Increasing number of hospitals banning gift bags containing samples of infant formula

Mar 1 2007

An increasing number of hospitals across the U.S. in an effort to promote breast-feeding are banning free gift bags that contain samples of infant formula, which often are given to women when they leave the hospital after delivery, the Wall Street Journal reports.

According to the Journal, critics of the gift bags say they discourage women from breast-feeding and represent an endorsement of formula-feeding by health professionals. A 2006 Government Accountability Office report found that a majority of studies it reviewed found lower breast-feeding rates among women who received the gift bags; a 1992 study in the journal Pediatrics found that women who received a breast pump in discharge bags breast-fed for longer than women who received formula; and a 1998 report in the Journal of Human Lactation found that black women receiving government food assistance who got formula samples were nearly six times less likely to breast-feed seven to 10 days after birth than other women. Legislation that would ban the gift bags has been proposed in several states -- including California, Massachusetts and Texas -- but it has have "repeatedly failed" to pass, the Journal reports. Some advocates of breast-feeding are focusing their efforts to ban the gift bags at individual hospitals rather than backing legislation, according to the Journal. Although only a small number of hospitals have banned the giveaways, Kaiser Permanente stopped distributing formula samples at its 19 facilities in 2005, and other facilities such as Brigham and Women's Hospital, Winchester Hospital and Berkshire Medical Center recently have instituted bans. New York City's 11 public hospitals last month began a program to stop offering the samples within the coming months and to implement other "breast-feeding friendly" measures, Deborah Kaplan -- assistant commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene's maternal, infant and reproductive health division -- said.

Reaction
Anne Merewood, co-chair of a campaign called Ban the Bags and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine, said, "We would like every hospital in the country to stop giving out bags," adding, "We're not going to win it on grounds of breast-feeding alone; we're going to win it on the grounds of not using hospitals for marketing." According to the Journal, formula manufacturers support breast-feeding but want to offer samples for women who are unable or who prefer to not breast-feed. Formula manufacturers also have said full-time employment and other circumstances, not formula samples, explain why some women do not breast-feed. Gail Wood -- a representative from Bristol-Myers Squibb, which markets the infant formula Enfamil -- said the gift bags are about more than formula and are "a great way for moms to get all kinds of information." According to the Journal, some hospitals have said concerns about being influenced by the formula makers are prompting them to reconsider offering the samples (Zimmerman, Wall Street Journal, 2/27).