Free Formula Samples Are Officially Massachusetts Hospital Contraband

formula samples in hospitalsMassachusetts mothers who were perhaps pleased to see a few formula samples upon leaving the hospital will no longer have those little packages tucked into their overnight bag. As of this month, 49 facilities have volunteered to do away with the freebies in an effort to encourage mothers to breastfeed. That makes Massachusetts officially a formula-free maternity hospital state.

Time to start an underground formula-trafficking ring in the maternity ward!

The Boston Herald reports that the state initially tried to get hospitals to ban formula in 2005. When Mitt Romney replaced some council members who originally gave the ban a thumbs up, the decision was then overturned within a few months.

While we all know how beneficial breastfeeding is to a baby’s health, free formula samples are not necessarily problem– at least not all of it. Plenty of struggling women cannot breastfeed completely or at all for a variety of reasons, whether for their their health or their pathetic excuse for a proper maternity leave. Even hospital lactation experts, hopefully there to coach women through the trials of breastfeeding, are described by many new mothers as “just one big guilt trip.” Until the circumstances of these mothers can be appropriately addressed and rectified in the whole “breast is best” chant, knocking free formula samples just adds more stigma to the ever-burning formula-feeding fire.

Now what was that you said about the nurse in ER possibly holding some Similac?

(photo: ffolas / Shutterstock)

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