The breastfeeding debate has hit the Big Apple in a big way. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's health department launched the initiative, “Latch On NYC”, as a means to encourage new moms to choose breast milk over baby formula.
Admirable though the program sounds, with 27 of the city’s 40 hospitals already on board, many fear it goes too far, literally keeping formula under lock and key and throwing any printed formula material out with the trash.
When a new mom requests a bottle of formula, she'll get it, but only after enduring a lecture on the benefits of breastfeeding. “It’s the patient’s choice,” lactation consultant at Beth Israel Medical Center, Allison Walsh told the New York Post. “But it’s our job to educate them on the best option.”
If that kind of pressure exists, then aren't mothers effectively being bullied out of formula feeding? Shouldn't hospitals be neutral agents, gently encouraging breastfeeding as recommended by the American Pediatric Association, and leaving it at that?
Keeping formula under lock and key -- and ostensibly making moms beg for it -- makes bottle feeding seem shameful, even taboo, instead of a viable alternative for the many mothers out there who, for whatever reason, are unable or unwilling to nurse their babies.
“The current fascination with breastfeeding is also an extension of a society’s efforts to control risk, including risk to our children,” Alissa Quart wrote in the New York Times. “We need more balanced, reassuring voices telling women not to feel guilty if they can’t nurse exclusively for months on end. Given how difficult it is for some women to nurse, we should understand that we might sometimes be asking too much.”
Do you think New York's approach to breastfeeding is too heavy handed? When it comes to breastfeeding, shouldn't we be speaking in terms of and/or, not versus?
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