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Wed, 10 May 2006 08:57:04 EDT |
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As many of you have been following events in Massachusetts regarding the
prohibition of the hospital distribution of commercial gift bags, I thought I
would provide a quick update on the issue. The Massachusetts Breastfeeding
Coalition has been writing and meeting with numerous state officials to better
understand why a regulation to ban the formula company gift bags has turned
into such a heated debate. We have secured letters of support for the ban from
numerous associations and agencies such as the Massachusetts chapters of the
AAP and ACOG, the Massachusetts Public Health Association, and the CDC. All of
these letters have been distributed to those who are involved in making the
final decision. We placed an ad in the Boston Parents Paper which you can see
at our website. We have an online petition for people to sign to show public
support for the ban. We will be holding a demonstration in front of the
Massachusetts state house on Friday to present the petition to the governor's
office.
If you have not already done so, please consider going to our website at
_www.massbfc.org_ (http://www.massbfc.org) and signing this petition today or
tomorrow. We have posted more information on the issue for people to read. You
can see our banner and other graphics there also.
A number of our members have reported how tenaciously hospitals wish to hold
onto the practice of distributing formula company gift bags, stating that
they will never give them up unless required to by a regulation. This devotion
to formula company payoffs has an effect on breastfeeding services provided by
hospitals. A study in Massachusetts showed that acceptance of free formula
was significantly associated (p=0.03) with overall Ten Steps implementation.
Conclusion: Rates of self-reported implementation of the Ten Steps are
relatively high in Massachusetts. Step 1 implementation is significantly associated
with formula availability, and overall implementation [of the 10 steps is
associated] with acceptance of free formula. Grizzard T, Bartick M, Nikolov M,
et al. Policies and practices related to breastfeeding in Massachusetts:
Hospital implementation of the 10 Steps. Maternal Child Health Journal 2006.
As most hospitals have a policy on conscientious objection, where nurses are
not required to perform certain care practices if they violate the person's
ethical or moral values, nurses can refuse to give out commercial discharge
bags. Many hospitals seem to have sold out their ethical principles to formula
companies.
Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, Massachusetts
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