It's Time for More Moms to Breast-Feed, U.S. Officials Say

Aug. 14 -- THURSDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- With breast-feeding rates still not at the levels health-care providers and policymakers would like, two U.S. health agencies have decided it's time to take action.

Representatives of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of Women's Health, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services, are spending much of Thursday at CDC headquarters in Atlanta listening to breast-feeding experts tell them what needs to be done to get more women to breast-feed.

Then, by the middle of next year, the agencies say, they plan to issue a "Call to Action" -- a federal document that recommends specific policies and activities to address what they refer to as "an urgent public health priority."

"Helping women breast-feed is a no-brainer in the health and well-being of mother and baby," said Dr. Sheela R. Geraghty, medical director of the Center for Breastfeeding Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center. "It's a completely cost-effective mechanism to improve maternal and infant health in the U.S. And, it's an economic benefit, with less formula costs, less bottles."

"Everybody welcomes this," Geraghty said of the government's efforts. "Basically, they are trying to gather information to identify the need. We know moms in lower socioeconomic categories don't breast-feed as often as other moms and that the workplace environment [can be a hindrance]."

In the decade since the federal government issued a "Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding," some gains have been made but not nearly enough, say many experts.

According to CDC statistics, about 68 percent of women in 1999 breast-fed in the days right after birth, increasing to about 74 percent in the 2005-2006 period.

By the time their babies were 6 months old, only 32 percent of women were still breast-feeding in 1999, compared with 43 percent in 2005-06. And by the time the babies were 1 year old, the number had declined even further: to 15 percent in 1999 and 22 percent in 2005-06.