Breast best for babies, mothers, economy

The study, which took data from 30 years of research, found that breastfeeding has beneficial effects in baby development and can even provide some huge benefits with the mother’s health as well, preventing cancer and potentially saving lives.

More than 820,000 children globally, the vast majority of them infants under 6 months, could be saved with improved breastfeeding practices.

In wealthy countries, breastfeeding reduces sudden infant deaths by over a third, and in low and middle-income countries, breastfeeding halves cases of diarrhea and reduces respiratory infections by a third.

The researchers from Brazil, Switzerland, New York, Baltimore and New Delhi, also studied breast-feeding’s effect on mothers’ risk of temporary postnatal infertility, breast and ovarian cancers, type-2 diabetes, post-partum weight change and osteoporosis.

By not being exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of their lives, and not continuing to receive their mother’s milk for another 6 months, millions of children are being denied the important health benefits of breastfeeding, note the authors. However, babies from low to middle-income countries fared better as only a third are breastfed until six months old. Women in poorer countries tend to breastfeed for longer than those in higher-income countries.

Plus, the report estimates enormous growth in the formula market, with sales projected to reach more than $70 billion in 2019, far more than countries spend to promote and support breast-feeding.

This video includes images from Getty Images. But for the people who are choosing to bottle feed over breast-feeding – and who might reverse course if they knew more about the benefits – could anything be done to help influence them to choose breast over bottle?

However, the study highlighted that many women do not breastfeed due to a combination of government policies, weak community support and the tactics of the formula milk industry. It has been said “n” number of times that breastfeeding is very good.

Cesar Victora, of Federal University of Pelotas in Brazil, said there is a widespread misconception that the benefits of breast-feeding only relate to poor countries.

The Lancet reinforces other recent large scale evidence reviews such as a special issue of Acta Paediatrica, which stated that breastfeeding rates are responsive to interventions delivered in health systems, communities and homes, with the largest effects achieved when interventions are delivered in combination.

“Some women don’t find breastfeeding easy, a small minority can’t and others don’t want to breastfeed their baby which is entirely up to them”.

After this, there should be gradual introduction of adequate, safe and properly fed complementary foods with babies continuing to breastfeed for up to 2 years of age or more.

Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said, “The evidence from the Series could not be more clear: with its linkages to child survival and development, breastmilk is the ultimate personalized medicine”.

Political commitment and investment in breastfeeding by governments, donors, employers and civil society is urgently needed to ensure the health of women and children and to shape a more sustainable future for all. Doctors and midwives are increasingly concerned that many women become obese by gaining weight during pregnancy, which they never manage to shift after the birth.

They said: “Breastfeeding is too often siloed within agendas on nutrition or infant and young child feeding rather than treated as a key public health approach that can help prevent communicable and non-communicable disease prevention, reduce infant mortality, and lessen inequality”.