Video 2. Speaking out: Maureen Minchin successfully advocates for integration of support for the WHO Code into regulatory framework of professional lactation non-profits

About Maureen Minchin

Pioneering breastfeeding advocate Maureen Minchin BHons MA (Melb) TSTC is an Australian medical historian, author, and founding lactation consultant, now in her 80s.

From 1984-1986 Maureen played pivotal roles in the creation of IBLCE (the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners), ILCA (the International Lactation Consultant Association), and ALCA (the Australian Lactation Consultant Association), ensuring those organisations’ support for the 1981 WHO International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes.

From 1989 Maureen was involved in discussions that led to the creation of APMAIF, the Australian Panel on the Marketing of Infant Formula in Australia. After working with the WHO Nutrition Unit on Infant Feeding: the Physiological Basis, from 1991-2 Maureen pioneered the WHO/UNICEF Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, at home and internationally.

Find out more about Maureen's background here.

Video 2 content summary

In Video 2 Maureen discusses how she had a key role in driving integration of support for the WHO Code for the International Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes into the regulatory framework of professional lactation non-profits internationally and in Australia, and yet was herself falsely accused of Code violation as she advocated on behalf of ALCA with the Australian government for a rational and measurable approach to regulation of formula company marketing.

Consumer-led protest through the 1970s led to the formation in 1979 of IBFAN (the International BabyFood Action Network). In 1981 an International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (the WHO Code (1)) was adopted by the World Health Assembly and endorsed by all but 3 of 119 member nations.

Although the USA did not support the Code, Maureen played a key role in integrating support for the Code into the governing regulations of both IBLCE (2) and ILCA (3), and writing it into the Constitution of ALCA, the Australian Lactation Consultants Association, ILCA’s first national affiliate.

A member of the ILCA Professional Advisory Board from its inception, Maureen was an ILCA Board member 1989-1991, and created and served on ILCA’s International Code Committee. This WHO Code was to be implemented nationally, and Australian responses through the 1980s were inadequate. A 1989 submission from ALCA urged action. In 1990 Maureen helped create a coalition of diverse groups, the Australian Coalition for Optimal Infant Feeding, (ACOIF) pressing government to act; Nestle Australia (whose CEO at the time was a father of a breastfed child) also asked the federal government. Discussions led to a June 1991 meeting which brought together government, ACOIF members and consumer groups, along with senior staff from each infant formula company marketing in Australia, under the auspices of bureaucrats who had been charged to implement the Code in conformity with Australian law.

Maureen had supported the 1977-1984 Nestle Boycott, but could not support the unexpected 1987 revival of that boycott - declared without consultation by a United States group, coincidentally perhaps, just as Nestlé (Switzerland) was challenging US companies’ obscene profits by entering the US market. She proposed instead to IBFAN a 12 month investigation of formula company marketing activities by country or regions, with a boycott of the worst offenders in each market to be announced after evaluation of findings. This upset some key players within IBFAN, financially dependent on anti-Nestle boycott sales, and led to vicious slander globally.

A small local pro-boycott group with IBFAN links gained support from some ALCA members, and this contributed to a split within the Association, the formation of state-based groups, and the weakening of national advocacy.

(1) World Health Organisation

(2) International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners

(3) International Lactation Consultants Association

Other videos in this series

Video 1. Speaking out: Maureen Minchin helps pioneer the professionalisation of breastfeeding and lactation support internationally. Maureen discusses her role in the development of the ground-breaking initiatives in the 1980s which have professionalised breastfeeding and lactation support world-wide.

Video 3. Speaking out: Maureen Minchin discusses how the Australian Lactation Consultants Association splintered in mid-1990s over false innuendo against her about WHO Code violation. This had a many-years-long impact on the capacity for professional lactation non-profits to advocate with government on behalf of breastfeeding families, including inability to advocate for containment of formula company marketing practices.

Video 4. Speaking out: Maureen Minchin is in discussion with Dr Pamela Douglas, exploring how exclusion of researchers is widespread due to claims of WHO Code violation, without transparency or scientific rationale. The exclusion of researchers and clinican-researchers has increasingly and seriously biased lactation medicine education towards non-evidence-based interventions.

Breastfeeding Matters. CH10 History and Politics of Infant Feeding. Maureen Minchin.pdf

Maureen's books

Maureen is the author of

• Revolutions and rosewater: a history of the Victorian Nursing Council 1923-1973. 1978

• Food for thought: a parent’s guide to food intolerance. 1982 (first ed) 1982 (first ed) 1986, 1992 editions; UK and Japanese editions

• Breastfeeding matters: what we need to know about infant feeding. 1985, 1989, 1998 editions

• Milk matters: infant feeding and immune disorder. 2015