ATLANTA (Reuters) - Breast-feeding rates are rising among U.S. newborns, but most mothers still wean their babies earlier than experts recommend, federal health officials said on Thursday.
Some 79 percent of newborns were breast-fed in 2011, up 2 percentage points from the year before, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's annual Breastfeeding Report Card.
That number dipped to 49 percent of babies after six months and 27 percent after a year, numbers unchanged from 2010.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends breast-feeding infants for at least a year and the World Health Organization recommends two years.
Western states such as Washington, Oregon and California had the highest newborn breast-feeding rates, exceeding 90 percent.
Some of the lowest rates, in the mid 50-percent range, were in the Deep South. In Louisiana, 56 percent of newborns were breast-fed, with 30 percent still nursing after six months.
Help is increasingly available to mothers who want to breast-feed, the CDC report stated, with the number of health professionals specializing in lactation almost doubling between 2006 and 2013.
Allowing babies to have "skin to skin" contact with their mothers immediately after birth and to remain in the hospital room with them encourages breast-feeding, the CDC said.
Hospitals in the western United States allow infants to room with their mothers at twice the rate of hospitals in the Midwest and South, the CDC said.
For the first six months of life, breast milk alone is an adequate diet for infants, according to the CDC.
SOURCE: http://1.usa.gov/1lgO714 CDC Breastfeeding Report Card 2014, online July 31, 2014.
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