I am currently writing a submission to a Canadian government commission on
health care regarding the cost effectiveness of breastfeeding. I have what
I believe are the important references showing cost effectiveness of
breastfeeding in terms of reduced illness and disability. One of these, for
example, is the USDA Economic Research Service's 2001 report "The Economic
Benefits of Breastfeeding", by Jon Weimer,
http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/fanrr13/.
I have started to gather references regarding programs and interventions
showing, for example, increases in breastfeeding rates and duration and/or
reports of more positive attitudes towards and greater knowledge of
breastfeeding. Two more recent references are:
Raj VK, Plichta SB. "The role of social support in breastfeeding promotion:
a literature review." J Hum Lact 1998 Mar;14(1):41-5.
de Oliveira MI, Camacho LA, Tedstone AE. "Extending breastfeeding duration
through primary care: a systematic review of prenatal and postnatal
interventions." J Hum Lact 2001 Nov;17(4):326-43.
However, I have nothing to show the cost effectiveness of a government
putting money into
lactation services, peer support programs, education programs, etc. in order
to increase the incidence and duration of breastfeeding and/or the
effectiveness of putting money into breastmilk banks.
It is (unfortunately) not enough to show that breastfed babies cost the
healthcare system less money. As politicians, they need to be able to
justify putting money into new programs or adding money to existing
programs. So we need not only numbers, but dollar figures, and good studies
where they actually had a control group. We need to be able to show that
more money now will equate to less money later.
On June 20th, Marsha Walker wrote with respect to the proposed data
collection project by LACTNET members: "This might even be the beginnings of
a cost effective analysis of lactation care and services, documenting the
need, the extent of the utilization, the outcomes, and the money saved to
third party payers by reimbursing for the services." Am I to take it from
Marsha's comment that no such study or analysis exists anywhere?
Someone mentioned (in the archives) that Miriam Labbok gave a talk a few
years back which included some figures re: the cost of maternity leave and
LC visits, but I can't find an article on PubMed listing her as the author
which looks as if it covers this.
I have looked in LACTNET archives and PubMed, but not found anything with
these exact specifications; however the topic is a bit nebulous and I think
you could look through a lot of posts before you found what you were looking
for. So I am asking the list, do you have any references on the cost
effectiveness of lactation support? If so, please do share.
Thanks very much in advance,
Barb Strange
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
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