For years, virtually every new mother has been sent home from the hospital with a gift bag full of free product samples, including infant formula.
Now health authorities and breast-feeding advocates are leading a nationwide effort to ban formula samples, which often come in stylish bags with formula company logos. Health experts say they can sway women away from breast-feeding.
As of 2011, nearly half of about 2,600 hospitals in a survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had stopped giving formula samples to breast-feeding mothers, up from a quarter in 2007. The survey did not ask about distributing samples to non-nursing mothers.
Breast-feeding decreases babies’ risk of ear infections, diarrhea, asthma and other diseases and may reduce risk of obesity and slightly improve IQ, experts say.
“We’re not anti-formula,” said Dr. Melissa Bartick,a founder of Ban the Bags, a breast-feeding advocacy group. “If a woman makes an informed choice to formula-feed, the hospital should provide that formula. But hospitals shouldn’t be marketing it.”
