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N W H I C's Featured Health Articles Lori Feldman-Winter, M.D., FAAP

Article for October, 2004
Pediatricians Needed to Make National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign Successful.

This health article is brought to you by our Guest Editor of the month:
Lori Feldman-Winter, M.D., FAAP

As a pediatrician, and a faculty member at The Children’s Regional Hospital, University of Medicine and Dentistry, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Camden New Jersey, as well as a mother of two grown breastfed daughters, I continue to be amazed at how much further the health care system needs to evolve to meet the needs of breastfeeding mothers, children, and their families. The topic of breastfeeding, while as old as time, takes on new meaning as health care practitioners prepare to promote exclusive breastfeeding for the first half year of an infant’s life as the ideal method of infant feeding.

In this millennium, we face new challenges in the health of our nation. We are in the midst of an epidemic of obesity, the most significant yet preventable cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. More children than ever suffer from respiratory illness, and ear infections continue to be the number one reason why children visit their doctors. These are all conditions that may be prevented by exclusive breastfeeding and are contained in messages seen in the newly released National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign (NBAC).

The timing couldn’t be more perfect for a campaign. Rates of exclusive breastfeeding have staggered for the past several decades, despite a rise in overall breastfeeding initiation. It is time to re-examine the way we care for the breastfeeding dyad (mother and baby), both in the delivery hospital and after discharge. My article, “Pediatricians Needed to Make National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign Successful” urges pediatric providers to support the campaign. Research has continually demonstrated that physicians have the most powerful impact on breastfeeding success when providing positive messages and skillful management. I hope that families and health care practitioners will respond to the campaign by starting a dialogue about ways to enhance the breastfeeding experience.

Read the rest of this month's article, Pediatricians Needed to Make National Breastfeeding Awareness Campaign Successful.

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Last updated: October 2004

 


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