Mass. hospitals encourage breastfeeding with new ban on mom "gift bags"

With my first baby and the several problems that arose, I felt like I was pushed into continuing breastfeeding. For four months, I was hooked up and pumping milk almost eight hours a day as my baby lay on the floor next to me screaming the whole time.



Let me tell you, this was a loving, bonding experience. Between my feeding problems, her colic, and the absolutley overbearing pressure from doctors, my husband and "the league" to keep my daughter solely on breastmilk I found myself in a deep depression. I can honestly say that I hated my baby. It wasn't until I stood up for my needs as a mother that things started to turn around for us. Bottle-feeding came as such a relief--I was happier and she has now become a thriving, intelligent, beautful 2 year-old.



So I made the decision to solely bottle-feed my second child. Believe me, the breast vs. bottle decision was on my mind from the moment I found out I was pregnant with her. For 9 months, I was physically sick and anxious as I agonized over doing what everyone told me "was best for my baby" or being "selfish" and choosing to bottle feed. It was the same old routine as with my first--the nurses teeling you that if you truly love you baby you will breatfeed, those lovely posters of mothers breatfeeding in the middle of the jungle all over the hospital, and, of course, a lactation consultant who wouldn't leave me be until I finally broke down and at least tried it once.



I am sorry, but I feel that a mother needs to consider her situation, and her needs as well. I don't think it's selfish to determine what is best for you to be able to care for and love your family and yourself.



If they want to ban the bags, that's fine. But I would like to see all this effort going towards other things.



What about parents who smoke with their newborns and children at home? What about the mother who breastfeeds but is eating fast-food twice a day? Or, even the mother who breastfeeds but is bulemic or anorexic--is that a good trade off for saving yourself from certain cancers? I know a mother in each of these categories, and I think they all have the possibility of creating problems for the baby or mother--just as bottle feeding might.



Neither of my parents were breast-fed as babies and both have PhD degrees and are sociable, happy people. And they were fed formulas from the 50's!



I don't disagree that breastmilk is best. I know that it is--this is why it was such an agonizing decision to make not to breastfeed. But how crazy is it for the law to ban formula samples while protecting the right of a mother to decide to abort her baby?



I just think that it's all good intent, but there are more important issues to be focusing our time and money on. Me and my girls are have a happy, great life. I'm absolutely loving being a mother, and I am closer and more bonded with my children than ever before. I am thankful that there was an option for me that could help me be a better mother. Do I still wish I could breastfeed? Of course. But sometimes things don't work out how La Leche League and others hope.



I hope that whether we breast or bottle feed, we can focus on being the best mothers possible.

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A doctor saying breast is best and then handing you a starter pack of formula is sending a mixed message. There is a lot of authority in that white coat. And the fact that some women (less than most people think) really can't breastfeed and need formula doesn't mean everyone needs a sample. There are serious dissadvantages for formula fed babies, and studies reveal more of them all the time. Formula lacks the immunities a child would normally recieve; it is associated with lower IQs, diabetes, Chrohn's disease, allergies, asthma, ear infections, sids. There is a whole other set of risks for the mom. For some babies the benefits outweigh the drawbacks- obviously formula is better than starvation. But I see no reason to pretend that it could be a sensible choice for the baby who has another option. Unless you happen to be Nestle.

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What about the women that adopt? We may not get the freebies any ways but the chose we have for feeding is bottle. We can not breastfeed so does that mean that we do not care enough for children that we bottle feed them

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This whole story confuses me, because I had my baby at B&W, and I didn't get a formula sample bag. I got a nice bag of other stuff, but no formula. The only time I saw formula at that hospital was when I was hospitalized there again when Dorothy was three or four months old. When I ran out of bottles to pump into, they took some of the "sample" formula bottles, poured the formula down the sink, and gave them to me to store my own milk in.

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LOL..WOmen screaming about choice for the abortion of babies but when comes to feeding they need the intervention of government. Hypocrisy...

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