In the hazy hours after her new baby is born, a mother faces the decision of whether to breastfeed or use formula to feed her child. She may try to breastfeed and succeed right away — or it might take a little time to figure out.
But should she choose to supplement with formula, she’ll now find New York City standing in her way.
Under a new Mayor Bloomberg-led initiative, Latch On NYC, moms will have a tougher time making the decision to formula-feed.
As The Post reported last weekend: “With each bottle a mother requests and receives, she’ll also get a talking-to. Staffers will explain why she should offer the breast instead.”
Since newborns need five to six bottles in a 24-hour period, that’s going to be a lot of lecturing.
Though formula-makers themselves note “breastmilk is best” in their ads, Mike Bloomberg feels that what is lacking for women, should they decide not to breastfeed, is education. They must not know that breastmilk is best. Never mind if they physically can’t breastfeed or don’t get any maternity leave or simply find breastfeeding to be more trouble than it’s worth. They will be educated.
The Post story also quoted Lisa Paladino of Staten Island University Hospital: “The key to getting more moms to breastfeed is making the formula less accessible. This way, the RN has to sign out the formula like any other medication. The nurse’s aide can’t just go grab another bottle.”
Perhaps Paladino has never been around a hungry infant, but she should anticipate a cacophony of screams while perpetually understaffed hospitals find nurse’s aides to sign out formula like it’s morphine.
Sorry: Lots of new moms are surprised at just how hard it is to get your bundle of joy to actually connect to a real nipple. (Somehow, it’s something all those experienced older female relatives fail to mention when they’re urging you to expand the family.)
Making formula more difficult to get in the hospital will only lead to frustrated staff and distraught mothers of hungry babies.
And Bloomberg’s anti-formula crusade comes when the trend is already toward breastfeeding. A mere 50 years ago, 75 percent of American infants were using formula; breastfeeding was the odd way to feed a child.
Nor is baby formula the enemy — far from it. In “Infant Formula: Second Best but Good Enough,” a 2007 paper for the federal Food and Drug Administration, Isadora Stehlin extols the virtues of breastfeeding but notes, “A century ago, babies who couldn’t be breast-fed usually didn’t survive.”
It’s one thing to provide the breastfeeding education and then let the mother make her own choice. Quite another to keep formula under lock and key.
This initiative will only make life more difficult for newborns and their moms.
And why bother banning swag that comes with formula-makers’ logos? A mother isn’t going to choose to feed her baby formula because she got a free lanyard or tote bag. She’s going to make the right choice for herself and her baby.
The busybodies should butt out.
Karol Markowicz blogs at alarmingnews.com.