OPINION: 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 baby. It's time to feed the infant.
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 landmines. The topic of whether to breastfeeding - or not - has been a highly charged one among various mothering groups.
Some militant moms go to one extreme, that not only is a bottle mom risking her child's health by not breastfeeding, but that she is selfish and lazy for not doing so.
Mothers who have been stung by the barbs of the breastfeeders strike back by calling them Nursing Nazis (and worse.)
And then there are a few mothers who believe in live and let live, whether it's breast or bottle. The battle to make mothers who don't conform feel as if they are bad mothers may be a strong incentive for them to turn their backs on formula and go back to Mother Nature.
Some who believe that breastfeeding is a mother's choice don't think that the government should be forcing hospitals to put pressure on new moms to breastfeed.
TELL US: Should breastfeeding be a private decision? Should mothers be pressured, whether by the hospital or by breastfeeding moms, to give up the bottle? Should the government be involved in this? Do you think that mothers who use formula for their children are selfish, while breastfeeding moms are saintly?
What do you think?
Melissa
7:00 pm on Wednesday, February 20, 2013
I do think that hospitals should try and little harder and give moms a little more support to breastfeed. Too often the support is lacking. We need a more supportive culture because breast truly is best for babies.
Rosemary Molinaro
8:51 am on Thursday, February 21, 2013
I do not think the government has any place in swaying new mothers to breastfeed. This information and support can and should come from her OB/GYN or the maternity staff at the hospital. Breastfeeding is a very personal choice and not all women want to or can do it. Let's stop giving the government so much control of our personal lives.
Grunt
9:37 am on Thursday, February 21, 2013
Let me understand this. It is OK for the government to tell us that we all have to pay for and provide contraception for all women, but it is not OK for the government to tell women to breastfeed?
anonymous
4:12 pm on Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Hey New jersey dept of health why dont you guys just make tons of information available to every expecting mother who walks in the door and let them make up their own minds. The moment that you start encoraging this way or that you are stepping over the line. That line cannot be crossed or you will wish you were in a minefeild anonymous