Free stuff for baby, is free for a reason

I’m on a few forums for mums and mums to be, and see a lot of excited posts about signing up with various companies to get free “stuff”. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Babies are supposedly expensive (though I’ve managed to spend less than $500 dollars on her, and most of that was by choice) so getting all of these items for free should be a great thing. In my opinion it’s not. How often is it that well established companies give away their products for free? And when they do, for what reason are they doing it? Once you answer these questions, I think it’s easy to see where I’m going with this. It is free because it is inferior to what you can already offer- breast milk.
I didn’t sign up for anything and yet somehow these forumula companies still got my address and sent me a ton of product, which I promptly gave away. And I’m glad I did because breatfeeding can be rocky going at the start. If I’d had formula sitting there ready to go, I might have decided the physical effort did not out-weigh the monetary sacrifice of using formula. Many, many women in North America have issues, especially getting started because we’re not very exposed to breastfeeding, and this is what the companies prey upon.
I’m not saying formula is the devil and your baby won’t thrive if he needs to be fed with it; however, anyone who argues that it is as good as breast milk is either blatantly lying to themselves or they’re swallowing the formula company propaganda. You simply cannot replicate the complexities of naturally occurring milk. Especially as each woman’s supply differs from the next, and that milk also changes over time.
We’ve all heard that nothing in life is free, and the same goes for these goodies that show up in our mail touting their heal fulness for baby. Corporations are inherently greedy, not giving. You don’t have to throw the lot out, I’m just saying you should questions such generosity from a profit driven organization.
Oh, and if you can breastfeed~ do! try! any amount of time you do it is Amazing! help is out there if you need it~ seek it!