Study involving ANU deplores failure to breast-feed by Australian mothers

The researchers blame the commercial companies which make and market the powder alternative to mother's milk.

In Australia, the health experts say, only about a third of infants are breastfed.

Doctors recommend breastfeeding as "the normal and most beneficial way for feeding".

Mother's milk "provides all your baby's essential needs for growth, development and protection from illness and disease," according to a report published by NSW Health.

But despite the expert recommendation, the researchers say companies are putting out misleading information about baby formula which is usually made from cow's milk and other ingredients.

They say the companies are "exploiting parents' emotions and manipulating scientific information and policymakers to generate sales at the expense of the health and rights of families, women, and children".

"Milk formula companies are using an arsenal of sophisticated tactics to sell their products, including taking advantage of parents' worries about their child's health and development," Julie Smith from the ANU College of Health and Medicine said.

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Dr Smith, who advises the World Health Organisation, said the industry used misleading information to sell its products to mothers.

The researchers believe companies' claims that their products have health benefits for babies aren't supported by science.

Dr Smith said adverts inaccurately imply specialised formulas alleviate fussiness, help with colic, prolong night-time sleep and even encourage superior intelligence.

"These marketing techniques violate the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes, which says labels should not idealise the use of milk formula and exploits poor science to create an untrue story to sell more products."

The study was an international collaboration which included the ANU. The results are published in the Lancet medical journal.

The authors call for the urgent adoption of an international legal treaty to better regulate formula marketing ploys and protect the health and wellbeing of mothers and their infants.

One of the authors, Phil Baker from Deakin University, said Australia was one of only a few countries which hadn't implemented the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes into national law.

"Instead, we have a voluntary code of conduct, so-called 'self-regulation', that is supposed to stop this marketing. But it clearly doesn't," Dr Baker said.

"We also reveal how the Australian and New Zealand governments lobbied against other governments to weaken their efforts to regulate formula marketing. This goes completely against their supposed commitments to supporting women to breastfeed.

"What's also clear is that the milk formula industry has consistently, and at times aggressively, lobbied against the regulation of formula marketing in many countries."