With apologies to readers elsewhere, this is primarily for the US scene (I hope!)

Reading the thread about arrival of cases of unsolicited formula, I am reminded once again that there are a lot of people in the business of selling pregnant women's names and even addresses to marketers.  The hospitals may be doing it.  Certainly when maternity services send birth announcements to the papers, they are violating medical confidence. The maternity clothing salespeople, both online and shops, may be doing it, as may some of the [aremnts' magazines and credit card trackers.  We don't know if the insurance companies and HMOs may do it. 

Who knows just how it is that the names and addresses of pregnant women, and even their due dates, are revealed to business interests?

Can you imagine the outcry if every US man who has prostate surgery were to have his condition reported to the people who sell helpful devices for impotence, and were to receive free samples on his doorstep?  Why are US women accepting equivalent invasion of our lives, and undermining of our breastfeeding potency?

So here's my idea.  We encourage everyone to take those little quite stringent "Privacy policy" that come in our mail from the bank, the telephone company, some credit card companies (not all!) and we send or carry them to every health facility.  'This is the standard of absolute privacy that I expect from your service.  Please read this through and inform me if in any way your practice deviates from this standard." That is Step One.

Step Two is to give each provider a slightly different address, like a fake apartment number.  "310 Lincoln Lane, #6, Greenwood Heights" or whatever. 
Then if a woman gets unsolicited mail or packages addressed to #6, she knows just who sold her address and the information of her medical condition. 

Why should we hold our banks to high standards of confidentiality, yet let information about our bodies and our reproductive status be bandied about?
We have a right to privacy.
But as my beloved Aunt Lina said, quoting her colleague Dutch historian Jan Romein, "Rights die when they are not exercised."



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