JAMA-Pediatrics Article Discredited as “Based on a False Claim”
An August 2016 article in JAMA-Pediatrics questioned the safety of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative and the practice of mothers and infants remaining together throughout the hospital stay. After more than a year of damaging public debate, and the revelation that one author failed to disclose a conflict of interest before publication, this article has now been further discredited in a November 2018 post on Huffpost entitled “Influential article against Baby-Friendly is based on a false claim.”
The author, Melissa Bartick, MD, MSc, FABM, states that “upon obtaining the actual Massachusetts infant mortality dataset from 2004-2013 used by Bass and colleagues, I found that the authors knowingly drew a false conclusion from the data, and that furthermore, a close examination of the data does not fit the timeline of implementation of breastfeeding interventions in the state of Massachusetts.”
Click HERE to read the full article on Huffpost.
