The next time that SOB is giving a public address, I am going to saunter up to him, smoking a cigarette, swilling tequila straight from the bottle and chasing it with a large Big Gulp of Coke, eating a second-helping meatloaf sandwich out of a styrofoam container and lob a baby-formula filled balloon at his face. Booyah!
We’ll finally get to learn how the three seashells work!
I agree. I nursed my first easily for two years. My second? Would NOT latch! Three lactation consultants couldn’t get her to work it. I did what I could. I pumped and pumped and pumped and pumped. And sometimes I supplemented with formula. I finally got her to latch at eight months after trying and trying and trying. Bloomberg has never nursed so he doesn’t know shit about the subject.
Women do the best we can. We shouldn’t be made to feel guilty about it.
IMO, mandatory government lectures never changed any mind worth changing. The only people who are going to fall for a patronizing lecture are the same folks who lack the critical thinking skills to parent well.
I will never need to know anything about feeding babies. Besides being a lesbian, I’m an aspiring paramedic- which means a future of working 50 hours per week at all sorts of odd hours on $14 an hour. I’m not sure I can keep a wife, let alone a kid, and that’s if I even wanted to adopt/do in-vitro/etc in the first place. So I guess my POV on this issue is about as unbiased as you’re going to get from anyone with a vagina.
yams!!, you sound very extreme. If you’re going try to fight ignorance, best not to come off as a zealot. Just a friendly tip. Consider me un-convinced about all these supposed breastmilk benefits.
Dangerosa, you did nothing wrong. Grude, you and your wife have done nothing wrong. Even if breastmilk were provably better, it’s not sounding like formula is such a big deal. And if elective C-sections are allowed, formula should sure as hell be available to any mother. Seriously.
This sounds excessively fun. Can I join you?
Well, he did milk that runt kitten once.
And of course, having the top city official pushing it (a guy who has the power to make your life miserable in myriad ways) is not coercive in the least. :dubious:
Yes, breast-feeding is typically a better choice, and medical professionals recognize this. They and new moms don’t need Mayor Nanny-State lecturing them on the subject.
Meh, lazy conspiracy theories aside, there’s no actual evidence Bloomberg is putting undue pressure on hospitals to join. And a quarter of hospitals in NYC haven’t joined the program, so whatever silly scenario you think is taking place, you appear to be wrong.
(plus Bloomberg is at the end of his last term)
That’s what they said at the end of his last term.
You need to research the definition of “conspiracy theory”.
Many medical professionals are extremely lacking in knowledge on the topic of breastfeeding, in my experience. Not all, but many.
Anyway, I think the ban on soda pop is stupid and so is the mandatory lecture to formula moms, but banning those formula swag bags sounds OK by me. There’s never anything in them that supports breastfeeding (like nipple cream or breast pads or anything) so it does seem like an implicit hospital endorsement of one feeding method over another. And if the hospital is going to endorse one feeding method over another, it shouldn’t be formula-feeding.
This. Forced counseling is just harassment any way you look at it. Overt humiliation, intimidation and out right bullying.
But with oh just the best of intentions, so that makes it right, huh?
After all, we are just trying to educate you about your options. Then you can decide what you want.
Right.
I got the breastfeeding bag at the hospital. Nipple shields, lanolin, a book on how to breastfeed and a little privacy shawl. No formula coupons, just a “compliments of Enfamil” (or whoever it was) on the book. The nurses asked which bag you wanted.
Nice. Wish my hospital would have taken a page. But maybe that’s what I get for delivering at a university teaching hospital.
I also got advice to breastfeed from my GP, my OB, my OB’s nurse practitioner, my pediatrician, the L&D nurses at the hospital, and the two lactation consultants I worked with. I didn’t visit a dermatologist or a gastroenterologist during my pregnancy, so I don’t know what they would have said, but any medical professional I talked to during my pregnancy and immediately post birth offered breastfeeding support.
Granted, some of it was soft peddled (my wonderful OB said something along the lines of ‘give it a try and see and if you need a referral for a lactation consultant, give the office a call’), but there wasn’t a lack of support or a demonstrated lack of knowledge.
Lucky you. I had both my children in NYC , and at that time and place, you wouldn’t have known from the staff there was such a thing as breastfeeding. I suppose I may have been asked when I was admitted whether I planned to breastfeed, but no one asked me when they decided to give each of them a bottle before they were brought to me, (c section and time of birth caused some delay) When they were brought to my room, the bassinet had a convenient six pack of formula and one of water on the bottom rack. No mention of breastfeeding from the nurses, much less support. I certainly wouldn’t have decided to bottle feed because I was given a few three dollar coupons- but perhaps if they hadn’t made the formula quite so convenient ( for both me *and *the nurses) I wouldn’t have given up so quickly.
This is yet another stupid thing from Bloomberg.
I delivered my daughter last year in an NYC hospital that is working toward being Baby Friendly certified. I will say upfront that I mostly had a positive experience, I thought my medical care was excellent, and the staff were all friendly, kind people.
But MAN ALIVE, the pro-breast feeding message was annoying as sin. I am an intelligent, college-educated person who received, and for the most part appreciated, a ton of breast feeding information from my OB, in childbirth classes, from strangers on the street … and my decision was to go with a combo of breast feeding and formula.
In the hospital, EVERY TIME I asked for formula, I got a weird combo of a lecture and pep talk, and it was condescending and, well, if you don’t like being lectured, imagine how much more infuriating it is when you’re already uncomfortable for having blood and tissue ooze out of you, hooked up to a bunch of IV tubes, really tired, and having to listen to the lecture over the sound of your crying baby. By day three, I knew which nurses I could ask for formula and we would both pretend there had been a lecture. If I had had my druthers, or could go back in time, the one thing I would change about my birthing experience would have been to nicely but firmly let the staff know to STFU on this issue right out of the gate. Or the birth canal, if you will.
My swag bag was actually very nice and included pro- nursing items like cream and pads, and formula because I asked for it.
We went on to be very happy with the breast feeding and formula combo.
I’m sure I’m the only Doper mom to say it, but I bottle-fed happily. The only reason why I tried breast is because I was guilted into it. I hated it and it was a waste. I have no regrets. Fuck.Bloomberg- I honestly think the bottle made me a better mother.
Some mother/baby pairs just can’t breastfeed for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with the mother’s efforts or intentions. Making it difficult and humiliating to feed your newborn baby is misogynistic, ignorant, cruel, and just plain moronic. I hope this initiative gets stomped.
I agree. There are far better ways to help us create healthy babies and happy mothers. IMO, health and elected officials right now should prioritize vaccine education as much as possible as a baby well being initiative. We’re dealing with yet another outbreak of measles around here as well as local cases of whooping cough.
If the mayor really wanted to help breastfeeding mothers he would push for a year’s paid maternity leave on a national level but even as a RINO he still won’t.
More reasons New York is becoming the butt of jokes across the country.