Whoopi Goldberg and friends on The View just threw a Molotov
cocktail of ignorance into the middle of the Mommy Wars. This time it?s
about whether hospitals have the right to market formula to new moms
with free samples. The women of The View give a unanimous, ?Yes.? But
the proposed ban on marketing is not about women being bullied into
breastfeeding. It?s about standing up for our freedom to make our own
feeding choices, freedom from commercial influences in the one place
where they certainly don?t belong?the hospital.
Let?s be clear. Formula companies distribute free samples in hospitals for one reason: to sell more formula. Specifically, to sell more high-priced brand-name formula. Abundant market research shows that women stick to the brand of formula they got in the hospital.
Knowing that babies often don?t tolerate formula well, moms wisely
stick to a brand that?s worked for them. That?s why the makers of those
pricey brands compete, often viciously, to be the brand a hospital uses.
These brands will cost a family at least $700 more per year than store-brand formula, which may be every bit as good, since the government regulates what ingredients must be included.
Those free samples to moms come with a hitch. They are not just
?free? to the moms. Formula companies want your business so badly that
they will vie for the privilege of supplying most of the hospital?s
formula for free. Yep, you heard that right. Unlike any other product,
the formula company representatives bypass all hospital purchasing
policies and quality control, and wheel their cache right up to the
maternity ward, in the hopes that nurses will dole it out like confetti.
It?s a brilliant strategy. It helps make the United States the biggest single consumer of infant formula
in a $10 billion a year global market. Hospital staff love to be
helpful. They went into health care to help people. The formula
companies are well aware of this instinct for well-meaning nurses to
rain freebies down on moms.
Think you?ll get more sleep if that helpful nurse takes your baby to
the nursery? That?s another myth the formula companies prey on. One
nurse may be looking after 5 or six babies. It?s no wonder research
shows that babies do better next to their moms, and moms get just as
much sleep whether their babies are with them or not.
For moms who chose to breastfeed, the abundant supply of free formula is even more problematic than it is for moms who choose formula. Research shows that one of the biggest predictors of breastfeeding failure
is giving babies formula in the early days when there is no medical
reason for it. (For more information on these issues, check out these
sites: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18563999, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5723a1.htm)
This interferes greatly with the mom?s ability to establish an early
and abundant milk supply, and interferes with the well-choreographed
dance between baby?s hunger and mom?s body. As many moms will tell you,
one bottle then leads to another, and pretty soon mom?s milk supply
dwindles to nothing.
When that happens, moms have to buy formula for the rest of their
baby?s first year, just as surely as the diabetic has to buy insulin.
Formula companies sell a product with only one market, babies, and there
are only so many babies born every year. So the only way to sell more
formula is to sell less breastfeeding. It?s as simple as that.
Those free bottles of formula come in handy at home, when a mom is at
her wits? end in the middle of the night. And that?s the whole point of
them. If breastfeeding doesn?t get off to a good start in the
hospital, we know that it?s much more likely that a mom will go home and
struggle. A bottle of premixed, ready to use formula is awfully
tempting, even for those of superhuman willpower. Then that mother-baby
dance is interrupted, and for most babies, breastfeeding is likely to go
from bad to worse.
Contrary to popular belief, breastfeeding doesn?t tend to go badly
because of maternal factors. It tends to go badly because of hospital
factors. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducts a
biannual survey of how well hospitals conform to evidence-based
maternity practices around infant nutrition and care, the mPINC survey. Out of 100 possible points, the average US hospital scored just 65, a solid D.
Even average hospital the top scoring states were only in the low
80s.These evidence-based practices, the Ten Steps to Successful
Breastfeeding, make a huge difference to long-term breastfeeding rates.
What happens in the hospital is crucial for breastfeeding success.
When there?s abundant free formula around, it?s a lot harder for
hospitals to change their long-established routines and implement the
WHO?s Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding, the protocol upon which the
mPINC survey is based. So, why are hospitals marketing baby formula
instead of implementing the Ten Steps? That?s the question we should all
be asking.
We would find it absurd if hospitals? cardiac units gave out coupons
for Big Macs. Commercial marketing doesn?t belong in hospitals. No
matter how you feed your babies.
For more information, go to www.banthebags.org
* * * * *
Melissa
Bartick, MD is an internal medicine physician in Massachusetts, as well
as a mother. She also chairs the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition.
tokenhoser
member
Re: Article: The Real View of Free Formula Samples?Open Your Eyes
Outside of all that excellent information, it's NOT free. Nothing is.
I saw this earlier today. I thought this part was interesting:
Contrary to popular belief, breastfeeding doesn?t tend to go badly because of maternal factors. It tends to go badly because of hospital factors
So many women blame themselves and shouldn't.
Just lurking here. I was all gung ho and ready to breastfeed before DD was born. I was determined to make it work. Unfortunately, I had a terrible experience at the hospital when trying to breastfeed. No one was helpful at all. I saw a couple LCs at a different hosptial (closer to home) after I got home but I think I was scarred by my initial lack of success and psyched myself out. I really beat myself up during those first few postpartum weeks when I should have been resting and recovering.
I ended up EPing for four months. I love my OBGYN but I'm thinking of switching to a different doctor if I get pregnant again because she only delivers at that hospital.
Wow, that may be the longest dicussion I've ever seen on TB. Thanks for posting. It was quite interesting.
Natural Birth Board FAQs
Cloth Diaper Review Sheet
I completely agree with this!! Not only was the hospital staff not very helpful, most of them were also not very knowledgable on it, even though my hospital is known as a breastfeeding bully. Every nurse who tried to help was either too forceful and just pissed off my baby, doing more harm than good, or just said, "yea his latch looks fine"...then by the third day when my nipple was all scabbed they said, "oh...looks like he has a bad latch". In addition, they are so anti-formula, they sent me home insisting that what I was producing was enough for my baby (I wasn't producing ANY colostrum....and I had a feeling I wasn't) and sent me home starving my baby. Our little guy screamed like he was in pain for an hour so I called their baby line, which is staffed by lactation consultants, not hospital nurses, and they told me that he was hungry and to try formula, which SURPRISE...worked. This not only sent me into an emotional spiral, but I quit the breastfeeding all together and only gave him formula for the next 24 hours until I could see a lactation consultant.....which cause a whole different set of problems. If they would have just taught me how to suppliment correctly and how much to give, all of that could have been avoided alltogether. I still would have breastfed...but making sure my baby is fed is more important than pushing a breastfeeding agenda for me.
In addition, I don't really see an issue with the hospital, pediatrician, or anyone else offering free formula samples. A non-smoker isn't going to smoke a pack of cigarettes just because they got them for free with their bag of groceries....why would formula be any different? When we formula fed to make sure my LO was getting enough, our pediatrician gave us a TON of formula (we had to see him the morning after bringing our LO home), I think we would have been set for a month. All of that formula is still have sitting around because my milk came in later that day and I haven't had to suppliment since. But, the free sample that was sent to us from the formula company is what saved us and our baby when our poor guy was so hungry he didn't know what else to do but cry. I think it actually provides a good insurance policy....just in case.
I agree with this 100%. I normally post on that board but refrained because I feel the same as you and knew there was just no point.
DS born via unplanned C-section at 40w6d
You are missing the point. No one said formula shouldn't be available for those who need it.The point here is that it is a marketing strategy, not a healthy baby strategy. Do you see that? The sample didn't save your baby...any formula would have worked. A proper LC who actually gave a damn about your latch and didn't say "formula!" would have worked.
Huh. I just read through that and it's interesting to me how some people are reading so much into this as some sort of "big government" agenda to force women to BF and thus SAH a la 1950's housewife. Sigh.
All the big health groups, like the AAP/WHO/etc, say that BFing is a public health issue. Just like the choice to not vax impacts others, so does the choice to FF. And I get that sometimes it's NOT a choice if mom has to take meds, adoption, etc. but how can people argue sending any mom/baby home with formula is promoting equality or whatever?
IMO no one should be sent home with "free" formula because it's not the hospital's job to supply anyone with formula. I got plenty of sample cans sent directly to my house if I wanted to FF despite never requesting a single one. I find it hard to believe this is a necessary component to women's rights/equality.
At the end of the day, a formula company wants customers to buy their product. They give out free samples because it's proven to work to accomplish that goal. Will every mom who gets a free sample use it, no. But a fairly high percentage of them must, otherwise the companies wouldn't keep giving it away.
I don't see how taking away a corporation's free advertising access is stomping on any woman's choice for how to feed her baby.
To me, it's like a doctor telling you that you need to watch what you eat and exercise to lose weight, but then handing you a diet pill sample to take home. Will both accomplish the same goal? Yes- you probably will lose weight with both. But is one definitely better for you than the other? Absolutely. Hospitals don't need to send mixed messages.
And formula is different. Do you think formula companies would hand out formula like candy if it was causing them to lose money? No. They do it because studies show that women who get the freebies, more often than not, will use formula and more specifically, the brand that was given to them.
I'm not a proponent of saying that formula should be unavailable in hospitals. But I would support hospitals getting better LC and advising women about feeding correctly and with a doctor and LC there to guide them in what's best, not simply showering them with freebies from formula companies. I was at a pro-breast feeding hospital and I am convinced it's the reason I am still going strong today.
I couldn't even read the whole thing! I wasn't getting the BF v. FF is the same as cloth or disposable diapering. Not at all.