Heather in the UK:
"it would be an interesting exercise, to say to a rep 'thank you so
much for these lovely gifts. We are going to take out the samples of your
formula from the breastfeeding mothers' bags, and give them all to the
bottle feeding mothers, okay?'"

Nope, did that, no effect except another task for already-overburdened
nurses! The hosp. where I used to work had a monthly "rotation" system for
the (at that time) 3 main companies. Each company had a different pack;
which company's stuff was given out in any given month bore no relationship
to whose month it was,or to what brand of ABM any particular baby was
getting. We always pulled out the formula samples & stuffed them in with the
packs given to the "real" formula-feeding moms, and to be honest we didn't
give a hoot if Brand S sample got in with Brand E propaganda. I pulled all
the coupons out of the packs going to BF moms, and handed 'em over to
formula-feeders that I knew could genuinely use the stuff. I think that at
one point we were aided in this by local LLL volunteers (am I right, Diane?
Ah, the old days...)

All the reps knew it. No skin off their noses - they were good-natured about
it, and I think their job was just to be sure that there was an endless
supply available within the walls of the hospital. And they did that well,
and because they were personable guys who brought pizza and videos and all
kinds of "free" goodies, we were all used to them and many of the nurses
actually began to see them as "resources". At least as insidious an evil as
exposing the poor BF moms to the stuff they hand out.

No effect on the hospital's policy about the packs, either - see my previous
post.

And it left the even bigger problem of breastfeeding women getting their
"education materials" (snark, eyeball-roll) from the ABM manufacturers.

Cathy B. (Now I promise to get away from this machine for a while - sorry so
opinionated today!)