Copyright  1996  Charleston Newspapers The Sunday Gazette Mail March 31,  1996

 U.S. TRAILS IN  BREAST-FEEDING By: Katherine Ellison
 (c) KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

Even infant-formula manufacturers agree that breast milk is healthier than
any artificial substitute. So why is Brazil's government so far ahead of
that of the United States when it comes to encouraging women to
breast-feed? Breast-feeding has made a small comeback in the United States
in the past five years, mostly among educated, relatively affluent women.
Yet it still carries enough of a stigma in some quarters that Florida
legislators felt the need in 1994 to pass a law to protect a woman's right
to nurse her baby in public. While emotionally rewarding for many women,
breast-feeding also can be painful and awkward. In the more hurried U.S.
culture, fewer women are willing or able to stick with a demanding new task
that can take five to six hours a day.

[Ah, so someone's come up with a way to take care of a baby in less than 5
hours a day?  Must be a marvelous improvement....]

 And, since more American women work outside the home - and with paid
maternity leave generally brief - many find they simply can't manage
combining the two. Formula is a tempting alternative, especially when many
U.S. doctors and hospitals seem to support it by distributing free samples
to new mothers. By contrast, Brazil adopted the World Health Assembly's
International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes in 1981. That
code calls for banning mass media ads for formula and distribution of free
samples at hospitals. The United States, under the Reagan administration,
was the only nation to oppose the code, on the grounds it would restrict
free enterprise.

[Wouldn't that be the POINT?]

It didn't reverse that stance until 1994. In the meantime, Brazil enacted a
national law enforcing the provisions of the code. The United States has
not done that, and it remains legal - and common practice - for U.S.
formula companies to advertise their wares and distribute them at
hospitals...

 ...American government officials have acknowledged the importance of
breast-feeding,  which Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said in 1989 would
be a "decisive way to promote child health in the United States." The U.S.
Public Health Service has spent an estimated $ 10.2 million over the past
11 years - mostly in research and training grants - to promote it....

Arly Helm                                       [log in to unmask]