Breast-feeding Rates

From StatWiki

[edit] Percentage of Babies that Are Exclusively Breast-fed for Their First Six Months

Globally, less than 40% of infants under six months are exclusively breast-fed.

9% of babies in Niger are breast-fed exclusively for their first six months (as of 2007). That is an increase from 1% in 1998.

Less than 7% in Burkina Faso

14% in Senegal

3% in Mauritania

About 13% of babies are exclusively breast-fed in the US for their first six months.

[edit] Breast-feeding Impact on Chances of Survival

"A baby that is partially breast-fed is 2.8 times as likely to die as a baby that is exclusively breast-fed for at least five months. A child that is not breast-fed at all is 14.4 times as likely to die... 1.4 million child deaths could be averted each year if babies were breast-fed properly."

[edit] Sources

The New York Times, The Breast Milk Cure, 22 June 2011

See also, http://www.thelancet.com/series/maternal-and-child-undernutrition and http://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/