Costs of not nursing
About 85 percent of U.S. women have at least one child, and based on information about the virtues of breast milk for all those babies, most health agencies recommend that when biologically possible and safe women breastfeed infants exclusively for the first six months with the option of introducing complementary foods in addition to breast milk through 12 months.
Almost three quarters of women in 2005 (the latest year for which data are available) started breastfeeding their infants shortly after birth. By six months, however, only 42 percent of women were still feeding their babies any breast milk at all (with 12 percent still feeding exclusively breast milk at that point). Considering the improved health outcomes for the infants alone, the U.S. could save about $13 billion each year on medical costs if 90 percent of women nursed their infants exclusively for the first six months, according to an analysis by led by Melissa Bartick of the Department of Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, published March 2010 in the journal Pediatrics. And that sum says nothing of the money that might be saved on health costs for mothers if they breastfed, which Bartick estimates would be "significant."
Costs of not nursing
About 85 percent of U.S. women have at least one child, and based on information about the virtues of breast milk for all those babies, most health agencies recommend that when biologically possible and safe women breastfeed infants exclusively for the first six months with the option of introducing complementary foods in addition to breast milk through 12 months.
Almost three quarters of women in 2005 (the latest year for which data are available) started breastfeeding their infants shortly after birth. By six months, however, only 42 percent of women were still feeding their babies any breast milk at all (with 12 percent still feeding exclusively breast milk at that point). Considering the improved health outcomes for the infants alone, the U.S. could save about $13 billion each year on medical costs if 90 percent of women nursed their infants exclusively for the first six months, according to an analysis by led by Melissa Bartick of the Department of Medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, published March 2010 in the journal Pediatrics. And that sum says nothing of the money that might be saved on health costs for mothers if they breastfed, which Bartick estimates would be "significant."
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