Within days of a disaster, formula will arrive. Some of it will come from neighbours and church drives. Some of it will come from companies, in quantity, with branding, and sometimes with an offer to send staff along to help hand it out. That second kind is where a response gets into trouble, and the International Code is the framework that tells you why and what to do instead.
This page is written for people running a response, not for policy specialists. If you want the full text, the WHO publishes it; what follows is what actually comes up in the field.
What the Code is, briefly
The International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 1981 to protect infant feeding from commercial pressure. Its aim is safe and adequate nutrition for infants — protecting breastfeeding, and ensuring that breast-milk substitutes, when they are needed, are used properly and on the basis of accurate information rather than marketing.
It covers infant formula, feeding bottles, teats and nipples, follow-on formulas and toddler milks, and foods or beverages marketed for babies under six months.
An important honesty note: the Code is a set of recommendations to governments, not United States law. Some countries have enacted it; the U.S. largely has not. That means Code compliance in an American response is something your team chooses and holds itself to, not something a regulator will enforce for you. It is worth writing your position down early, because you will be asked.
What it means for your response
Emergencies are, from a marketing standpoint, a distribution opportunity. Disasters have historically drawn donations of breast-milk substitutes that arrive untargeted, unsolicited, and branded. The practical rules for a responding team are narrow and workable.
| In your response | Where the Code lands |
|---|---|
| Accepting free or low-cost formula directly from a manufacturer or distributor | No. This is the clearest line in the Code, and it is the one companies will approach you about first. Sourcing formula yourself, or through a health department or food bank, keeps you clean. |
| Putting company-branded materials, leaflets or logos in your kits, at your table, or on your site | No. Your kit inserts and handouts should carry your organization’s name and nobody else’s. |
| Letting a manufacturer’s staff work your site or run an education session | No. Even where the offer is sincere and the staff are helpful, it makes your site a marketing channel. |
| Taking sponsorship or funding from a covered company | No, and this one is easy to trip over when a local distributor offers to underwrite a training. Decide your policy before the offer arrives. |
| Giving formula to a family that needs formula | Yes — always. See below. This is the part people get wrong. |
What the Code does not say
The Code is not a reason to withhold formula from a family who is using it. It says nothing against a parent choosing formula, and it does not ask you to make anyone feel judged for the way they are feeding. A family in a shelter with a formula-fed baby needs formula, safe water, clean equipment and somewhere to prepare it — and a responder who quotes the Code at them instead has failed that baby.
The distinction that matters in an emergency is between untargeted distribution — pallets handed to anyone, driving families who were breastfeeding toward formula they cannot safely prepare — and targeted provision, where a family who needs formula gets a reliable, adequate supply along with what it takes to use it safely. The first causes harm. The second is care.
That distinction is the whole of the harm-reduction position we work from. It is set out in full in Clarifying SAFE’s Position on Donations in Emergencies.
Using this at a distribution site
- Ask where the formula came from as part of your normal site conversation. If it arrived direct from a manufacturer, that is worth knowing before you help organise it.
- Do not make it a confrontation. Site staff did not invite the pallet and are not the problem. The site scripts are written to keep these conversations collaborative.
- Separate branding from supply. You can help a site store and dispense donated formula safely while still declining to distribute the promotional material that came with it.
- Write your own position down before you need it, and put it somewhere your volunteers can find it. “We do not accept product or funding from formula companies” is one sentence, and it settles a dozen future arguments.
Read the source: the World Health Organization publishes the full text of the Code, the subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions, and current guidance on restricting digital marketing of breast-milk substitutes at who.int.
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