NEW YORK — A growing number of Americans
incorrectly believe that infant formula is as good as breast
milk, while more are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with
mothers breast-feeding their infants in public, the CDC said.
"The findings underscore the need to
educate the general public that breast-feeding is the best
method of feeding and nurturing infants," Dr. Rowe Li and
colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
in Atlanta write in the January issue of the Journal of the
American Dietetic Association.
Li and her team note that while health
experts recommend infants be breast fed for at least a year,
and receive breast milk alone until they reach six months of
age, the percentage of US infants exclusively breast fed at
six months is 14 percent, while just 18 percent continue to
receive breast milk at 12 months of age. The same survey,
conducted in 2004, found 71 percent of children had ever been
breast fed.
To investigate public attitudes toward
breast-feeding, which play a key role in whether a woman
decides to initiate and persist with breast-feeding, Li and
her team compared results from two nationwide surveys
conducted in 1999 and 2003 by the public relations firm Porter
Novelli.
In 1999, 14.3 percent of those surveyed
agreed that "infant formula is as good as breast milk,"
compared to 25.7 percent in 2003, the researchers found.
And there was a small increase in the
percentage of people who agreed with the statement that
"mothers who breast-feed should do so in private places only,"
from 34.8 percent to 37 percent. The percentage who said they
were comfortable being near a mother breast-feeding her infant
in public fell from 49.9 percent to 48.1 percent.
While rates of breast-feeding among US
mothers have been on the rise since 1990, Li and her team
note, the percentage of women who started breast-feeding fell
for the first time between 2002 and 2003, from about 70
percent to 66 percent.
"The findings imply that despite widespread
information on the benefits of breast-feeding, the trend in
national opinion might be that infant formula is as good as
breast milk," Li and her colleagues state.
This may at least in part be due to the introduction of
formulas that contain long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids
in 2002, the researchers note, which have been advertised as
"mimicking the positive influence of breast milk" on brain and
vision development. Also, the researchers note, spending on
advertising for infant formula rose from $29 million in 1999
to $46 million in 2004. – Reuters
