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Mayor Mike to City Moms: Suckle <i>This</i>
By
Kapil Desai
Published Feb 11, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Kapil Desai
Published Feb 11, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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The man who doesn't want you to smoke in City bars or clog your coronaries with sweet, sweet trans fats now wants to do something healthy for the tiniest and newest New Yorkers. Mayor Mike Bloomberg is dropping more than $2 million on a campaign to get City run hospitals to encourage new moms to breast feed. City health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, wants babies to dine on nothing but their mothers' breast milk for the first six months of life. Right now, about 75% of New York mommies breast feed their babies but nearly 40% stop before the six month mark.
The benefits of breast feeding have been known for a while. Some include decreasing a baby's risk of obesity, asthma, diabetes, leukemia, or lymphoma. Breast milk also protects against infection with maternal antibodies and helps build a stronger mommy-baby bond. Breast fed babies may also grow up to have higher IQs.
But despite the great perks (no pun intended) of breast feeding, not all new moms may want to breast feed and some simply are unable to do so (although maybe they could farm the job out to a friend).
City hospitals recognize that they can't force women to breast feed. One tactic they may use instead includes the cessation of providing mothers with free baby bottle and formula samples. Instead, they may provide ice packs that would be used to chill pumped milk. Now if only there were more places around where women could breasfeed in peace.
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Kapil Desai
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