Regarding hospitals who provide formula to infants as they provide 'food' to
the other patients in their care, but who balk at providing pumps to mothers
whose babies can't take their milk at the breast: do the mothers who
breastfeed get larger portions of the 'food' provided?  If not, the
breastfeeding mothers are already subsidizing the hospital in that way,
because the patient rations are being shared between at least two people,
one mother and her baby(babies).

It may well be that it costs just as much to provide artificial feeds as to
provide a pump, when all the staff costs are calculated in, for purchasing,
storing, preparing, and cleaning up.  But formula may have a lower apparent
price tag, at least without taking into account the health effects beyond
the length of the hospital stay.

How ethical is it to choose the (possibly cheaper) inferior solution for the
very infants who are most at risk from it?  Premature babies, babies with
weak suck due to other problems which also compromise their immune systems,
such as clefts, or Down's syndrome - all these babies suffer even more than
a term baby would, from not being breastfed/fed breastmilk.  I agree, get
the ethics committees in here, and fast.

Rachel Myr
back from a week of no mail in Kristiansand, Norway

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