This makes my blood boil on many levels.

1. The lefties scream about how the "our rights are being stripped" by the current administration and stuff like this is applauded. I guess women only have a choice regarding their baby while it is still in the womb, after its out, not so much.

2. You know, there are some women that CAN'T breast feed for various reasons. What is all of this doing to their self esteem and self worth? Two things that the left seem to cherish above national security, usually.

I wish the Must-Breast-Feed-Nazis would get together with the Never-Breast-Feed-In/near-Public-Even-If-Covered-Nazis would get together and duke it out and just leave the rest of us alone. But then, libs cant leave anyone alone, can they? Their whole being is to impose their beliefs on people just trying to live their life without the strife. gc

My theory is that the powers that be in NYC are trying to get as many people as possible to move away so that there might be some freakin' apartments available.

Kim: I have a 'bone' to pick with you, and it's not personal as I have said this before to people both in writing and in conversation... can we please reserve the term "Nazi" for actual Nazi? Can we stop using it to connote obnoxious and interfering sorts of people? Granted, I think the purveyors of the "Nanny State" are to be derided, but hardly likely to resort to genocide if thwarted or disobeyed.

I'm not trying to nit-pick: it's just that I grew up in Skokie, Illinois and many of my classmates lost family members in the Holocaust. Just my two cents.

Langtry,

It's just an expression of extremism, but I understand your point.

OK, I guess I am one of the bad guys.
For years it annoyed me that the formaula companies are the ones who make the weight charts, pay for all the garbage in the pediatrician's clinics, give out these "oh too convenient" samples and we wonder why American children are obese and unhealthy.
I was not a militant (as you describe it) but I made sure my children DID have the best. None of that processed, chemical filled, over-caloried formula. They are all allergy free, healthy, and all plan to have breast fed babies also.

YAY for the banning of formula advertising to new moms.

Kim, this is hardly the issue you are making it out to be. Why was it OK for the hospitals to put free formula in the take-home bags for new moms? Why weren't you decrying that as mandating that new mothers use formula?

Also, from the article:

Mothers who request formula will still receive it.

This is not even close to the level of a ban, like with smoking and trans-fat. I dispise what the NYC government has been doing regarding bans on smoking and trans-fat, but your hyperventilating about this issue is just ridiculous.

Denise:

"Both breast milk and formulas contain 20 calories per ounce5"

http://www.uspharmacist.com/oldformat.asp?url=newlook/files/cons/acf2f78.htm

Not sure where you are getting your info about, "over-caloried formula", but thats not what I am seeing, also like to know what all these chemicals are you are talking about, not seeing that either. I am a proponent of breast-feeding as well, but there shouldn't be an anti-formula stance even out there.

Kim:

It's just an expression of extremism, but I understand your point.

My first daughter was born 3 months premature, at under 2 pounds. "Over-caloried" formula, added to breast milk, is a big, big reason she is a healthy 4 yr old today.

And that stuff is EXPENSIVE, so I don't see what the reason is for not letting the companies give more of it away free. Or hiding it from people who might not realize they could ask for it.

Massachusetts did the same thing a while back. This 100% breast feeding family was incensed.

I have to say whatever works is good enough for me, although it figures NYC is pushing what they think is best for people, and not what's best for the situation.

Langtry, I understand where you're coming from, but since Jerry Seinfeld originated the term "Soup Nazi", your point falls flat with me, especially since the term accentuates the negativity of it. You may as well scold him for starting the trend while you're at it.

Isn't it just a little funny that this city, where ONE in every NINE are living off the public teat, uses such tactics ?

Denise,

Whatever your personal choice is or the choices of your daughters are with respect to breast feeding is fine with me. However, you should really reconsider before spouting off the type of garbage about formula you put on this thread. Mothers that can't breast feed have enough guilt in this day and age without people spouting selfrightous unscientific garbage at them.

I know the guilt trip cause I got to watch my wife go through it after our first daughter was born. The wife had a allergic reaction to medicine she was given in the hospital and had to choose to not breast feed. The La Leche league "counsler" did a great job making her feel like about it too.

I also know because we have two daughters now, one was almost 100% formula fed (due to my wife's medical complications) and the other was breast fed exclusively. They are both fit with the formula one being skinny (we had to take in the slims pants so they don't fall off her butt). They both have some allergies, but then again so do both of their parents and one is not worse than the other. If there is a functional difference in their IQ, then the formula fed one is smarter. However, it is hard to tell because A) the breast fed one is younger (8 vs 11) and B) the older one has a personality better suited for school.

I could go on, but the point is that formula vs breast is in no way shape or form the kind of destiny decided event you imply in your rant or is regulary touted by the breast feeding radicals.

Your rhetoric however can be more toxic then you make the formula out to be and I hope that you have the decency to keep your opinion to yourself around mothers that choose differently than you did.

I guess they Nanny-State in NYC could use the slogan "Got Milk?" as a good campaign,if the cows would let them. Obviously, somebody in NYC had to justify a pay raise or budget.

I fear that the term's historical power is denatured the more we use it to connote anything other than systematic extermination of human beings.

Nazi is short for the National Socialist movement as evidenced by the German Govt prior to and during WWII, they also qualified as fascists. That Gvmt was known for lots of small nit-picking rules and regulations that were used for control of all aspects of life and ultimately used as tools to decide which type of person was okay and who would be eliminated. I prefer GENOCIDE for the systematic extermination of human beings. The Nazi's of Germany were slackers compared to the Soviets, Khmer Rouge etc.

Denise:
and we wonder why American children are obese and unhealthy.

And you believe it's more likely due to the lack of breast feeding and NOT from the increase in consumption of fast food ? What's your basis for this ?

YAY for the banning of formula advertising to new moms.

And you're against people being informed ? Or is it just that you're against the dissemination of information that's counter to YOUR beliefs ?

Denise is precisely the kind of "Nazi" Kim is talking about. Denise has it all figured out and we must obey. Langtry, sorry for the term, but couldn't help it.

My wife and I fed our son formula from day one. He is now 6'4" and has a son who is six. He also was fed formula. Yay, formula. What smart families choose. Oh yeah! No allergies anywhere. No obesity. Well, there goes Denises' theory. ww

Militant? Are you serious? How is encouraging breast-feeding militant? Formula companies give away tons of stuff to new moms, and they apparently are still allowed to if the new mothers want and ask for them. But for those who choose to breast feed, they now get their own their gift bags, something I would have liked to have. Instead, I got cases of fomula, coupons, and coolers with formula ads on them that went into a landfill.

Why on earth does everything mommy-relatated have to fall into a battle? Stay-at-home vs. go-to-work mommies. Breast feeding vs. formula feeding. Just because breast feeding is, in general, healthier, does not mean formula is evil. Is anyone really suggesting that it is? How does encouraging the widely recognized slightly-healthier choice make one a Nazi? We're not talking about a sin tax on formula. We're not talking about banning it's use in public places. This is really a bizarre and illogical perspective.

Diane:
Militant? Are you serious? How is encouraging breast-feeding militant?

That's not what's being done. It would be perfect fine for the hospitals to employ reason to encourage the mothers to breast feed. You understood that well enough in your previous post. Why are you pretending otherwise now ? To wit,

Diane:
YAY for the banning of formula advertising to new moms.

Banning and encouraging are NOT the same thing. Banning requires the use force. Encouraging requires the use of reason. When you cheer for the use of force over reason, expect people to call you 'militant' and 'Nazi' because they're correct.

I could not breast-feed, so formula was the only option. My kids are healthy (thank heavens).

I think obesity could be tied to the solid food babies are given more so than the early breast or bottle, as well as to how much exercise the child gets. I made my own baby food to avoid sugar and preservatives.

Let the new mom choose which gift bag she wants, okay?

Scientifically speaking, breast milk does provide important immunity building agents for infants that can reduce their number of allergies and other later immune system problems. For example, even cigarette smoke contains so many toxins and poisons that small infants can be poisoned and die from the breathing of secondhand smoke according to Philip Morris Corporation's statement on SIDS for example, as this is because of their weak immune system that is not fully developed. Young children who require ear infection surgery almost always have measurable amounts of nicotine agents in their urine due to secondhand smoke according to a medical study from Turkey. A general trend to encourage breast feeding is an important health decision for a new child and important to building a healthy immune system to prevent some of the damage caused by smoking and other illnesses such as colds or the flu.

Baby formula does not contain any immune system building agents for the baby by comparison. There is an important difference between the two.

Banning smoking and trans fats also have a serious scientific basis to outlaw. Smoking involves the unregulated release of serious pollution in a public place that contains 4,000, mostly illegal toxins banned by the EPA from industrial release such as lead, nickel and cadmium. It also causes sore throats, headaches, ear infections, and shortens the life of nonusers who breath secondhand smoke in a public place. It also involves the illegal distribution of a drug just as addictive as heroin(nicotine) to unwilling persons with secondhand smoke. Persons who do not smoke, do not because they have health problems or are intelligent enough not to become a slave to a highly addictive and expensive drug addiction, but public smokers make the decision to force their drug addiction on others. What needs to done is for Congress to criminalize the manufacture and sale of any tobacco product that produces illegal air pollutiuon that violate EPA regulations, any any smoke or fumes that impact the health of anyone other than the intended user. Since smokers are drug addicts, they will not easily quit their drug addiction without professional medical help, but at least protecting children and other unwilling persons from this drug addiction will dramaticly improve the public health situation in America and reduce sick time loss from school and work and reduce taxes and health care costs by tens of billions of dollars each year. Elinating smoking altogether could prevent an additional 30,000 housefires each year and save the lives of many firemen and nonsmokers who die as a result of actions of the smokers and their drug addiction fire hazzards.

Trans fats offer an unacceptable health hazzard when far safer products exist. Some worry about defective imported products from China and other places. But actions are needed to stop defective and dangerous products produced right here at home as well, such as trans fat foods and tobacco products that produce illegal air pollution or increase housefires by the thousands each year. Smoking in an automobile also presents another distraction that increases motor vehicle asccidents and illegal litter on public streets and highways as cigarette butts are the most common form of litter found on streets and highways. Some societies such as Singapore even ban chewing gum because of the litter problems it creates, so a crackdown on cigarette litter and air pollution is not an unusual request for a society that wants to be cleaner and more healthy.

Medical professionals would be ignoring their duty to society if they did not seek to eliminate some health hazzards that are easy to remedy. Health costs from the self inflicted problems like smoking, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, tran fats, etc., cost American society far more productivity and billions of dollars than the WAR ON TERROR for example.

From a mother who had trouble breast-feeding, me:

Even as far back as 1974 the breast-feeding brigade at the hospital not only didn't give me an option, but started me with breast-feeding right off the bat, then pressured me into continuing to breast-feed my son. It's not that I didn't want to. I wanted very much so to give him the benefit of my anti-bodies among the other benefits of mother's milk.

While not giving you every detail of my ordeal, let me just suffice it to say I wouldn't wish my experience on anyone. But their insistence and determination to make me do it even with the extreme duress it caused me and my son, was unacceptable. Every complaint I made was met with, "It'll get better." I know what the pressure is like when it's grilled in to you that you're not a good mother unless you're breast-feeding.

Within a month my son was bottle feeding to preserve his health and my own pain and misery, but only after the insistence of my doctor and the pediatrician once they became aware of the situation. My daughter, who was born three years later went straight to the bottle and both of my children were healthy and never overweight. Incidentally, I am also familiar with the looks I got when I turned down the option to breast feed my daughter.

I think the point is that hospitals are using pressure to put these women into positions they may not want to be in, by withholding their options and only a specific request will make them do otherwise. Rather than say, "Here are your options," and explain the benefits and detriments of either and allow someone to make up their own mind, they're using the very tactic that they claim formula companies are using - pressure through advertising.

Formula samples "are" a bad idea in mothers' packages, but not because it pressures the mother into using it. It's because not every formula is right for every baby. The type of formual is something that should be decided by a doctor.

"Baby formula does not contain any immune system building agents for the baby by comparison."

That is untrue paul. Formulas now are adding probiotic cultures similar to those present in breast milk that support the immune system.

Diane, you are completely missing the entire point of what is going on, nobody is saying breastfeeding shouldn't be encouraged, we are saying that formula feeding shouldn't be DISCOURAGED, which is what is happening in this case. Why not ask the mother if she is going to be breastfeeding or formula feeding and then give her the appropriate "basket", no guilt involved.

Mike,

You understood that well enough in your previous post...

That was my first post. You must have me confused with someone else.

We're talking about gift bags, here, not an infrigement of rights There is no ban on formula at the hospital, just a ban on the formula companies' gift bags. And new moms can receive those gifts and samples elsewhere. You get loaded up with the stuff from your first visit to the doctor. I'm not opposed to that.

This "ban" does NOT require the use of force. Don't be silly. Typically, formula companies provide gifts for new moms to the hospital. The hospital personnel hand them out to new moms. The NY hospitals are refusing to do that. They're substituting different gift bags. They are making a choice in what they prefer to encourage. They are not using force to ban new moms from using formula. On the contrary, they are providing the formula. They're simply not providing free labor and real estate for the distrution of formula. Shouldn't they be allowed that choice?

I can understand how a mom would feel guilty for using formula. That doesn't mean she has reason to feel guilty. It's just that Moms, by nature, feel guilty for everything they do with respect to their child. But our sometimes obsessive (out of a loving desire to be perfect to our children) tendency to second-guess every decision we've made and feel guilty over it does not mean advocates from the alternate choice are at fault for our guilt.

Before you start throwing around words like "militant" and "nazi", take a breath. Now repeat after me:

Gift Bags.

That was my first post. You must have me confused with someone else.

Oops. Yes, my mistake. I confused you, Diane, with Denise. Denise is the militant.

D-Hoggs,

Diane, you are completely missing the entire point of what is going on, nobody is saying breastfeeding shouldn't be encouraged, we are saying that formula feeding shouldn't be DISCOURAGED, which is what is happening in this case. Why not ask the mother if she is going to be breastfeeding or formula feeding and then give her the appropriate "basket", no guilt involved.

I've had three kids in three different hospitals in three different states, so I've probably had a pretty good sampling of gift bag procedures. I have never been given the option of a breast-feeding gift bag. And I never felt my choice was undermined by my lack of preferred goodies. By your logic, should I assume all those hospitals were militantly DISCOURAGING breast feeding by giving me a particular kind of gift bag. Or am I still missing the point?

I think it would be great if all mothers were given a choice of gift bags, the NY hospitals included. But if the hospital makes headlines for electing to make the switch from one kind to another, I think it's more a case of slow-news-day than MILITANT NANNY-STATE NAZIS.

Gift. Bags.

D-Hoggs, the baby formula industry does try to claim some immune system benefits to the probiotic cultures, however unlike a natural mother's milk, there is not the agents present in baby formula that are equal to the common genetic agents in natural mother's milk that gentically link to the complexities of the common mother-child immune system.

Probiotics are highly used for their presevative qualities by the industry, and the impact on taste as well, often used in yogurt for example to give a slightly sour taste. They may well have some digestive effect as well to probiotics.

Digestion is a big issue with any milk related products. I know for example, that although cats like milk, they cannot really digest it very well unless treated with certain chemicals to aid digestion and to create a partial breakdown in the substance to act as a predigestive. And with the young digestive system in newborn babies, likely similiar problems may exist where digestion of nonmother's baby formula must be chemically assisted as well.

By your logic, should I assume all those hospitals were militantly DISCOURAGING breast feeding by giving me a particular kind of gift bag. Or am I still missing the point?

If the hospitals actively took steps to remove information regarding breast feeding from those bags, yes that would be considering discouraging it.

And perhaps it is a slow news day, but nonetheless:

Free formula samples and formula promotional materials are now banned from gift bags given to new mothers at the 11 hospitals run by the city's Health and Hospitals Corp. [em added]

Banned - i.e. forbidden. Forbidden by whom ? by the state. When the state decides what information shall/ shall not be distributed based on what the state believes is best for you, what would you call it ?

Everyone who considers this some sort of right-crushing Nazi style tactic is completely over-reacting. They are NYC government run hospitals people. They can make their own rules, now if the government of NYC was trying to say that every hospital in the city was forbidden from giving out free samples of formula (at least without asking for them), then you may have just cause for such a reaction.

Sheesh, Diane is right, it's a slow news days and this is so ridiculous consdiering it's about frickin' gift bags.

And don't worry, anyone out there who has recently had a kid knows that free samples of formula will be mailed to your house, so no one will miss out on getting info about formula. And while I don't think formula compares to breast milk (my wife has breast fed both our children until they were 1), I understand the need for some to use it.

"By your logic, should I assume all those hospitals were militantly DISCOURAGING breast feeding by giving me a particular kind of gift bag. Or am I still missing the point?"

You are still missing the point. The breast feeding "goodie bag" option hasn't been widley available in the hospitals, and I do not feel that is right. I doubt anybody else here thinks that is right either. That is not what anyone is arguing. That information SHOULD be widely available, the difference is, they are REPLACING the standard formula "goodie bags" with breastfeeding "goodie bags" instead of ADDING the breastfeeding "goodie bags". It is about dissemination of information, why take away a standard to replace it with another standard instead of just ADDING a second CHOICE?

D-Hoggs:

Agreed. I don't care how much scientific research is recited, it doesn't justify taking options away from people, whether it be smoking, drinking, transfats, goodie bags at the hospital for newborns...etc., etc., etc.

No one is taking options away! It's a gift bag for crying out loud. You can still get all the information you want about formula, you just aren't going to get a free tub of it when you leave those hospitals. And that may not even be true because like I mentioned above, the article states that those who ask will still receive the formula.

Lighten up already. Crying so loudly about something so insignificant as this just dilutes the arguments against government restrictions that really do limit free choice, i.e. smoking, trans-fat, seat belt and helmet laws, and etc.

J.R., you are no longer allowed to see the comments section for wizbang, only for wizblue. If you want to comment on wizbang instead of wizblue, you will have to ask Kevin.