As the father of a nine-month-old baby, I know how emotionally charged and difficult it is to navigate infant feeding.
My son Cillian made a dramatic entrance into this world earlier this year – arriving early, after a week of worry, upset and a seemingly infinite number of medical interventions. After a rocky start, thankfully, he and my wife were both fine but our birth plan, and our feeding plan, were both thrown out with the bath water.
Attending parent and baby groups at Blackpool’s brilliant Family Hubs, I met women who were successfully breastfeeding, others who had chosen not to, and many who, like my wife, had intended to but at some point had found themselves reaching for formula – convinced it contained the answers to their problems.
Often it doesn’t, and it comes with a whole set of complications of its own. Earlier this month I was fortunate to hold my first adjournment debate in Parliament on the important topic of infant formula and the regulations that govern its sale.
One in four mothers struggle to afford formula milk. Over the past two years, the cheapest brand of formula has risen by 45% with an average price hike of 25%. These increases are putting immense pressure on families in Blackpool, where child poverty has increased by 30% in the last year and 12,500 children are going without enough food each day.
The average tub now costs a staggering £14.50 and many parents are resorting to extreme and unsafe measures to feed their babies.
A black market has sprung up for infant milk and it is one of the most commonly shoplifted items. We are seeing a worrying trend in ‘formula foraging’, with parents seeking out cheap or free milk online and risking feeding their babies a product that could be out of date or already opened and potentially laden with bacteria.
The inability to afford formula can lead to unsafe feeding practices like skipping feeds, ignoring expiry dates, over-diluting it, or bulking it out using foods like porridge – all of which can harm an infant’s health.
Meanwhile there’s a worrying rise in childhood malnutrition. Up to 47% of hospitalised children are at risk of under-nourishment and, last year, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals’ admissions for malnutrition almost doubled. Gastroenteritis has become an alarmingly common illness in infants and in Blackpool, hospital admissions for under ones with gastro-intestinal problems are almost triple the national average.
Parents should not be forced into making these dangerous choices when they are simply trying to feed their babies.
The regulations around the advertising and labelling of infant formula are rightly designed to protect parents and encourage breastfeeding. But in the UK they only cover formula intended for babies under six months old – a loophole that permits the widespread legal advertising of ‘follow-on’ milk – an unnecessary product that does little other than promote higher sales of a brand’s infant formula.
I have urged the government to consider strengthening UK regulations to close this loophole while also ensuring that strong regulation doesn’t hinder affordable access to infant milk.
Parents are worse off because current regulation means that food bank vouchers, loyalty points and store gift cards cannot be used to buy it and most food banks don’t stock it, in line with guidance from UNICEF.
There needs to be a sustainable solution to permanently lower the price of formula.
The UK market is highly concentrated, with just three manufacturers accounting for over 90% of supply and combined annual profits of £15 billion. These monopolistic multinational conglomerates must be held accountable.
Retailers must do their bit to protect families too. In the coming weeks I will meet with three major supermarkets to encourage them to cap prices and follow the lead of Aldi and Lidl in developing a reasonably priced own-brand formula.
The cost to parents of buying the most expensive brand can add up to £1,000 a year – more than twice as much as using own-brand infant formula.
When I dashed to the supermarket to buy our first tub, it was with the cries of my distressed baby and wife ringing in my ears, not the important public health message that all infant formula meets a baby’s nutritional needs. I wrongly assumed that the most familiar and expensive brand was the best. That all brands are nutritionally equivalent must be more effectively communicated.
I asked the government to also consider the CMA’s recommendation to procure infant formula itself – providing it to parents at a lower price point while putting downward pressure on other manufacturers’ prices. I also asked it to ensure those who are entitled to Healthy Start vouchers – which can be used to buy infant formula – access them, while simultaneously increasing their value from £8.50, which doesn’t cover the cost of most brands.
Raising a child is one of the most challenging and demanding things we can do in our adult lives. This government’s policies must lighten the load of parents to ensure that it can also be one of the most rewarding.
We must ensure that every child in this country can have a healthy start in life. We cannot continue to allow children in constituencies like mine to be failed before they have even taken their first steps.
