The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding for the first 6-12 months of your child's life. So how are we doing, America? Well, only 36% of babies are still nursing at the 6 months mark. FAIL! What is going on here? According to a New York Times review of the report, culture and education play a big role in determining who will keep breastfeeding. Hispanic women, women from Western states, and the women with more money and schooling maintain the nursing relationship. Smokers, WIC recipients, Northeasters, and women who had to return to work were more likely to drop it.
A new study of children in Belarus shows that those who were breastfed as infants had higher IQ scores by age 6. I know that doesn't mean it's a causal relationship, and the mean difference was +5.9, so it's not like the kids were a gulp of milk away from genius--but still, shouldn't we as a society push to make the breastfeeding of infants as easy as it can possibly be?
