Breast-Feeding Campaign Sparks Debate In Maternity Wards

NBC Sandiego.com – San Diego,CA,USA
Scripps Encinitas stopped handing out the samples four years ago and
now sends moms home with a packet of information instead. …

A new public health campaign is aiming to get half of all mothers to breast feed their babies to six-months of age, by 2010. In support of this goal, more hospitals are stopping the practice of handing out formula samples in their gift bags given to new moms.

Scripps Encinitas stopped handing out the samples four years ago and now sends moms home with a packet of information instead.

Bella Kaufman, Director of the Family Birth Center at Scripps Encinitas said, “It confuses the message because on the one hand you are telling them breast feed, it’s the best for your baby, and at the same time we’re giving out free samples of formula so it’s an unclear message.”

But hospitals that are still handing out baby formula say it’s not about pressure, it’s about choice.

Sharp Mary Birch Hospital said breast-feeding is the gold standard for them, but their own survey showed 85 percent of new moms either wanted the free formula or had no preference.

Mary Henrikson, CEO of Sharp Mary Birch said, “If you give people information — comprehensive unbiased information — they are grown up enough to make the choice.”

Scripps Encinitas and UCSD Medical Center have received the “baby-friendly” designation by the World Health Organization and UNICEF partly because they have stopped giving out formula. But the majority of hospitals are still including the packages in the goody bags, NBC 7/39 reported.