Who Really Breastfeeds?
By Dr. Brian McDonough, Medical Editor
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The World Health Organization recommends that women breastfeed for the first six months of life. But what do most women do?
Researchers from the CDC have looked at the statistics and what they have found is that when pregnant women were asked about their breast feeding plans, 85 percent said they hoped to breast feed for the first six months of their babies life. But follow up reports found only a little more than 32 percent did it.
In case you are wondering who tended to breast feed the longest, it is married women who already have had one or more children. In addition, those who began breast feeding an hour after birth did well with it.
The report is in the journal Pediatrics and it is designed to help pediatricians, obstetrician and doctors to be armed with more information when counseling new mothers.
