I stumbled upon your blog by accident a month or so ago and have found myself coming back to it at least a few times every week. You have become my favorite….

As the daughter, wife and mother of doctors (my daughter is a pediatric resident enthusiastically in favor of breast feeding) and a woman who breastfed all three of my now grown children, I applaud NYC hospitals for their courageous decision to ban formula samples. These free samples from hospital nurseries send a strong message of discouraging breastfeeding in favor of an expensive, less healthy alternative that only serves the bottom line of the formula companies.

This long-standing program is just another example of how we have unwittingly let corporate America direct our healthcare. Let’s take medicine back. Let’s put patients above profits! Kudos to the NYC hospital system — now let’s see who else is brave enough to follow!

We need to each write our local hospitals, pediatricians and family doctors. We, women have stood silent for too long!

GAHHHH. I hate inflammatory right wing television.

What a fantastic letter! Thanks for sharing!

To Meredith Vieira, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, and the Today Show Editors

I’m writing to express my disappointment regarding your recent segment on the New York hospital formula “ban.” Your report states that New York has banned the “use and promotion of baby formula.” While it is true that the promotion of formula has been banned, the use certainly has not. It is clearly stated in the NYC HHC press release that hospitals “will continue to make formula available for women who request it or are unable to breastfeed for medical reasons.” Formula has not been “stripped” from the hospitals, it is available for mothers who ask for it.

It is truly a disservice to your viewers to create negative sensationalism regarding breastfeeding. Mothers are inundated with endless formula advertisements, claiming that “Breast is Best,” which misses the point entirely. Breastmilk is our biological norm, and claiming that it is “best” implies that the other alternatives (formula) are sufficient. However, there are countless studies that prove that formula is actually creating health problems that breastmilk prevents.

There is a profit to be made from the sale of formula. No one makes money off of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding isn’t as difficult as it is portrayed if mothers have the proper support, which is what this legislation is trying to provide. By providing lactation consultants, personal breast pumps for eligible moms with no insurance coverage, and ongoing counseling and support groups for breastfeeding mothers, the NYC hospitals are providing so much more than a free can or two of formula! (Which, again, is available if the mother asks for it!)

It would behoove the rest of the country to adopt legislation similar to New York City’s ban of the promotion (i.e. advertising) of formula, and the encouragement of breastfeeding. We Americans are due for a paradigm shift regarding infant nutrition. Breastfeeding should not only be promoted in hospitals (the very place we depend on for health and healing!), but also supported in the workplace and in all public places. There is evidence that working mothers who breastfeed miss fewer work days due family illness. There is no disgrace in providing proper nutrition for our children.

Furthermore, the quick racist comment by Dr. Nancy Snyderman at the end of the clip was certainly inappropriate and unnecessary. I’m sure the “colored” population in NYC wants to provide proper nourishment for their children as much as anyone else does.

Respectfully,
Kristen K