Many Women Quit Breast-Feeding Early

Insufficient maternity leave poses a significant barrier, experts say

By Karen Pallarito
HealthDay Reporter

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SUNDAY, Dec. 27 (HealthDay News) -- Though a growing percentage of American moms start their infants on human milk, relatively few continue breast-feeding for the baby's first six months of life, let alone an entire year.

Why not stick it out longer? Numerous obstacles can prove difficult for new moms, but California researchers say they found that returning to work soon after giving birth presents a major barrier to successful breast-feeding.

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"What we saw is if women take very short maternity leaves, of six weeks or less, they run more than a three times higher risk of quitting breast-feeding compared to those still at home who haven't returned to work," said Sylvia Guendelman, a professor who chairs the maternal and child health program at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health.

Their study, published earlier this year in Pediatrics, was part of a larger analysis called "Juggling Work and Life During Pregnancy," funded by the U.S. government's Maternal and Child Health Bureau.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that women breast-feed exclusively for six months and continue breast-feeding for at least an infant's first year of life. Exclusive breast-feeding -- meaning no water, juice, formula or foods -- has been shown to improve protection against many diseases, including bacterial meningitis, diarrhea and ear infections, the academy says.

In the first half of the decade, the number of breast-fed infants increased somewhat, from 71 percent in 2000 to 74 percent by the end of 2006, according to a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But those figures doesn't tell the whole story.

"Initiation of breast-feeding, although it is one measure, doesn't mean much," Guendelman said. "You can put your baby to the breast for two times and say, 'Well, I tried it and I didn't like it,' or, 'I didn't succeed,'" she said. "But what you really want to look at is, of women who initiate, how many breast-fed successfully for at least six months?"

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