Tales of the Nanny State: Bloomberg commands breastfeeding!

**Posted by Phineas

Call me crazy, but isn’t the choice whether to breastfeed one’s baby one the mother should make, perhaps in consultation with her doctor?

Not when Mayor Mike is in charge!

The nanny state is going after moms.

Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed.

Starting Sept. 3, the city will keep tabs on the number of bottles that participating hospitals stock and use — the most restrictive pro-breast-milk program in the nation.

Under the city Health Department’s voluntary Latch On NYC initiative, 27 of the city’s 40 hospitals have also agreed to give up swag bags sporting formula-company logos, toss out formula-branded tchotchkes like lanyards and mugs, and document a medical reason for every bottle that a newborn receives.

While breast-feeding activists applaud the move, bottle-feeding moms are bristling at the latest lactation lecture.

“If they put pressure on me, I would get annoyed,” said Lynn Sidnam, a Staten Island mother of two formula-fed girls, ages 4 months and 9 years. “It’s for me to choose.”

Under Latch On NYC, new mothers who want formula won’t be denied it, but hospitals will keep infant formula in out-of-the-way secure storerooms or in locked boxes like those used to dispense and track medications.

With each bottle a mother requests and receives, she’ll also get a talking-to. Staffers will explain why she should offer the breast instead.

Lovely. So not only will Mike Bloomberg and his merry band of statists play hide-the-bottle to force one to breastfeed, but those who don’t get with the program will be nagged until they do — “We know what’s best for your baby. You don’t. Why do you insist on a bottle? WHY DO YOU HATE YOUR BABY??”

That’s the essence of liberal fascism, of the nanny-state, of arrogant would-be Czars like Mike Bloomberg: there is no limit, no point at which they say they control enough. Every minute aspect of your life –how much salt you use, how much soda you drink, how you feed your baby– is subject to the state’s direction.

Every. Single. Bit.

via David Freddoso

(Crossposted at Public Secrets)

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