Does the CDC carry any weight with these docs?  It's in the guidelines for
HealthyPeople 2010 that increasing breastfeeding rates and duration is an
important goal.  Here's the link to the guidelines:
<http://www.healthypeople.gov/document/HTML/Volume2/16MICH.htm#_Toc494699668
>
Objective #16.19 is quoted as "increase the proportion of mothers who
breastfeed their babies" -

The first link has a lot of references in it - these are then linked at the
bottom of the page, but I think a statement from the CDC might carry more
weight than the references themselves.  If you can't get the link - there's
a table of stated goals as compared to current rates, and then these
paragraphs of text:

Breast milk is widely acknowledged to be the most complete form of
nutrition for infants, with a range of benefits for infants’ health,
growth, immunity, and development. The benefits of breastfeeding include
decreased new cases or severity of diarrhea,25, 26, 27, 28, 36 respiratory
infections,29, 30 and ear infections,26, 31, 32among others, and reduced
cost to the family.33, 34 In addition, breastfeeding has been shown to
improve maternal health, with demonstrated effects, including reduction in
postpartum bleeding,35 earlier return to prepregnancy weight,36 reduced
risk of premenopausal breast cancer,37 and reduced risk of osteoporosis,38
continuing long after the postpartum period. In general, the American
Academy of Pediatrics considers breastfeeding to be “the ideal method of
feeding and nurturing infants.”10

Universal breastfeeding is not recommended in the United States. Women who
use illicit drugs, who have active, untreated tuberculosis, or who test
positive for HIV, as well as those who use certain prescribed drugs, should
not breastfeed.11, [97] In general, however, increasing the rate of
breastfeeding, particularly among low-income and certain racial and ethnic
populations less likely to begin breastfeeding in the hospital or to
sustain it throughout the infant’s first year, is an important public
health goal.

Rates of breastfeeding are highest among college-educated women and women
aged 35 years and older. The lowest rates of breastfeeding are found among
those whose infants are at highest risk of poor health and development:
those aged 21 years and under and those with low educational levels.
However, many of these groups have shown the greatest increase in
breastfeeding rates since 1989. Rates of breastfeeding among African
American women during the postpartum period increased 65 percent, and rates
of African American women breastfeeding at 6 months grew 81 percent between
1988 and 1997. Breastfeeding rates among women aged 20 years and under at
both periods also increased substantially, as did those among women with a
grade-school education.12 While these improvements are encouraging,
education of new mothers and their partners; education of health providers;
changes in routine maternity ward practices; social support, including
support from employers; and greater media portrayal of breastfeeding as the
normal method of infant feeding are needed to increase breastfeeding rates
among those at highest risk.

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

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(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html