Gail, your letter about your Women's Health center has inspired me to write a similar type addressed to the issue of those magazines which are received by the ton to distribute to pregnant women.  They are filled with coupons, and subtle ways for the formula companies to get their names and address, and then ply them with more "gifts" and coupons ad nauseam.  I am a new member of a team of LCs at a hospital which is striving to be baby friendly, and to me this is all part of the issue of giving out free formula.

My point that I like to make is that when I first came to work with women and babies in 1983, formula cost $.39 per can and now costs $3.00++ (for the concentrate).  Since the ingredients have hardly changed, and the cost of cow's milk and soybeans has not increased by more than about 50%, most of the increased cost has gone to advertising, and buying off health professionals in the form of cruises, lunches, freebies of all sorts, and giving away the first few days or weeks of formula to individual mothers.  The moderate to low income families suffer the most, which those accepting lunches, coffee mugs, and other gifts, really need to think about.

My delight at our staff meeting is that there were no objections to looking at how and when to stop handing these booklets out, and taking the best articles from them with either rewriting them or getting permission to copy them, put our own hospital logo on them for distribution as a person needed them, not just blanketly(how's that for a word) handing them out.

Giving out free formula in the hospital should not be an issue either.   Since we provide meals for the mother, and she gets charged for it as part of her room costs, the hospital should provide formula for the baby as well.   They should have on hand the concentrate or the powdered formula, ask which the mom would prefer, and bring it to the room for the mom to prepare.  the nursing staff could prepare the first few, then mom and her family should prepare the rest.   It would help so much to demonstrate that formula feeding is not easy, the parent would have to actually demonstrate how to make it correctly (this is a bigger issue than you can imagine as I learned in my 15 years at WIC), and formula in these forms is much cheaper than those little bottles!    Parents could have a choice of brands and most could bring in their own bottles, or the hospital could provide the needed bottles.  (It would only amount to 12-15 two-three oz bottles)   All this would be charged to the hospital stay, the same way the mom's lunch tray is charged.  A 2L bottle of sterile water could be provided for mixing.   Sounds complicated?  Not really, just a change and education for the parent and staff.
   Lactnet inspires such good exchanges, thanks Gail!    
Michelle Scott, RD, MA, IBCLC in NH    

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