I recently did an inservice at our local hospital and did some talking about
the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative and some of the areas the hospital (a
very small one) would need to work on if they ever wanted that designation.
One of the problem areas, surprise, surprise, is that of accepting free
formula. The nurses didn't have much trouble with the concept of not
accepting for maternity, but wondered whether if they used free formula in
the pediatric part of the hospital that would disqualify them from ever
becoming Baby-Friendly.

Apparently they go through a lot of formula because we have a high Native
Indian population and many of these children are hospitalized during their
first year, are not breastfed, and need to be fed formula (a sad story in
itself). The hospital uses the free stuff to give to these kids. If this
were just a maternity hospital, it would be clear to me (and them) the whys
of not accepting formula, but it's less clear, even to a "zealot" like me,
whether accepting freebies for peds would disqualify a hospital.  Are there
any hospitals that have both maternity and peds that have been designated
Baby Friendly? Do these hospitals indeed buy all the formula for their
pediatric patients? (That would be a VERY hard sell in these days of
cut-backs here in Alberta.)

If anyone has experience with this and with the ins and outs of the BFHI,
please respond. Thanks.

Leslie Ayre-Jaschke, BEd, IBCLC
Peace River Breastfeeding Clinic
Peace River Alberta, Canada