Health care expenses are out of control, but solutions are within reach. But the U.S. does not appear to be paying attention. You see, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has found that nursing for children over six months of age drops off significantly, well below what their Healthy Individuals requirements recommend. Medical experts believe that this breastfeeding reduction increases pediatric costs dramatically, as children who don’t breastfeed have been proven to be more susceptible in general to a variety of diseases that have contributed to increased rates of infant mortality.
Nutritious Individuals were breastfed as children
”Meeting the national nursing initiation goal is a good accomplishment in women’s and children’s overall health, but we have more work ahead,” said CDC Dr. William Dietz to the medical omnibus online publication Medpage Today. Considering the numbers the CDC has discovered – only 43 percent of United States infants still breastfeeding at 6 months, down to 22 percent at one year – America has a long way to go.
Breastfeeding in troubled waters
Breastfeeding rates vary wildly by state within the 2007 CDC Nutritious Individuals study – 90 percent of newborns are nursing in Utah, versus about 53 percent in Mississippi, for example. The stance state governments take on breastfeeding plays an important role within the CDC study. The CDC study found that there were 21 states without appropriate breastfeeding facilities or hospitals that scored low for maternity conveniences and lactation and latching instruction. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, there has been improvement on the legislative level since the 2007 CDC study, but there remain states that do not have specific laws guarding the right to breastfeed outside the home in an area other than a cramped restroom. Considering the 2009 Facebook scandal where photos of breastfeeding mothers were removed from the site, questions nevertheless exist as to how civilized Americans are as a culture. And if the details surrounding the long-t! erm boycott of infant formula maker Nestlé are indicative, the culture of hostility toward breastfeeding extends far beyond this nation’s borders.
Be prepared to pay intensely if you turn your back on nursing
According to Dr. Melissa Bartick of Harvard Medical School and Arnold Reinhold of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, the growing absence of colostrum-rich breast milk in children’s diets has caused pediatric costs to skyrocket. Their report within the journal Pediatrics states that “$3.6 billion might be saved if breastfeeding rates were increased to levels of the Nutritious Individuals objectives”. That’s 2001 info. Updated, the author’s study bears even more sobering numbers. Bartick and Reinhold found that if kids six months and under were fed breast milk exclusively at the CDC Nutritious People level of 90 percent, American families could conserve “$13 billion per year and prevent an excess of 911 deaths, nearly all of which would be in infants”.
What about infant formula? When inferior to breast milk in terms of disease prevention and growth promotion, it is also costly. There might be medical reasons why a mother cannot breastfeed, in which case formula is OK, even if it is too costly for Americans who need money. Needing payday cash advances for infant formula powder is not a good place to be, financially.
Additional reading
Pediatrics
pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/peds.2009-1616v1
CDC Breast Feeding Report Card
cdc.gov/breastfeeding/pdf/BreastfeedingReportCard2010.pdf
Medpage Today
medpagetoday.com/Pediatrics/GeneralPediatrics/22162
National Conference of State Legislatures
ncsl.org/default.aspx?tabid=14389
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_milk
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