includes the URL for Abbott Nutrition’s breastfeeding page (which includes information about formula).

Something else to keep in mind: it’s safe to say that most people would clearly link the name and logo of Similac to formula, but Abbott doesn’t carry quite the same recognition. Some critics have used as ammunition the fact that studies show formula-sponsored marketing undermines breastfeeding efforts. It’s true—a 2006 U.S. Government Accountability Office study showed that “some formula marketing strategies may discourage breastfeeding,” but their research focused on pregnant women and new mothers receiving free formula samples, and some formula companies using the WIC logo to market their product. This toolkit does not technically fall into those categories, but many consider all formula marketing strategies suspect as a result.

“The notion that this is intended to decrease breastfeeding rates—it’s hard for me to take it seriously,” says John Wilcox, vice president of operations for CVWF, in a recent phone interview. “The notion that this is somehow a nefarious plot to increase formula sales—I don’t quite get that…It never crossed my mind from the get-go that this would link Abbott so strongly to formula that we’d have to put a disclaimer on it.”

If it wasn’t a nefarious plot—and considering that there are already similar toolkits available, including last year’s “The Business Case for Breastfeeding,” produced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration—why did the CVWF feel the need to produce this program? And why would Abbott be compelled to sponsor it?

“What there wasn’t out there is anything that’s targeted to low-wage employees,” answered Wilcox. He related how his own wife had the luxury of pumping breast milk behind closed doors in her private office, and that he knew that that simply isn’t an option for many working mothers. This toolkit, he says, is meant not just to be a pumping primer for new moms who get paid by the hour, but a persuasive argument to their employers to encourage pumping, and provide the resources and space needed to allow moms to do so.

As for Abbott’s sponsorship, “Certainly, Abbott’s business is to sell formula products, but I think they’ve taken the approach that there are plenty of people out there who for whatever reason can’t breastfeed and will use their products, and they’ll make up their market,” said Wilcox.

Wilcox hinted that Abbott’s participation is purely altruistic. By sponsoring a breastfeeding promotion toolkit, perhaps “they’re doing a little good,” he said.

The toolkit’s strength might be its ability to reach employers with its business-like presentation (similar to that of HRSA’s toolkit). It’s both practical and pragmatic—there are no images of babies actually breastfeeding contained within it (which could be seen as lamentable to critics although HRSA’s kit contains no breastfeeding images either), and there is language advising readers to remember that some co-workers “may not want to talk too much about breastfeeding.”

This is not a product that will blaze new trails for lactation activists. But perhaps it doesn’t need to in order to be effective, says Wilcox.

“There’s room for aggressive advocacy around lactation, and then the approach we’re doing,” he says. “They’re not mutually exclusive, and we all have the same end goal.”

Therein lies the rub. Critics maintain that formula promotion and breastfeeding promotion are mutually exclusive; that one is done at the expense of the other; that any attempt by Abbott or other formula manufacturers to promote breastfeeding rings hollow. As Wilcox said, “Abbott’s business is to sell formula products.”

So far, says Wilcox, the toolkit has made headway in achieving its goal. In addition to some anecdotal evidence that it’s making waves, TJX, which runs TJ Maxx, Marshalls and other stores, is setting up a trial-run lactation facility at its headquarter offices in Framingham, Mass.

“We’ve gotten a wonderful response from the business community,” says Wilcox.