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WORLD / Health

US breast-feeding rates rise to record high

(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-08-03 15:24

Washington - The percentage of US mothers who breast-feed their babies
has reached the highest level on record amid mounting evidence that it
provides many health benefits to the child, US officials said on Thursday.

A nursing mother holds her son in front of the Delta airlines counter
during a protest at Fort Lauderdale airport, Florida November 21, 2006.
[Reuters]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 74 percent of
American women who gave birth in 2004 breast-fed their babies for at
least some period of time, continuing an upward trend since the early
1990s.

"We've made quite a bit of progress," CDC epidemiologist Dr. Celeste
Philip, lead author of a CDC report on breast-feeding, said in a
telephone interview.

Breast-feeding rates just about reached the government's target of 75
percent, the report showed. But many women did not stick exclusively to
breast-feeding in the first months after birth as recommended by experts,
turning instead to baby formula, the report showed.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that women who do not have
health problems exclusively breast-feed their infants for at least the
first six months, with breast-feeding continuing at least through the
first year as other foods are introduced. The CDC backs these
recommendations, Philip said.

The CDC report found that among infants born in 2004, the rate of
exclusive breast-feeding through the first three months after birth was
31 percent, shy of the government's goal of 60 percent, and through six
months was 11 percent, below the government target of 25 percent.

The report detailed racial and socioeconomic disparities among women who
provide their babies exclusively breast milk in these first months, with
black, teen-age, rural, less-educated, lower-income and unmarried mothers
less likely to do so.

Progress Since the 1970s

Philip said she hoped the new statistics will prompt doctors to renew
efforts to persuade mothers to breast-feed their babies. She said the CDC
is working with hospitals to encourage support of breast-feeding in the
days after birth.

The 2004 breast-feeding rate of 74 percent was the highest since such
statistics were first kept for US women in the 1950s, Philip said. The
lowest rate on record was in 1971, when only 25 percent of mothers
breast-fed their infants amid major cultural shifts occurring in the
country.

By 1982, the rate had jumped to 62 percent. But it declined again through
the 1980s and slumped to 52 percent in 1990 before increasing to 71
percent in 2000 and continuing to rise into this decade, the CDC said.

The CDC noted that breast-feeding is associated with decreased risk for
many diseases and conditions, including ear infections, respiratory tract
infections, sudden infant death syndrome, obesity, eczema and diarrhea.

It also is associated with health benefits to women, CDC said, including
decreased risk for the most common form of diabetes, ovarian cancer and
breast cancer. "Something I think a lot of people may not realize is that
there are benefits to the mother as well as the child," Philip said.

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