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Subject:
From:
Judy Canahuati <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 20 Oct 1996 14:02:16 EDT
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Nofia: In Felicity Savage King's book Helping Mothers to BF, chapter 3
has a detailed explanation on how to calculate the cost of ABM feeding.
She says that during the first month of life the baby needs 5 one lb.
cans of formula, in the second month 6.5 cans and in the third, 8 cans
each month through month six only.  She has no calculation on pre-mixed,
but the chapter in Auerbach and Riordan on "Tides in BF Practice"
indicates that Jelliffe and Jelliffe estimated about 150 cans of
pre-mixed in the first six months.

After 6 months it is more difficult because food is being added.  I've
not seen any recent estimates of how many bottles and teats are used in
a year.  Cost of electricity would vary.  In 1990, Sandy Huffman and
Ruth Levine wrote a Workbook for Policy Makers and they also estimated
the Economic Value of Breastfeeding.  In that book they said that most
estimates didn't take into account the cost of bottles, teats,
sterilization, etc., not to mention the mother's time costs for all of
this preparation, cleaning, etc.

Of course, the now famous Kaiser Permanente Study estimates at least a
saving of over $1400 in costs to health providers for a modest reduction
in illness.  Turn it around an figure the co-pay for the health visits
that a formula feeding parent would have to make as well as time spent,
transportation costs, etc.

The group that tried to estimate the cost effectiveness of bf promotion
through hospitals came to the conclusion that bf promotion was one of
the most cost-effective strategies around and they didn't even take
costs of illness into account, or costs of formula preparation.  They
just calculated cost in relationship to the risk of mortality during the
first year of life in the developing world.

I suspect that any calculation that WIC will have made will be an
incomplete calculation because they calculate the cost of what they
provide as well as the cost of the food pack for the non-breastfeeding
mother.

This sounds like a wonderful thesis for someone doing health economics.
Any takers?

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