You’re listening to WPSU’s Health Minute, a collaboration with Penn State’s College of Nursing.
August is National Breastfeeding Awareness Month. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends infants be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life. Breastfeeding provides health benefits for babies and mothers.
Infants who are breastfed have reduced risks of asthma, obesity, type 1 diabetes, and SIDS.
Breastfeeding can lower a mother’s risk of high blood pressure, ovarian cancer, and breast cancer.
Low rates of breastfeeding add more than $3 billion a year in medical costs for mothers and children in the U.S.
Sixty percent of mothers stop breastfeeding sooner than they planned, often because they don’t receive necessary workplace or community support.
Breastfeeding is an investment in health for mothers and babies.
More information can be found at cdc.gov/breastfeeding.
Join us next week for WPSU’s Health Minute.
For all of our episodes, visit wpsu.org/healthminute.
I’m Cheraine Stanford, WPSU.
