The AAP recommends a MINIMUM of one year of breastfeeding, and after that,
they say it is fine to use cows' milk.  Thus, one need never use formula.
Therefore, it's hard for me to see how lobbying by the formula company could
influence what the AAP says.  They used to say breastfeed for 6 months, and
after that cows' milk.  So they doubled their minimum recommendation for
breastfeeding from 6 months to 12 months.

I suspect they thought that was pretty darn bold for the US in 1997, and
judging from the reaction it got in the popular media, including from
pediatricians, many people in the US thought one year was an ungodly length
of time to expect "modern US mothers" to breastfeed their babies.  The AAP
recommendation was slammed as being unrealistic, unnecessary, unattainable,
unachievable, by most US women.

I suspect that they thought that, given the generally good clean water
supplies, availability of immunization and antibiotics, and lack of many
tropical diseases in the US, that US babies would probably be fine if they
were breastfed for a minimum of a year.  In general, if I live to see the
day when all US babies are breastfed for a year or longer, I'll be content.

If the AAP had gone along with WHO recommendations to breastfeed for a
minimum of two years, they probably would have been dismissed completely as
begin too far out there to take seriously.  Sad, but probably true.

Kathy Dettwyler

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