New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg is locking up the baby formula, because he wants newborns to drink breast milk instead.

He’s using his mayoral power to direct maternity-ward nurses to hide baby-milk formula after Sept. 2 so that new moms feel pressured to provide breast milk to their newborns.

Bloomberg’s mammary-mandate is supported by white-coated public-health officials, who say the scientific data shows that mothers’ milk aids infants’ digestive systems and shields them from some diseases.

His wishes are law because he controls much of the city’s health network in a city-wide version of Obamacare.

But Bloomberg’s lactate-dictate is likely to get him a slap in the face from women who prefer to choose how they will raise their children, and how they juggle child-rearing and work in a city where unemployment has reached at least 14 percent in the Bronx.

The “reality is that some women may not want to breastfeed their baby and it is simply their choice,” said Cherlyn Harley LeBon, a lawyer, mom and member of the libertarian-minded Project 21’s advisory board.

“I completely support breastfeeding our babies… [but] the government should not force them to do it,” she said in a July 29 statement.

“Mayor Bloomberg is now playing the role of pediatrician and neonatal specialist… [who has declared that] a mother is now forced to breastfeed unless she has a medical reason for not doing so.”

The story was broken by The New York Post, where commentators were merciless.

“I’m another former member of La Leche League who nursed all my kids,” said Rosemarie Scott, at Marymount Manhattan College. “I’m all for encouraging women to breastfeed but agree that this is NOT the way to do it. Leave it to Bloomberg to be so heavy-handed as to turn off even a breastfeeding advocate like myself.”

The mayor’s formula-fatwa follows his earlier effort to stop moms — or any one else — from buying cups of soda larger than 16 ounces.

Babies, however, will be pushed to drink from cups sizes A to DDD under the new rules, dubbed “Latch On NYC.”

Women who refuse to nurse their infants face no penalty, because there’s no requirement that they discharge milk before they’re discharged from the hospital.

Twenty seven of the city’s 40 hospitals are complying with Bloomberg’s nursery rules.

The breast-behest is the newest feature of Bloomberg’s big-government, nanny-state, experts-first-citizens-second, progressive outlook.

He’s a social liberal, but is eager to impose rules when allied professionals say they’re good for city government.

He’s a self-declared feminist and outspoken supporter of unrestricted abortion-choice who opposes any limit on women’s ability to buy abortion services. But once the infant escapes from the womb, they’re now under the rule of Bloomberg’s nanny-state rules.

Bloomberg’s personal involvement in the private lives of citizens extends far beyond cup sizes.

He’s an outspoken critic of protests against the now-moribund effort to build a mosque alongside the Twin Towers’ ground-zero, where Islamists killed almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

He’s been in the news recently because of his — quickly recanted — call for cops to go on illegal strikes until Americans lose their constitutional right to guns, and because of his applause for President Barack Obama’s decision in June to offer a campaign-trail de-facto amnesty to at least 800,000 illegal aliens, despite a record national unemployment rate.

New York’s unemployment rate is at least 10 percent, and half of African-American adults in the city lack jobs.

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