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Should Hospitals Stop Handing Out Free Formula?

By Michelle Hainer | Friday, September 18, 2009 9:57 AM ET

Comments (35)

You'd be hard pressed to find a healthcare professional who doesn't espouse the benefits of breastfeeding. Ironically, however, many of those proponents are the ones doling out coolers full of free formula when new moms leave the hospital.

That's exactly what happened to Mary, a mom in Westbury, NY, who gave birth to daughter, Leah, this past February. Though she made it clear that she planned to breastfeed her baby, she didn't receive much support or guidance from the nurses in the maternity ward. What she did get, however, was a bag full of formula as a parting gift. "I just threw it in the closet, because by the time I left the hospital, I had figured out how to breastfeed," says Mary. "But if Leah hadn't learned to latch on pretty easily, I probably would have ended up using it."

Is It Worth The Effort?

Unfortunately she's not the only one. "Many moms have a weak moment and think, 'I can't deal with this!' If they go home with a quart of formula it's really easy to turn to it," says Rochelle McLean, a lactation consultant in San Diego and owner of Babies in Bloom, a boutique and educational center for parents. "And sometimes that one bottle is all it takes [to derail breastfeeding.]"

Not to mention that breastfeeding is a huge, and often difficult, responsibility and new moms needs reassurance that they can do it. Which is hard to wrap your head around when you're receiving free formula, says Gina Ciagne, a certified lactation counselor and Director of Breastfeeding and Consumer Relations at Lansinoh Laboratories. "If breastfeeding were the ideal, why would they be giving formula 'just in case' breastfeeding doesn't work out?" she says.

According to health care professionals, breast milk is the best thing for baby (the exception being carefully selected prescription formulas that hospitals might provide for babies with special needs or mothers who can't produce the necessary volume of milk). "It's always sterile, the right temperature and is full of antibodies to help boost a baby's immune system," says Ciagne. Let's not forget that it's free – a big benefit considering a 2001 USDA study found that formula can cost a family upwards of $3,000 per year.

Creative Alternatives

Hospitals are now beginning to back up their breastfeeding message by offering an alternative to formula discharge bags. Cottonwood Kids, a company that dispenses gifts for birthing centers, has created the Healthy Baby Bounty Bag, a small cooler filled not with formula, but with a dozen product samples including disposable nursing pads, herbal teas, breast milk storage bags and over $100 worth of coupons good toward breastfeeding supplies (pumps, Soothies and Lanolin, for example).

"Lactation consultants have been waiting 20 years for these bags, but a lot of these companies don't have the profit margin that formula companies have," says Cottonwood Kids CEO Erik Maurer, who spent two years gathering resources for the concept. "But the bags aren't around any one brand, so for a small amount of money, these companies [like Lansinoh, Traditional Medicinals, Seventh Generation] can reach lots of mothers."

Maurer rolled out the product – and a website that offers breastfeeding support – in March, and so far more than 200 hospitals in 35 states have signed on, including Exeter Hospital in Exeter, NH. "We've received wonderful feedback from our moms," says Michelle Savoie, director of the hospital's Family Center. "Over 80 percent of our new moms breastfeed, and our lactation consultants are ecstatic to have the Healthy Baby Bounty Bags." Mauer adds, "We've been getting e-mails from all over the world. We're definitely in the right market."

Top photo courtesy of Stock.xchng.

Bottom photo courtesy of Cottonwood Kids.

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Health, Health Care, Babies, Breast-feeding, Breast milk, Science, Life & Style, Healthcare, Family

Comments (35)

Comments (7)

Sophie in the Moonlight

64 days ago

The most heart-breaking moment in my life was having to send my husband to the store to buy formula for the first time. I believed "breast is best" and did EVERYTHING to breastfeed: tube-feeding, vitamins, fenugreek, and pumping or putting my son on the breast for a grand total of 8 1/2 hours a day in an effort to get the milk production to kick in.

My son SCREAMED b/c he was so hungry and I cried b/c I wasn't doing my job right. After 4 visits to the lactation clinic, we learned I made 1 teaspoon of milk in a half hour. Babies can't grow on the pitiful supply. I WISH the hospital had sent me home with formula so I didn't have to make the decision that I was a failure, formula would have to feed my baby, and it was our humiliation to go to the store and buy the substandard formula.

I called the new baby hotline at midnight on the first night I fed my son formula and sobbed to the woman that I tried and tried but nothing happened and I couldn't let him scream anymore. He had lost 15 % of his birth weight in a week. The nurse on duty told me that my job was to feed my baby, and if my body didn't make the milk necessary to feed him, then there was no shame in using formula. She told me that 8 1/2 hours of being attached at the breast was unthinkable. She was a nice nurse and eased some of my self-hatred. However, my inability to breast-feed and the feeling of failure that went along with it helped plummet me into a suicidal postpartum depression that lasted 2 years.

So do I think it's wrong for hospitals to send home formula with new babies? Absolutely not. Babies need to be fed one way or another and society is friggin' ridiculous in the amount of pressure it puts on moms to breast-feed or else. We all do what we can for our children and being told that one is not trying hard enough if she is having difficulty breast-feeding her baby is a horrid judgement. Having formula on hand may make the difference between a healthy baby and an under-nourished baby, the difference between a healthy mom and a self-loathing mom. Which would you prefer?

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Emily

64 days ago

Sophie,
So sorry to hear of your struggle with breastfeeding. It sounds like you tried very hard, and it is very uncommon to not produce enough milk for an infant if there is frequent stimulation and milk removal. Rule #1 is feed the baby. It is the parent's responsibility to feed the baby, though, not the hospital's responsibility to provide the food once the infant is discharged. Formula purchased in the store is not "substandard" to what hospitals give out - it is the same thing, only you pay for it out of pocket. Sending every new mother home with formula "gift bags" undermines exclusive breastfeeding, which in close to 98% of cases is completely possible if the baby is not introduced to a formula bottle unneccessarily (which is the intent of the bags in the first place).

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Nikki Lee

64 days ago

Formula is easy to find. It is sold in grocery stores, convenience stores, drug stores and anyplace where food is sold. Breastfeeding Pregnant mothers that have filled out information about their feeding plans often get free cases of formula delivered to their doors. Infant photography services in hospitals sell information about mothers to formula companies, so free formula shows up at the door for many breastfeeding mothers.

Formula competes against health in the name of profit. Formula companies understand lactation physiology better than most healthcare workers. The reason for the "free" gift of formula at discharge is to ensure brand loyalty (and another $700+ in the pockets of the company) and to derail breastfeeding.

For every woman who needs to purchase formula because of some unavoidable situation like the one Sophie describes, there are dozens whose commitment to breastfeeding is undermined by hospital staff giving the discharge bags.

As for "free", the companies make up the cost in the prices people pay in the stores. There is no such thing as "free" with formula; another way it is different to breastfeeding, where the milk is free of dollar cost.

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Aubrey Slye

64 days ago

Give me a break.... it's like saying a pen with a drug name is going to change a physician's prescribing habits. Do you know how much Research and Development goes into developing formula? Are you even concerned? Seriously - this is the sole source of nutrition that your baby is getting for the majority of his first year of life... A substantial margin of the cost of formula is the R&D that it takes to make it. That is why generic brands are so cheap. They obtain the formulation without putting in the R&D to make the drug or formula.

Enough about R&D though. If you have ANY experience with a baby, you would know that they have taste buds, too. My child hated Enfamil, but loved Similac. Do you know how nice it was not to have to purchase a $20 tin of formula and instead just "sample" the formulas given to me at the hospital?

And, thirdly, do you people have any idea how many women struggle with breastfeeding? I did and most of my friends did. When Mothers have lactation problems and cannot produce enough milk, but your newborn is screaming in hunger, it is so necessary to have samples of formula with which to supplement the baby. Do not even get me started on this issue.

Lastly, one of my best friends promotes formula to the hospitals. Her company stands by "breastfeeding is best" and so does she. She has all the studies on breastfeeding vs. formula feeding and HANDS DOWN breastfeeding is best. But, did you KNOW that she gives these studies to the nurses and physicians to help educate them, also. She should be a sales rep for BREASTFEEDING if you ask me. The only time she even suggests using her product is when the mother is ready to switch and at that point, she shows the multitude of research her company has done on perfecting their product. The sales pitch is NEVER against breastfeeding, but on promoting a baby's nutrition their first year of life.

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Whozat

63 days ago

If "pens with the drug name on them" don't affect a doc's prescribing habits, then why do drug companies spend so much much having pens (and other such swag) made?

They wouldn't be handing that stuff (or formula) out for free if they weren't getting a great return on their investment.

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Tracy

63 days ago

I have to agree with Aubrey, most people think that any woman can lactate, but I'm pretty sure there are about 40% of moms who just didn’t have enough breast milk. I was one of them. Most of my fiends, my mother and most of the ladies that I've heard of around here, stop breastfeeding within the first few weeks because they just don’t have any milk…regardless of any normal problems like latching on, nipple pain, feeding on demand…the list goes on. So I really feel that there is a bigger percentage of moms struggling than what might be perceived because moms feel so worthless that they don’t tell anybody about the problem.

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50 days ago

They give out free samples and hope that baby/parents stick to the first brand they try. It's Marketing 101, nothing good or bad about it. Not sure what hospitals get for becoming their sales channel. As with everything, buyer beware.

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