Amy,
This is something I found (below) when I wanted to illustrate the
relative riskiness of not using a car seat versus not breastfeeding.
It would be a good start for your comparison.

If you ONLY add up the deaths from illnesses where they give numbers
below (gastrointestinal and respiratory illness), you come up with a
minimum 750-900 deaths per year in *infants* in the US from not being
breastfed.  This is without counting deaths in older children, or
including any other illnesses, virtually all of which are known to
occur more frequently in non-breastfed children.

For my purposes, I compared those numbers to these ones:  according
the the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration
(http://www.nhtsa.gov) in the US, there are about 500 deaths per year
in children *ages 4 and under* due to car crashes.  If ALL of those
deaths were preventable with proper restraints, that's still a
maximum of 500.  And of course many of those 500 are older than
infancy; the number of infant deaths in car crashes is probably under
200, of which only some would have been preventable with correct car
seat use.

The upshot is that many more babies in the US die from not being
breastfed than from improper car seat use.  Yet everybody knows it's
irresponsible to not put your child in a car seat.

Margaret
LLLL
Longmont, CO

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Side Effects of Not Breastfeeding Newborns

The disadvantages to infants, children, and adults of not being
breastfed include:

Gastrointestinal Illness: At least 400 infants die annually in the US
from diarrheal disease; an estimated 250-300 of these deaths are
attributed to not being breastfed.

Respiratory Illness: Between 500 and 600 infants die annually in the
US from acute respiratory disease attributed to not being breastfed.
The risk of fatal or nonfatal respiratory infections is two- to
five-fold higher among formula fed infants.

Otitis Media: Ear infections occur more frequently in infants who are
not breastfed.

Bacteremia and Meningitis: There is a fourfold higher risk of
bacteremia and meningitis among babies who are not breast-fed.

Juvenile Diabetes: More than 100 studies indicate that breast-feeding
can delay or prevent the onset of diabetes in children.

Malignant Lymphomas: A six- to eight-fold increase in the risk for
lymphomas among children younger than 15 years has been found in
children who were not breastfed for at least 6 months.

Breast Cancer: Having been breastfed as a child reduces breast cancer
risk in women over 40 by more than 25%.

Pediatric News 33(1):37, 1999

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



>does any one have a side by side comparison of risks of disease from smoking
>w/ risks of disease from formula feeding? (I don't mean that it has to be the
>same diseases just to juxtapose the strength of the cases) I'm preparing a
>talk to give other docs (peds OB's) I want to make the case that it's NOT an
>equal "choice" for mom - they would never say "okay go ahead and smoke- you'll
>probably be just fine"
>
>please priv email me b/c I'm having a hard time sifting thru and keeping up
>with the flood of mail that lactnet generates
>
>thanks,
>Amy Kotler MD
>Dover Pediatrics, NJ

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

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