Nanny Bloomberg Seeks Baby Formula Restrictions
July 30, 2012 23 Comments
If you’ve ever wanted to see progressives get outraged discuss child rearing with them. Yours truly had no idea progressives were so thin skinned about children until my wife and I had our first kid. That’s when we got bombarded by various progressives both inside and outside of the church. From radical evolutionist parenting called attachment parenting to natural child birth and breast feeding, if my wife and I were ever looking for a fight or to be insulted and ridiculed we needed to do nothing more than oppose progressive child rearing, announce our intention to formula feed or have my wife declare an intention to have her babies in a hospital, with drugs or, gasp, even have a c-section. The wrath of progressive parents was sure to be felt for merely voicing an opposing view and sadly we unwittingly lost friends in the church over it.
With that history in mind, it surprised me not to see that Nanny Bloomberg wants to regulate baby formula. Apparently New York’s most powerful nanny wants hospitals to hide baby formula and brow beat women into breast feeding. So much for women choosing things for themselves. The anti-formula crusaders are to be found all over the place in the crunchy world of progressive parenting. These people love to whip out their breasts in public in order to shock and appall normal people going about their daily business. There’s something about progressives that’s off, they always seem in desperate need to shock people.
Like with most things in life, what you choose to do with your kids is none of my business. If you want to breast feed or formula feed your baby, what’s it to me? If you want to have a natural child birth or if you want drugs or a c-section, again what’s it to me? That’s not how these progressives view things though. They view it as their duty to “educate” people who disagree with them and gain new converts, these people border on being a pushy religious sect. If I had a nickel for every time my wife was told about the evils of formula feeding (never prompted of course) or the evils of doctors and their c-sections we would be millionaires. They view disagreement as not only a personal attack but also an attack on the progressive agenda whereas non-progressives view disagreement as just disagreement.
At the end of the day though, how you parent your kids is your business. If you want to do crazy things with them like sleep with them, breast feed them until they’re 8 years old or allow a baby to dictate your every waking moment, that’s your business. If I choose to put my kids on a schedule, formula feed them or if my wife chooses to have a c-section, what business is that of yours? If only it were that simple. The progressives believe they know how to run my life better than I do and as such they view it their duty to confront me on everything they consider “bad” about my parenting choices. If I won’t listen, then they’re more than willing to lobby government to write a law.
The laws begin with Nanny Bloomberg outlawing baby formula. Next thing you know Obamacare won’t pay for C-sections. Next thing you know Child Protective Services will knock on the door of families who don’t sleep together in the same bed. We conservatives will scratch our head the entire time and wonder what’s going on. Our mistake is that we have no idea what the progressives are up, we have no idea how far their tentacles reach not just in government but in philosophy. We’ve written off progressives as being anti-child because they’re pro-abortion. In reality, they have a very clear agenda that extends to parenting. So far reaching is their agenda that it has infected what would otherwise be conservative churches.
Next time Nanny Bloomberg comes out with another absurd regulation or demand, keep in mind he’s following the progressive agenda to the letter. Nothing he does should surprise us, even when he wants to severely regulate baby formula. Anyone who is surprised by Bloomberg’s attacks on need only check out the agenda at Mothering Magazine and Gentle Christian Mothers. If these people want to do weird parenting things with their kids, that’s their business. But the problem is they want to not only confront the rest of us and attack our methods but they’re willing to demand government pass laws to further their agenda. Thus, Nanny Bloomberg is in lock step with the progressive mothers. We conservatives need to do a better job of understanding these people.
About Steven
http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/ms/latchonnyc.shtml
“Latch On NYC is a citywide initiative to support mothers who choose to breastfeed and limit practices that interfere with that choice. It involves both a hospital commitment to limit infant formula promotion and a public awareness campaign on the benefits of breast milk.
Hospitals joining Latch On NYC have agreed to:
Enforce the New York State hospital regulation to not supplement breastfeeding infants with formula unless medically indicated and documented on the infant’s medical chart
Limit access to infant formula by hospital staff
Discontinue the distribution of promotional or free infant formula
Prohibit the display and distribution of infant formula advertising or promotional materials in any hospital location
Additionally, the Health Department is launching a subway and hospital poster campaign highlighting the benefits of breast milk, such as reducing the risk of ear infections, diarrhea and pneumonia.”
This is nonsense. It is not the job of government to dictate to hospitals concerning baby formula. Frankly there’s no difference between breast feeding and formula feeding. Both sides offer propaganda studies but at the end of the day there are millions upon millions of formula fed kids who are no different than their breast fed counterparts. I don’t care what people choose to do on this front but it is not the job of government to promote or demonize either.
I wonder if it has ever occurred to the progressives that some women can not breastfeed their children? For whatever reason, some women do not produce enough milk and it happens frequently.
Simply put, they need to keep their decision making to themselves. Let parents decide, instead of forcing everyone into lockstep. I’ll tell you right now, they wouldn’t have like how we raised our daughters, but they turned out quite well, if I do say so myself. With no help from progressive liberals who think they know what is best for my family.
These people have an answer for everything, they’ll insist that there’s no such thing as a woman who can’t produce breast milk. These people want to run your life. They want to control your sleeping arrangements with your kids, whether you have your sons circumcised, how you feed your babies, how you discipline your kids and how your wife has the baby in the first place. When they aren’t being pushy with people like my wife, they’re demanding government do something about it and mandate it from on high.
Let me respond to your general accusation that ‘progressives’ are idiots who don’t realize some women cannot breastfeed and ask specifically, LD, did it ever occur to you to read the details of a given program/regulation/etc. before reflexively parroting whatever the Conservabot2000 spits out?
Thought that just maybe you’d read the very comment to which you responded – didn’t even have to follow a link – and note that it says EXPLICITLY that formula is provided when medically warranted.
And maybe you’d think about it for a bit and consider that maybe it is better to not have a maternity ward act as a subsidized advertising arm of Syntex and Nestle and Abbott Labs.
And that it might do the public some good to understand that it is better, when possible, to use the equipment God gave you to nourish your baby instead of a mass produced container of chemicals – Syntex and Nestle and Abbott Labs certainly aren’t going to inform anybody.
And, most importantly, that the Conservabot2000 is biased and lying cause there is nothing in here about banning formula or mandating breastfeeding for anybody…everybody is still perfectly free to buy their formula if they want to.
Eh well.
Well, I wasn’t replying to your comment above when I made my comment, but I’ll bite.
First of all, I didn’t call the progressive idiots. That is your term, not mine. Don’t put words in my mouth.
Secondly, I am not accusing Bloomberg or the progressives of mandating anything. Neither did Steven Birn. What we are saying is that they are doing their best to pressure women who choose to feed their babies formula to make a different choice. All because these same progressives have decided breast milk is better.
They are not mandating breast milk, but they are making it extremely difficult to get in the hospital. According to what I have read, formula will have to be signed out like a medication and there has to be a specific reason for giving it to the mother. One person at the Staten Island University Hospital plainly said that one way to get more women to breastfeed their babies is to make the formula less accessible. That isn’t a mandate, but it is pressure that a new mother does not need. They should leave it up to her to decide, not corral her into making a decision based on the information they give her.
I have recent, firsthand experience with this. Our daughter gave birth to a baby boy on May 26. He had to be fed with a tube and they used breast milk to do so. It helped him tremendously, before and after his heart surgery. However, our daughter ran out of milk and had no choice but to change to formula.
I have no dog in this fight, other than to say it is not the business of a government, local, state, or federal, to tell mothers what they should feed their babies. Or how to raise them.
Apologies, LD. I guess wondering whether ‘progressives’ have thought about the most basic elements of the issue is charitable and assumes ‘progressives’ have all sorts of intellectual ability. I was wrong. Sorry.
You are currently arguing that a maternity ward giving formula only when medically necessary, which is perfectly consistent with what is best for the patient, without also advertising for and giving away medically unnecessary synthetic products from for-profit corporations is government dictating what a person should feed their baby. Seems to me that what a new mother needs is the best medical advice and care she can get from her doctors. Period. Give her that and let the marketers come for her after she leaves – leave it up to her to her go buy all the formula she wants after she is discharged. No matter how much you want this to be a step on some slippery slope to CPS being called about sleeping arrangements, it just isn’t.
“All because these same progressives have decided breast milk is better.” Or the community of medical scientists. But same difference, right?
And, of course, heartiest of congratulations on the new grandbaby!! One of my kids had early health issues, so I know how stressful that can be. I sincerely hope everybody is now happy and healthy!!
I’m all for the government not telling you what you can or can’t do with your body, your children (in terms of parenting styles that do not harm a child), or in your bedroom. But I feel like you are grouping everyone into the same negative light. Not everyone who practices attachment parenting is like this just like not every *insert religion here* person is a hypocritical, shove my religion down your throat, damn you to hell type. And if you knew anything about proponents like Dr. Sears, he says families should sleep in the arrangements that work best for YOUR family whether that may be in the same bed, the same room, or in separate rooms. And breast milk is better. There is no debating it, it’s just now that instead of using wet nurses when mothers couldn’t breastfeed themselves we have engineered a substitute that is acceptable but subpar to the natural thing. I think what the hospital is doing is great, instead of pushing formula (and you have no idea how many times a mom asks the nursing staff to not give sugar water or formula to the baby and they do it anyway) it’s there when necessary. Low income families should be happy about this seeing as breastfeeding is free and formula can cost lots of money depending on how sensitive your baby is. I feel like this post is just hateful, judgmental, and guilty of the same things it is complaining about.
I know plenty about Sears as my family was confronted by his adhearants when we had our first child. I’m sorry but breast milk is no better than formula. If you want to breast feed, go right ahead. But I have a problem with the confrontational attitude of Sears adhearants who feel the need to confront everyone who uses formula and if they won’t relent then run to government to try to ban it. The issue isn’t whether people are judgmental or disagree, I really don’t care about that. My issue is the need AP “mamas” have to confront everyone who disagrees with them or does things different. Their judgment doesn’t matter to me at all, I’m more than happy to dish out righteous judgment right back. But I’m not going to enter the home of an AP family to confront them and try to convert them to my Biblical view of parenting. They’re free to parent as they please, breast feed as they please and birth babies as they please.
Like progressive ideology, Sears offers a religion to people who fancy themselves Christians but wish to look outside of the Bible to the world for guidance or to people who otherwise don’t have a religion. Perhaps this explains the confrontational attitude and the need to convert. But that’s beside the point here I suppose.
But that IS my point. These AP “mamas” you are talking about don’t represent AP. They represent the fanatical type of person that would perform this kind of behavior regardless of what they are into. And while I can’t understand why you think formula is equal to breast milk, I’m not going to attack you for it, I would have a discussion with you about it, but that’s about as far as I would go. Because in the long run, whether a baby is breast fed or formula fed is the least of what people should worry about when it comes to younger generations. These type of people you speak of are the type to take someone’s words and twist them to mean what they want them to mean. I have read many times about how Dr. Sears gets frustrated with people campaigning in his name about things he never said or promoted. I just wish you wouldn’t group us all into the same category.
I haven’t met a single AP “mama” or “papa” that isn’t fanatical and seeking to convert. I’m not sure who you think gets to represent AP and who doesn’t get to. How does one determine who is the representative if everyone claims to be AP. It’s one of the problems the Christian faith has to contend with, I have to answer for those who I disagree with but who do evil in the name of the Christian faith. I’m never met a non fanatical AP and I’ve read plenty online from APers to conclude that a healthy majority of them are fanatical. Now, perhaps it’s the fanatical ones who like to pine away on internet message boards. But like it or not non-fanatical people such as yourself have to deal with the fall out people have with the fanaticals. You sound reasonable, you understand that what a baby eats the first six months of its life is hardly the most important issue in its life. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that there are a hoard of APers who are fanatical about it, confront formula feeders and petition hospitals and governments to ban formula.
“I’m sorry but breast milk is no better than formula.” How do you know?
Like I said earlier, their are studies on both sides of this issue. Some say formula is equal, others say it isn’t. I tend to buy that it’s equal, largely because so many millions of babies are formula fed and there is no appreciable difference between them and breast fed babies over the long haul. I have no horse in this race mind you, I’m not associated with any company that makes formula and my youngest is 1 and is no longer eligible for breast milk or formula as far as we’re concerned. Like I’ve said, I don’t care what people choose to do. But I’m not buying the notion that breast milk is better.
That wasn’t meant to be snarky/snotty… I’m honestly interested in how you’ve come to the conclusion that breast milk is no better than formula.
Absolutely fascinating.
Let the record reflect that when my wife and I had our first child we researched this extensively. There’s a lot of anti-formula propaganda out there. Ultimately we did what we wanted to do rather than worship at the alter of the latest scientific study.
Pingback: Bloomberg dictating what your baby can and cannot be fed - Watchwoman on the Wall
For the millionth time, I’ll try to leave a comment! I guess I’m just not computer literate enough for this fancy stuff of blogging! Tee hee. There is something very sinister and evil about all this breast feeding radical frenzied movement. On the cover of Time a woman breast feeding a kid old enough to be worked up by his mommy’s boobs, women in their military uniforms pulling out their huge boobs, now batty Bloomberg ordering hospitals to lock up formula. Every time these things come like contagious plagues, you can count on it, they’re up to no good. Steve is one of the bloggers I read daily and often re-post his blogs to my Watchwoman on the Wall blog. I have posted this one — and I have my own “editorial comments” there. Plus links to back up what Steve surmises and what I’ve been thinking too. Check out…Bloomberg dictating what your baby can and cannot be fed
http://blog.beliefnet.com/watchwomanonthewall/?p=18678
A lot of this is coming from the radical left parenting method called Attachment Parenting. It’s based in evolution, tons of lesbians follow it and it’s guru Dr. Sears. The problem is that Christians have gotten sucked into it by its rhetoric, they’ve twisted scriptures and so on. AP is very dangerous.
I know when I see exposed breasts on the front page of Time, a mega lib magazine, with her son sucking on her nipple looking like he’s way too tall to be doing what he’s doing, plus women in full U. S. military uniforms hanging out their breasts feeding their infant babies, that something is up. Nothing like this happens without an agenda behind it — and it’s never for the good of righteousness and Jesus Christ. It always comes from the pits of hell. Satan has a purpose here and it’s not for God’s goodness and decency in motherhood.
The radical breast feeders are rooted in evolution, just like the attachment parents. All of this nonsense has its root in Darwinism, that’s what’s up here. It’s just a practical extension of a wicked, godless ideology.
I’m a conservative, saved-by-the-blood-of-Jesus, married, heterosexual, Creationist Christian. I have four kind, polite, beautiful, well-behaved, and God-fearing children. I believe God created my children, fearfully and wonderfully. I believe He created my body to nourish them and provide them with the milk they need(ed). It seems quite logical to me to feed my babies with the substance God provided for them. I don’t find it accurate to say that man can do better than the Lord.
Your comments are angry, vitriolic, and inaccurate.
The hospital is *not* banning formula. The requirements will merely require the documentation of formula handed out. Instead of the “breastfeeding bag” of free formula that hospitals give out at birth, it will be a bag with nursing pads, cold packs, and diaper cream.
Mothers who choose to formula feed will be given formula. It will just need to be charted instead of handed out. There’s nothing to prevent it. All medications in hospitals are kept locked up to prevent theft. The same thing will now happen with formula, the theft of which is a widespread problem.
It sounds like you had some bad run-ins with people who call themselves Attachment Parents. I’m sorry to hear that. Most of us are normal people who have no interest in alienating people.
Unfortunately for you, the points you’re trying to make are lost in the anger and venom simply dripping off of the page.
I couldn’t give two hoots what other people choose to do with regards to breast feeding or bottle feeding. My issue is with radical breast feeders who want to dictate to everyone else what they must do. To ban even formula samples from getting handed out is an example of radical breast feeders trying to impose their personal preferences on everyone else.
There is absolutely nothing Biblical about attachment parenting. From its origins, attachment parenting is an anti-Christian, evolutionary practice. It treats children like animals and disregards God’s word with regards to discipline.