Free | 23/6
Posted: 6/4/2012
Sarah's breastfeeding difficulties began in the hospital. Her daughter, born three weeks early, was too little to properly latch and struggled with weight gain and jaundice. When the two left the hospital, their troubles continued. Sarah, who requested her last name not be used, worked with a lactation consultant who helped some, but not enough. After six weeks of 'struggling and fighting,' she stopped nursing her daughter, though she did continue to pump and feed her newborn whatever breast milk she had.'My feelings surrounding my breastfeeding experience have been all over the place,' said Sarah, who works as a nurse in a neonatal intensive care unit. 'My feelings of inadequacy were fueled by my own insecurities as a new mom as well as others who were 'disappointed' in my inability to nurse my daughter.'According to new research published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, there are many new moms like Sarah -- women who plan to breastfeed, but for one reason or another end up changing their plans.Some 85 percent of mothers who wanted to breastfeed exclusively intended to do so for at least three months, but only 32 actually reached their breastfeeding goals. Only 1 percent of moms set out to breastfeed for less than a month, but that was exactly how long more than 40 percent of moms lasted.'What this says to me is that our low breastfeeding rates are not because women don't know about the benefits of breastfeeding, or because they don't want to breastfeed,' said study author Cria Perrine, a researcher with the division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 'It's because they're not getting support.'To study mothers' breastfeeding intentions versus the amount of time they actually breastfed, researchers relied on recent CDC data that tracked women during pregnancy and through their babies' first year. The World Hea