Breast Feeding Saves Lives and Money
April 7th, 2010Captain Obvious strikes again.
Via: CBS News:
The lives of nearly 900 babies would be saved each year, along with billions of dollars, if 90 percent of U.S. women breast-fed their babies for the first six months of life, a cost analysis says.
Those startling results, published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics, are only an estimate. But several experts who reviewed the analysis said the methods and conclusions seem sound.
“The health care system has got to be aware that breast-feeding makes a profound difference,” said Dr. Ruth Lawrence, who heads the American Academy of Pediatrics’ breast-feeding section.
The findings suggest that there are hundreds of deaths and many more costly illnesses each year from health problems that breast-feeding may help prevent. These include stomach viruses, ear infections, asthma, juvenile diabetes, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and even childhood leukemia.
The magnitude of health benefits linked to breast-feeding is vastly underappreciated, said lead author Dr. Melissa Bartick, an internist and instructor at Harvard Medical School. Breast-feeding is sometimes considered a lifestyle choice, but Bartick calls it a public health issue.
Among the benefits: Breast milk contains antibodies that help babies fight infections; it also can affect insulin levels in the blood, which may make breast-fed babies less likely to develop diabetes and obesity.
The analysis studied the prevalence of 10 common childhood illnesses, costs of treating those diseases, including hospitalization, and the level of disease protection other studies have linked with breast-feeding.
“We know that breastfeeding gives babies important antibodies to protect against disease. We also know that breastfeeding is a way for moms to bond with their babies,” CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jennier Ashton said on the “CBS Evening News” Monday. “Today’s study is the first to look at the impact of breastfeeding exclusively for six months on reducing several major costly diseases.”
Once again the geniuses among our “scientific” elite confirm that Nature knows best — or at least better than the pathetic attempts of mankind to supplant Her.
From a scientist who got it: “Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge.”
source: http://www.thomasedison.com/quotes.html
i work in the “natural birth” industry and as a result normally encounter sensible women who have no doubt that breastfeeding is the way to go; but occasionally i have met women who utterly baffle me…
there was one family, living not insignificantly below poverty level, with their fifth (sixth?) child whom the mother chose not to breastfeed. she came back for a checkup when the infant was six weeks old and–as far as we could tell–as a result of diluting the formula which she could not afford to buy in sufficient quantity, her newborn was dangerously underweight to the brink of starvation. i will never understand why the free, nutritious abundance of her perfectly functional breasts was a worse choice for them than formula.
kevin, you should’ve linked the melamine and rocket-fuel formula additives articles to this one 😛