Christine has asked about breastfeeding statistics in the US. If you want the
Ross statistics you can find those in:

Ryan AS. Breastfeeding continues to increase into the new millennium.
Pediatrics 2002; 110:1103-1109

We need to differentiate between exclusive breastfeeding and mixed feeding.
Ross uses mixed feeding stats when the company wants to look good. The 69.5%
initiation rate is ANY breastfeeding, including waving the baby in the vicinity
of the breast. The above article states exclusive breastfeeding in hospital is
46.3% and exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months is 17.2%. 46.3% is a far cry
from 69.5%. Recently, due to urging from the breastfeeding community, the CDC
has begun collecting breastfeeding data on the National Immunization Survey.
This provides us with data from a non-commercial and unbiased source. The first
data from this was published in the following:

Li R, et al. Prevalence of breastfeeding in the United States: the 2001
National Immunization Survey. Pediatrics 2003; 111:1198-1201. Their data says that
overall 65.1% of children had ever been breastfed. At 7 days 59.3% were
exclusively breastfeeding while at 6 months this figure was 7.9% (much lower than
what Ross claims). Other than in research done on small samples, rather than
larger populations, I am not aware of stats for 2-3 days post discharge.

I have just returned from meetings in Washington, DC of the Breastfeeding
Promotion Consortium and the US Breastfeeding Committee. Lots of breastfeeding on
the horizon.

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html