Jane, your post seems to have been cut off arbitrarily, but I read as far as
that hospitals are having to include formula-feeding mothers in the
'statistical denominator'.  Not sure what you are referring to here, but I
can say that the Baby-Friendly evaluations we carried out here in the 1990's
used only the breastfeeding mothers as the basis for evaluation.
Baby-Friendly contains some forms of care that will increase the number of
mothers who breastfeed, but it is mostly about the care given to
breastfeeding mothers, with an assumption that the women have already made a
choice and the hospital's ability to support the choice to breastfeed is
what is under scrutiny, not the proportion of mothers who intend to
breastfeed.  It may have been changed since last time I was on an
evaluation, but in my day it was never about forcing anyone to breastfeed to
improve the hospital's BF rates, nor about failing an evaluation because too
many women are bottle feeding.
I would like to know who benefits from these other, watered-down measures
ostensibly to promote and protect breastfeeding in hospitals who are
declining to get on board with BF because of the 'monopoly' issue.
Baby-Friendly practice has demonstrably improved BF rates, both total and
exclusive, wherever it has been implemented.  What can the 'competition'
claim?

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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