Maternity unit to charge £1 per bottle of ready-made formula

[stressheaderic]

I was pretty dismayed today to hear that in my local area, one of the hospitals is now charging £1 for each bottle of formula that you use post-birth - the tiny pre-mixed glass bottles with the long rubber teat.

When having my DD last year, we were told not to 'save' bottles and to use a fresh one for every feed, even when she'd only had a tiny amount. Can't think how many I used - maybe 10-15 over the duration of my (short) stay?

I remember the young girl in the bed opposite me on postnatal had no partner or visitors - she had no money on her and my DP bought her a Coke and a sandwich at midnight when he was getting me one that very first night....can't help but wonder how she'd have managed :(

NHS cuts running deeper than I thought I guess.

and how would you police who is allowed free formula and who isnt?

its not that simple and you know it, there are wide ranging medical, social, familial and emotional reasons why women cannot or choose not to bfeed, how on earth are you going to decide who can have free formula or not?

and its not the attitudes of medical staff, its their training or lack of with regards to bfeeding, how it works, what meds are and arent compatible etc that needs to be changed let alone the attitudes.

this policy is just a short sited money saving exercise that will do nothing to help increase bfeeding, but does give plenty of bad press to those that try to support bfeeding.

When I was pg with my first child we had a tour of the hospital beforehand and were shown a room where we could sterilise and make up bottles if we were choosing to formula feed. We were told we'd have to bring our own bottles and formula.

Ok, I live on the Isle of Wight, we have one hospital with three 4-bedded wards and a couple of private rooms I think for mum's who've just delivered (tiny I know!). I know this is not the case in bigger hospitals.

Anyway, I breastfed my son. I had a CS and was in hospital for 5 days. I needed nipple shields at day 3 and was given a cold water tank in the sterilising room for my own use - it had my name on it. The water was changed over by a member of staff every day. There were other mums in there as well (and dads) washing and making up bottles.

I don't really have an opinion on whether it's right or not to charge but just wanted to give this information about my own PCT.

I agree with mad4boys. The 9 days I spent at the Chelsea and Westminster seeing a different midwife every single time, 3 shifts per day, all with conflicting advice drove me nearly insane. Some midwives tried to withhold formula from me despite being told that my DS had to have it by the paeds, even though I kept saying I want to breastfeed I had to wait ages for a breastpump each time, I was told off for using the steriliser in the kitchen by some, others said I could go it there and get the stuff I needed. It was chaos and clearly for some midwives the issue of a five 5 old baby becoming dehydrated is less important than a mother exculsively breastfeeding which beggars belief. If they had better training and I had seen the same midwife for two or three days at the start I would not have been in that situation. It's the level of training and consistency of advice that is the issue not whether you have to pay or not.

When Ds was born prem I had to go and get nappies. I also had to get food brought in as I was never on the ward for meal times (even if I tried to be most of the time I missed the trolley as the timings were different every day and pretty random). He was tube fed and had a mix of bf and ff. I wouldn't have had an issue about paying for ff in the same way I had to pay for nappies. An incubator in NICU when Ds was there cost £1000 a day. I didn't have to pay for that.

Just a few years ago at our hospital you got one bottle free and provided the rest. Same with nappies. dD1 got free formula when in special care though.

I think once someone has made up their mind to bottlefeed, being charged for formula won't change their mind. On benefits, you get tokens anyway.

A that happens is midwives will give it free anyway, many people will say they have no money, DP spent it in the bookies etc

I breastfed both of mine and saw the midwives giving out tons of bottles which were stashed in bags and taken home so I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing.

But I think there is a massive marketing opportunity here though that is being missed. If SMA (for example) want to grab new customers, they get in there one day one saying 'don't buy that milk, we'll bring you some with your bounty bag my dear because we are the best' etc. Let's face it, you are pretty vulnerable when you've just had a baby.

I don't eat the food in hospital btw, that's DH's job to bring it in - so when I have a baby, neither I nor my baby gets fed by the NHS. Frankly, if they gave me a choice of paying for decent food I probably would, so wouldn't mind paying to get milk for the baby, if I needed/wanted it.