Addressing Breastfeeding Disparities in Social Work Carol Grace Hunt (Report‪)‬

Choosing to breastfeed is a concern with impact reaching beyond each individual mother and child to longer-term health outcomes for society. Medical research supports human milk as the gold standard of infant nutrition. Protection from the common cold, ear infections, diarrhea, bacterial meningitis, and allergies as well as lowered risk of sudden infant death syndrome, postneonatal mortality, asthma, cancer, diabetes, and childhood obesity are conferred through breastfeeding. Even better eyesight and higher intelligence have been linked with breastfeeding (Section on Breastfeeding, 2005). In addition, breastfeeding protects women against postpartum bleeding and assists with postpregnancy weight loss. Lowered risks of ovarian cancer, breast cancer, and osteoporosis are longer-term women's health outcomes (Section on Breastfeeding). Recognizing these health benefits, the U.S. government has made increasing breastfeeding a major public health goal for 2010 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office on Women's Health [HHS, OWH], 2000). Unfortunately, mothers who are poor, young, less educated, or black are the least likely to breastfeed (Li, Darling, Maurice, Barker, & Grummer-Strawn, 2005). Given the health disparities the low-income population already suffers in the United States, it is all the more important that low-income people have greater access to health protective factors available through breastfeeding. BREASTFEEDING AND SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES