New moms have the power to save lives and money, just by breastfeeding. According to CNN, a new study published Monday in the journal Pediatrics said that breastfeeding a child for the first six months of life would save 1,000 lives and billions of dollars each year.
“The United States incurs $13 billion in excess costs annually and suffers 911 preventable deaths per year because our breastfeeding rates fall far below medical recommendations,” the report said.
The World Health Organization says infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life “to achieve optimal growth, development and health.” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention all agree that breast milk alone is sufficient for newborns and infants until they are 6 months old. Breastfeeding also reduces the risk of several illnesses, such as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and pneumonia.
However, a 2009 breastfeeding report card from the CDC found that only 74 percent of women start breastfeeding, only 33 percent were still exclusively breastfeeding at three months and only 14 percent were still exclusively breastfeeding at six months.
Why don’t women breastfeed more? Dr. Melissa Bartick, one of the new study’s co-authors, says moms aren’t to blame, because they receive mixed messages and often lack support from the moment their babies are born. She says the biggest priority should be to improve maternity care practices. In a 2007 CDC survey of hospitals and birthing centers, U.S. hospitals only scored a 63, which is a D.
Bartick says many hospitals delay immediate urgent skin-to-skin contact between mom and baby, which can make things harder for the newborn to act on its natural instincts to suckle.
Moms also need to be better educated about the importance of breastfeeding and they need adequate support after they leave the hospital in case their newborns don’t properly latch on (and therefore fail to receive enough food).
