WASHINGTON (Reuters) – new parents coming from American hospitals are usually take home a gift corporate along with their babies: a bag full of formula milk. But now, consumer advocacy groups want to put an end to these gifts, they consider that they undermine breastfeeding.
In a letter to more than 2,360 hospitals, dozens of health organizations and consumers requested the centres to stop distributing free samples of formula milk for babies, they inserted to health providers in the marketing of pharmaceutical and food producers and that they could be considered as an endorsement.
The formula give new parents disappointed to some mothers to breastfeed, they indicated the groups in a letter sent by Public Citizen. Also calls on the leaders of the industry of formula milk (a market of 4 billion dollars, about 3,000 million euros) – Abbott Laboratories, Mead Johnson Nutrition co. and Nestle SA – to abandon the practice.
Hospitals aim to “promote the health of infants and mothers, but the current promotion of formulas collides with that mission,” Public Citizen President Robert Weissman wrote in the letter to the CEOs of hospitals.
The action is part of a renewed effort to increase us rates of breastfeeding, which is known to be conferred a wide range of health benefits, from obesity to enhance immunity, reduce and is recommended at least in the first six months of the baby’s life.
Formula milk manufacturers and hospitals defend the delivery of samples by arguing that they meet the needs of women.
Just 14 per cent of babies of six months are breastfed exclusively, a figure that officials of United States want to increase to around 26 percent by 2020. Breastfeeding is also low among women of lower income, according to data from the Government.
However, breastfeeding in United States is growing, according to the World Health Organization (who), in part because more hospitals offer support for breastfeeding and allow babies to stay in the room with their mothers.
About 66 percent of hospitals still give away the milk, as it revealed a report 2009 of the centres for the Control and the prevention of diseases of United States (CDC for its acronym in English), released last year. The number fell from almost 73 percent recorded in 2007.
Often practice consists of a bag sponsored by a company producing baby formula milk full of samples of your product, along with diapers, pamphlets, and other gifts. The samples also often send e-mail to las casas, along with coupons for more.
Some hospitals already ceased to deliver free milk, and a few States and cities banned practice.
The American Hospital Association said in a statement that its members delineated policies based on the preferences of mothers and that while breast-feeding is best, “information and resources available for new mothers who choose not to breastfeed is a responsible and appropriate approach from the hospital”.
Abbott, Mead Johnson and Nestlé representatives were not immediately available for comment.
/Por Susan Heavey /
