A majority of facilities advised women to limit the time babies spend breast-feeding and gave them samples of infant formula to take home. They often gave pacifiers to healthy babies and some fed the infants sugar water.

Those practices undermine breast-feeding, according to the report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. States with the lowest scores - Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia - also have the lowest percentages of children breast-fed for six months.

"A substantial proportion of facilities used maternity practices that are not evidence-based and are known to interfere with breast-feeding," the report said, adding hospitals should consider stopping the routine handout of formula samples.

Most Utah mothers start out breast-feeding and half continue for six months, but they could get more support from hospitals and birth centers, according to the report.

The CDC ranked Utah below average on five out of seven maternity practices, including providing instruction and keeping mothers and infants together during the hospital stay. Utah scored above average for encouraging skin-to-skin contact after delivery and for newborn feeding practices.

University Hospital is trying to do better by becoming the only Utah facility certified by the World Health Organization and United Nations Children's Fund as "Baby-Friendly." To qualify, the U. must inform all pregnant women of the benefits of breast-feeding, help mothers initiate breast-feeding within one hour of birth, support mothers and infants remaining together 24 hours a day and give no food or drink other than breastmilk unless medically needed.

The U., along with other hospitals, has also stopped handing out formula samples in the gift bags it gives mothers at discharge.

But Brenda Gulliver, the registered nurse coordinating the U.'s efforts, said the hospital supports mothers who want to bottle-feed their infants. Those moms benefit from the pro-breast-feeding changes, too, she said.

"We want them to have that bonding and that closeness with the baby, too. Having the [babies] bathe in the room and having the baby close to mom after delivery - they have that opportunity to do that as well. We do not force women to breast-feed."

Cynthia Turner-Maffei, national coordinator for the Massachusetts-based Baby Friendly USA, likens giving breast-feeding mothers cans of infant formula to providing patients an oxygen tank. "The hospital's telling you at some point you're going to need this," she said.

Turner-Maffei doesn't believe hospitals intentionally try to sabotage breast-feeding, but she said "the formula industry is really deeply ingrained in our hospitals. People are being trained now to think about the pharmaceutical industry and their influence. They're not looking at formula companies in the same way."

Thursday's CDC report is based on a survey last year of 2,687 facilities, including 31 in Utah. The report said scores were higher in the West and Northeast and lowest in the South. And birth centers had higher scores than hospitals.

hmay@sltrib.com

* 70 percent of U.S. hospitals or birth centers gave breast-feeding mothers samples of infant formula as they left for home.

* 65 percent of facilities advised women to limit the duration of each breast-feeding.

* 45 percent gave pacifiers to more than half of all healthy, full-term, breast-fed infants.

* 30 percent gave sugar water and 15 percent gave water to healthy, full-term breast-fed infants.

* 17 percent gave something other than breast milk as a first feeding to more than half the healthy, full-term breast-feeding newborns born in uncomplicated Caesarean births.

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention