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Great Stats on Who Breastfeeds

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Monday, January 15, 2007

Well...ok, on who attempts to breastfeed. Initiation rates don't always seem to be indicative of actual breastfeeding rates. Especially since only about 25% of the moms that I know who attempted to nurse were still doing so at the end of the first week.

Anyway, Tanya over at the Motherwear Blog has a really interesting point that examines the CDC data for 2006 and breaks breastfeeding moms down by race, class and other social factors.

From her post...

Race. Rates of breastfeeding were 81% for Asian Americans, 79% for Hispanics/Latinas, 75% for Whites, 67% for Native Americans, and 59% for African Americans.

Mothers' age. 50% of women under 20 breastfed, 68% of women between 20 and 29 breastfed, and 77% of women 30 and over breastfed.

Education. 63% of women with less than a high school diploma breastfed, while 84% of college graduates breastfed.

She's also got a state by state map that shows the rates. It was pretty sad to see my own home state of Ohio down toward the bottom of the list. Of course neighboring states Kentucky and West Virginia are in the bottom five. We've got a lot of work to do ladies...

A LOT of work.

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  1. Blogger tanya@motherwearblog | 8:22 PM |  

    I know - I thought of you when I saw that Ohio wasn't looking too great on that map!

    In response to a reader's question I also posted overall statistics on breastfeeding duration. Here they are:

    Ever breastfed: 73%
    Any breastfeeding at 3 months: 53%
    Exclusive breastfeeding at 3 months: 39%
    Any breastfeeding at 6 months: 39%
    Exclusive breastfeeding at 6 months: 14%
    Any breastfeeding at 1 year: 20%
    Any breastfeeding at 18 months: 7%

    - Tanya

  2. Blogger licoricemint | 2:00 AM |  

    Great blog. I am still breastfeeding my baby who is 8 months. I live in Australia, where breastfeeding rates are pretty good, however I gave birth in the UK, where there is a big push on to increase the rate. In the UK as a whole, one fifth (21%) of breastfeeding mothers stopped within the first two weeks and over a third (36%) within the first six weeks.

    These rates have a lot to do with socio-economic class, ethnicity and age (under 20s breastfeed less).

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