Dear Lactnet Friends:

Inspired by Norway, the only country that includes the value of human milk
in their GNP, I did a calculation of the value of the milk ingested by
babies in my city.

I got the # of live births from my City's bureau of Vital Statistics. I got
the figures  of 2007 exclusive breastfeeding for 3 months (92 days) and 6
months (183 days)  from the CDC.

I multiplied the percentages of 3 month and 6 month exclusivity  by the
number of live births to get the numbers of babies exclusively breastfed.

Linda Smith used the Kent 2006 data to calculate that an exclusively
breastfed baby ingests an average of 28 ounces of human milk per day. Lois
Arnold MPH, PhD, CLC told me that donor milk costs $4/ounce.

I multiplied the # of babies in one category by 28 to get the total number
of ounces that babies in that category ingested. That gave me 2 numbers: the
number of ounces ingested by babies that breastfed for 3 months and the
number for babies that breastfed 6 months.

Each of those total number of ounces  was multiplied by $4/ounce. I added
the total for 3 months to the total for 6 months to get a figure of $106,
584,352.00+ contributed to the local economy. The plus is for all the ounces
that I couldn't calculate because I don't know how to figure how much milk a
partially breastfeeding mother contributes.

I sent this to my State Coalition. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone did
this for their community??

warmly,

Nikki Lee RN, BSN, Mother of 2, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI, ANLC
craniosacral therapy practitioner
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com

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