Hospitals should help new moms breast-feed

Tag : protected amino acid
Women's breasts are there for a reason. OK, two reasons. But theone that's important to a newborn baby is that breasts are a sourceof milk - milk that contains the correct nutritional balance andimmune-enhancing properties for a human infant.
But, too often, new mothers do not get the help they need in thehospital or birth center to get a good start on breast-feedingtheir babies. In fact, right from the start they may be gettingunspoken signals that babies need bottles or pacificers, and that'spatently untrue.
Hospitals, including many in Utah, give newborns water in a bottle,which just makes it more difficult to orient the little ones tonurse. And a report released by the national Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention shows that 70 percent of hospitals and birthcenters give samples of commercial infant formula to mothers whoare trying to breast-feed.
No doubt companies that sell formula do some heavy lobbying ofhospital administrators to convince them to promote their product.But the health benefits of breast-feeding should outweigh any otherconsideration, especially any commercial interest.
Not that formula is unhealthy, but it cannot compare to the milk ofhuman mothers, which contains "just the right amount of fattyacids, lactose, water and amino acids for human digestion, braindevelopment, and growth," according to the U.S. Food and DrugAdministration.