Breastfeeding can save lives

Increasing breastfeeding to near-universal levels for infants and young children could save over 800,000 children’s lives a year worldwide, equivalent to 13 per cent of all deaths in children under two, and prevent an extra 20,000 deaths from breast cancer every year, a new study has revealed.

According to the study published in the Lancet, just 1 in 5 children in high-income countries are breastfed to 12 months, whilst only 1 in 3 children in low and middle-income countries are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months. Consequently, millions of children are failing to receive the full benefits provided by breastfeeding. Analysis of data from 28 systematic reviews and meta-analyses, of which 22 were commissioned specifically for the series, indicate that breastfeeding not only has multiple health benefits for children and mothers, but it also has dramatic effects on life expectancy.

For example, in high-income countries breastfeeding reduces the risk of sudden infant deaths by more than a third, while in low-and middle-income countries about half of all diarrhoea episodes and a third of respiratory infections could be avoided by breastfeeding. It also inc-reases intelligence, and might protect against obesity and diabetes in later life. For mothers, longer-duration breastfeeding re-duces the risks of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. The authors calculate that boosting breastfeeding rates for infants below 6 months of age to 90 per cent in USA, China, and Brazil and to 45 per cent in the UK would cut treatment costs of common childhood illnesses and save healthcare systems at least $2.45 billion in the USA, $29.5 million in the UK, $223.6 million in China, and $6.0 million in Brazil.