The truth is that for many women in the United States, where paid maternity leave and workplace support for pumping are rare, and where breast-feeding in public is stigmatized, formula is the easier choice. Many don’t have the option to breast-feed as long or as much as they would like. When hospitals provide formula starter packs, they encourage women to give up on breast-feeding and switch to formula more quickly. Instead, hospitals should help women get breast-feeding off to a good start by adapting baby-friendly policies like helping mothers initiate breast-feeding after birth, allowing mothers and babies to stay in the same room and, most important, ensuring that infant-feeding decisions are free of commercial influence.

Distributing free formula in the hospital is not about empowering women, helping them make informed choices or providing them with needed resources in tough economic times — all arguments made by supporters of the free samples. Companies provide them for the same reason they distribute swag to celebrities: it drives sales.

The infant formula market is big and growing; last month, Nestlé announced that it would buy Pfizer’s infant nutrition division for almost $12 billion. Even as hospitals try to reduce the influence of industry by prohibiting pharmaceutical companies from distributing gifts and free lunches to doctors and medical students, they continue to allow these wealthy and powerful manufacturers to promote their goods in maternity wards.

Some hospitals are beginning to push back. Sixteen percent of birthing hospitals now refuse to hand out free samples. Massachusetts nearly banned the practice in its hospitals at the end of 2005, but at the request of Mitt Romney, then the governor, the state’s Public Health Council reversed the decision. Last fall, Rhode Island became the first state to end the practice. And on Wednesday, the New York City health department began encouraging hospitals to stop the handouts. More should follow suit.