Breastfeeding Improves Childhood Health

Breastfeeding could help save lives, money, study suggests.
The Los Angeles Times (4/4, Roan) "Booster Shots" blog reported, "If all US women followed medical recommendations to breastfeed their infants exclusively for six months, the nation could save $13 billion a year in medical costs and prevent 911 deaths." Harvard researchers made those assertions after comparing the "costs of 10 childhood diseases at current breastfeeding rates and the projected costs of those diseases if 90% of US women complied with the recommendations."
The "magnitude of health benefits linked to breastfeeding," the AP (4/5, Tanner) reports, "is vastly underappreciated, said lead author Dr. Melissa Bartick." According to the paper in Pediatrics, the practice may help prevent "stomach viruses, ear infections, asthma, juvenile diabetes, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and even childhood leukemia." But, while calling the "analysis compelling," a University of Chicago pediatrician "also said mothers who don't breastfeed for six months shouldn't be blamed or made to feel guilty, because their jobs and other demands often make it impossible to do so."