New York, NY – The New York City health department began a campaign to encourage hospitals to stop handing out that free formula, as a way, officials said, of encouraging more mothers to breast-feed.
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Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner, said that 23 of the 40 hospitals in New York City that deliver babies had signed up for the campaign so far.
They will not hand out formula to new mothers as they are discharged unless the mothers ask for it or a doctor orders it.
Dr. Farley said that 90 percent of New York City mothers start off breast-feeding, but that by the time their babies are 2 months old, only 31 percent are still doing so exclusively. The gift packs of formula undermine breast-feeding, he said.
“It’s something which we feel that we can change, and we think that mothers want to breast-feed,” Dr. Farley said.
Dr. Howard Minkoff, the chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, which delivers about 8,000 babies a year, said his hospital was participating despite a possible financial cost. The hospital gets free baby bottles from the formula companies, saving it hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. It will still need bottles for mothers who opt not to breast-feed. “It is an act of will to decide the public health and well-being of the next generation is more important than that money,” he said.
According to the Ramchal, and current medical research, children should be weaned not before their third birthday. Exclusive breastfeeding should be continued throughout the first 12 months, due to the irreversible closure of intestinal protein gaps by the introduction of any non maternal proteins. Food allergies can almost always be prevented by this course of feeding, and it has been shown to have a measurable effect on IQ.
and so the war on our independence marches on…..
Nanny State!
While I agree with breast feeding as the best approach. Not everyone can do it. Breast feeding does have a lot of benefits, but we also have to make sure we take the well-being of the mother and baby into mind. As the article does mention, unless the dr orders the formula for the baby.
@Fact1: so the fact that DOH wants to curb the use of formula makes it a “nanny state.”
The fact that formula makers spend millions on marketing and providing free samples to hospitals and new mothers makes us what? Corporate tools?
It is not as simple as “nanny state.” In an open society in which marketing products plays such a large role, there are limited “checks-and-balances” to restrain companies. The only “competitor” to baby formula is mothers but mothers don’t “market” themselves. There are large and measurable benefits to mother’s milk but once the baby is on formula, the companies have a relative “lock” for on that market. Now, this is not to say that formula is bad: only that other forces are necessary to prevent it’s over use.
And if you simply can’t breastfeed? I struggle with mine.
This is absolutely moronic. I’m not sure how this makes any sense using their own logic!
“Dr. Farley said that 90 percent of New York City mothers start off breast-feeding, but that by the time their babies are 2 months old, only 31 percent are still doing so exclusively. The gift packs of formula undermine breast-feeding, he said.”
So the babies are getting discharged at 2 months old?!?! the reason that 2 months old number exists is because something else happens at that 2 month mark, give or take, maternity leave is over. This Doctor is in imbecile, and should frankly have his license revoked, becuase he does not clearly know how to relate cause and effect, something a diagnostician should know how to do.
The fewer welfare mothers using formula, the less tax money we have to shell out.
sorry, the hospital only gives a few bottles worth of formula. nobody is deciding against breastfeeding only because of those bottles. I’m pretty sure the numbers will not change much after they stop giving the formula. These silly people have nothing else to do with their lives then worry about how other people chose to live their lives in an area that is none of their business!