Governor Romney’s office has caved into pressure from the formula industry around the formula diaper bag ban in Massachusetts in hospitals.
"The only constituency served by the Governor’s request is the formula industry," says Dr. Melissa Bartick, a Cambridge internist and chair of the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition. The new regulations, passed in December by the Public Health Council, banned formula company gift bags on postpartum units.
Multiple scientific studies have shown that formula company gift bags cause mothers to quit breastfeeding earlier, and even a recent report by the Government Accounting Office notes this connection, and clearly defines the bags as a marketing tool—and the companies themselves admitted to it. When mothers stop nursing, they face higher rates of diseases like breast cancer and ovarian cancer, and their babies have more ear infections, diarrhea, and severe bloodstream infections, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. Formula company handouts undermine breastfeeding, and that hurts mothers and babies.
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