By the time those first 48 hours had passed, my child was dehydrated — starving for sustenance — and at the hospital no one said a word to me about it. No doctor said: “if he doesn’t have a wet diaper he may not be getting enough liquid. Or, if you’d like, you could give him some formula.” No doctor or nurse ever mentioned the word formula.

According to the “baby-friendly” protocol, hospitals are not “to give infants food or drink other than breast milk, unless medically indicated.” The very mention of formula is prohibited, because it “discourages mothers from initiating and/or exclusively breastfeeding their infants.”