It seems that the saying, "Breast is best!" is impacting American women into a nursing phenomenon.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a report saying:
About 77 percent of new mothers breast-feed, at least briefly. According to Jeff Lancashire, a CDC spokesperson, it looks like it is an all-time high.
To see the numbers, read more.
The report surveyed mothers of 434 infants from the years 2005 and 2006. The group that had the highest increase in nursing was African American babies. In 1993–1994, only 36 percent were breastfed compared to a current 65 percent status.
Whatever the reason, the CDC is thrilled at the new findings and can pat itself on the back for informing new mothers on the importance of breastfeeding their babies.
Source
Panache
Dries Van Noten
Vivien Caron
That's great! Breastfeeding is awesome =)
1Wouldn't the all-time high be 100%... back in the day?
2ha ha nice one lilruck
3I am so worried about it but i'm going to do it
thats good to know.
4Don't worry anniebananie. Line someone up who you can call for help and then just relax and go for it! I didn't even read a single article about it before I had #1, then she was a terrible nurser so I contacted a lac. consultant and everything worked out great. Good luck!
5I'd like to see statistics enumerating the percentage of mothers that continued to breastfeed and for what length of time.
6I certainly plan on breastfeeding!!
And if this is the report I was reading about on CBB then they count pumping and bottle feeding the breast milk as breast feeding too. ... Nothing wrong with that just a little FYI for everyone!
Oh and lilruck I don't know if it would have ever been 100%. I'm a social studies education major and you'd be surprised at the amount of people who used wet nurses.
7Me too, duck duck. Although it did say this number includes any woman who BF for any length of time (like me who only partially BF for 3 weeks--I'd hardly count myself as a BFer). But I would like to see stats on exclusive BFers for a significant period of time. Many woman I know give it up fairly quickly.
8I am so happy about this. I loved nursing my daughter it was one of the most cherished experiences about motherhood I've had. So keep it up already nursing moms and it's really easy when you and you little one get the hang of it (Chloe and I took a week and lots of help from the hospital staff and my sister who coached me along)
9This is wonderful news. And, I'm sure a lot of the people counted in these numbers only tried briefly, but at least they tried! The more people try, the more people succeed. Now that they have successfully convinced people to at least give it a try, perhaps they can focus on giving people the support they need to stick with it.
kikidawn - Wet nurses were just substitute breastfeeders, no...? So, it still may have been very near 100% back in the day.
10true jennifer76, I guess just the way I took the report ... it was talking about direct mothers. I don't think they included people who buy breast milk and feed that to their babies (like adoptive parents or mother's whose supply is not good) ... which is what a wet nurse is.
11good news.
12It's good to know the numbers are going up. I know for most it's really difficult at first but eventually you get the hang of it. My daughter is four months old and we're still going strong.
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