>In response to Kathleen Auerbach's question about why hospitals give
freebies to new moms.  In our community, there are two hospitals, and all
the ob/gyns can deliver babies at either hospital, it is up to the mother.
There is incredible competition between the two hospitals to get this
business.  I suspect that labor and delivery are great profit-makers for the
hospital -- more so than many other surgeries or illnesses.  With many other
conditions in our community, only one hospital can do the procedure
(open-heart surgery, for example) and/or the doctors who do the surgery are
only affiliated with one hospital, not both, so the patient has no choice of
hospitals and therefore there is no competition for patients.  Also, with
other conditions there are no long-term consumer loyalties to fight for.
Someone who is recovering from pneumonia isn't going to be using anybody's
product for a year or more; ditto for someone with a broken leg.  In
contrast, every new mother who isn't breastfeeding has to use some sort of
formula, so the companies stand to gain a LOT of profit by convincing the
mom to use THEIR formula.  Much of the formula companies efforts are
dedicated to capturing market share away from other companies, and only a
little to capturing market share from breastfeeding moms by convincing them
to switch.  End of soapbox!
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Katherine A. Dettwyler                                email:
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Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352