TELL US: Should the Government Tell New Moms to Breastfeed?
The NJ Department of Health may be giving hospitals guidelines on swaying new mothers to choose breastfeeding over bottles. Should that be the role of government?
A new mother has just delivered a healthy, crying cherub of a baby. It's time to feed the infant. What could be more natural or healthy than breastfeeding? The New Jersey Department of Health has just issued what may become new rules for hospitals to encourage and teach their new moms to breastfeed their infants and wean the mothers off using baby formula. The goal is "to increase exclusive breast-feeding rates, improve health outcomes of mothers and infants, reduce childhood obesity rates and contain health care costs," the Department of Health told the Star-Ledger. That would make New Jersey one of four states with written guidelines for hospitals on breastfeeding. By doing so, the Department of Health may have walked into a field of …
LFW
6:36 pm on Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Thanks for your comment. These new regulations do not tell anyone what to do in terms of infant feeding or how to care for their newborn. The purspose of regulations is to assure that hospital care and care providers are well positioned to support mothers' choice whatever it is. That is not a nanny state it is simply a way to move the health system toward evidence based quality improvements in … more ›