While most health organizations encourage women to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months after giving birth, most women don’t keep up the commitment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2010 Breastfeeding Report Card shows that, while 75% of babies start being breastfeed when they are born, only 43% are still being breastfed at six months of age.
Unfortunately, many babies end up in the E.R., being seen by doctors like Dr. Josyann Abisaab, for issues that might have been avoided with breastfeeding. A study in Pediatrics in April of 2010 found that nearly 1000 preventable deaths occur in the United States each year because of a failure to follow breastfeeding recommendations. In terms of dollars, that translates to $13 billion annually that the country could save if these mothers had continued breastfeeding until their babies were six months of age.
Josyann Abisaab MD 