Want to save the U.S. $13 billion?
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Posts: 6,651
SUPPORT BREASTFEEDING!
http://www.nationalpost.com/life/health/story.html?id=7f96d855-87fb-4c44-9ac8-8d511d8203a8&p=1
If most new mothers could follow medical experts' recommendation to exclusively breastfeed for six months, the U.S. might save $13 billion in healthcare and other costs each year, a study published Monday suggests.
Researchers say the findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, underscore a need to make prolonged breastfeeding easier for women to manage.
For the study, the investigators calculated the current costs of 10 pediatric diseases for which there is evidence of a protective effect of breastfeeding -- including eczema, middle-ear infections, lower respiratory tract infections like pneumonia, asthma, type 1 diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
They then estimated what the cost savings would be if 90 percent of new mothers in the U.S. breastfed exclusively for six months, as is generally recommended. The researchers calculated the direct costs of medical care, as well as indirect expenses, such as parents' time away from work to care for a sick child.
Based on their calculations, the U.S. could save $13 billion per year, as well as prevent 911 annual deaths -- mainly from SIDS, necrotizing enterocolitis (an intestinal disorder seen mainly in preterm infants) and respiratory infections.
Government survey data suggest that while most U.S. women start breastfeeding their newborns, only 32 percent are still exclusively breastfeeding at three months, and 12 percent are doing so at six months.
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So what can YOU do to support breastfeeding?
1. Breastfeed.
2. Support maternity leave.
3. Support lactation stations.
4. Support work breaks for breastfeeding moms to pump.
5. Support insurance coverage of lactation consults.
6. Don't oppose women breastfeeding in public places.
Et cetera.
http://www.nationalpost.com/life/health/story.html?id=7f96d855-87fb-4c44-9ac8-8d511d8203a8&p=1
If most new mothers could follow medical experts' recommendation to exclusively breastfeed for six months, the U.S. might save $13 billion in healthcare and other costs each year, a study published Monday suggests.
Researchers say the findings, published in the journal Pediatrics, underscore a need to make prolonged breastfeeding easier for women to manage.
For the study, the investigators calculated the current costs of 10 pediatric diseases for which there is evidence of a protective effect of breastfeeding -- including eczema, middle-ear infections, lower respiratory tract infections like pneumonia, asthma, type 1 diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
They then estimated what the cost savings would be if 90 percent of new mothers in the U.S. breastfed exclusively for six months, as is generally recommended. The researchers calculated the direct costs of medical care, as well as indirect expenses, such as parents' time away from work to care for a sick child.
Based on their calculations, the U.S. could save $13 billion per year, as well as prevent 911 annual deaths -- mainly from SIDS, necrotizing enterocolitis (an intestinal disorder seen mainly in preterm infants) and respiratory infections.
Government survey data suggest that while most U.S. women start breastfeeding their newborns, only 32 percent are still exclusively breastfeeding at three months, and 12 percent are doing so at six months.
_____________
So what can YOU do to support breastfeeding?
1. Breastfeed.
2. Support maternity leave.
3. Support lactation stations.
4. Support work breaks for breastfeeding moms to pump.
5. Support insurance coverage of lactation consults.
6. Don't oppose women breastfeeding in public places.
Et cetera.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,
True dat on the diapers. Not bad at all, actually.
"With our thoughts we make the world"
I've heard some women don't want the risk of their boobs drooping... :roll: If its better for your baby, "man" up and give your baby the booby...
i have a friend that has a baby and she said the same thing.
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
I think most women who don't breastfeed (or don't do so as long as is recommended) don't do it because they don't have enough support.
Breastfeeding is hard. When it comes to just physically being able to do it well, women are not only infrequently taught how to do it properly, but they also have a hard time finding support when they run into road blocks. This could be helped by insurance funding of lactation consultants and better breastfeeding education for medical students and residents. Plus, it would help if we didn't have social attitudes that breastfeeding should be easy and there's something wrong with women who have trouble doing it.
Even when they are able to do it properly and overcome any physiological hurdles, I'd say social hurdles are the main problem. There is very little social support for breastfeeding, particularly within the workplace. Unless you're one of the few women who can afford to quit your job and stay home for six months to a year after each of your children is born, you have to go back to work after about 1-3 months. Exclusively breastfeeding while maintaining a job is logistically extremely difficult. You HAVE to pump every few hours. If your employer doesn't allow you the time or appropriate (clean, private) space to do this, you're screwed. This could be greatly helped through better maternity leave policies, required time and space to pump, and just a generally more family-friendly environment in the workplace. Plus, it would help if pumps weren't so damn expensive.
obviously i've never had a baby so I wouldn't know all this.
i just assumed most women get maternity leave..
i had a friend who had keiser permanente and had a baby, she said they only covered i think 48hrs in the hospital AND on that last day the staff asked her first thing in the morning if she could start getting her things together and by 1 or 2 they were saying they needed the room and she had to leave now!
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
out of curiosity, how much does it cost to have a baby in the US? like i dont mean to raise one... do you guys have to pay for having the baby in the hospital...
I live in Boston and both my children were born at Brigham and Womens Hospital, one of the most respected hospitals in New England. After my son was born in 2007, my wife requested all the medical files and paperwork regarding the cost and all. Just the delivery and the 48hr hospital stay cost around $29,000. That doesn't include the countless doctors visits and the ultrasounds over the 9 months of the pregnancy. Thank god I have a kick ass health insurance plan because all we had to pay was a $10 co-pay for the first doctors visit and the rest was covered by insurance.
9/29/04 Boston, 6/28/08 Mansfield, 8/23/09 Chicago, 5/15/10 Hartford
5/17/10 Boston, 10/15/13 Worcester, 10/16/13 Worcester, 10/25/13 Hartford
8/5/16 Fenway, 8/7/16 Fenway
EV Solo: 6/16/11 Boston, 6/18/11 Hartford,
the duggers must have one hell of a plan...
also a lot of hospitals are for profit so the cost of items can be really inflated. just an ambulance ride without insurance is $100 or so
what are you but my reflection? who am i to judge or strike you down?
"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama
when you told me 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'
i was thinkin 'death before dishonor'
In the U.S., employers are only required to give you 12 weeks off work, UNpaid, before they can give your job away. If you can't afford to have no income for 12 weeks, you're fucked. Plus, 12 weeks isn't really that long anyway, especially if coming back to work means you can no longer breastfeed. And this includes ALL the time you take off work for the pregnancy, so if you can't work up until the day you deliver or if you or your baby have medical complications requiring more time, it doesn't matter. Of course, some employers have better policies (i.e. you can take paid sick leave), but many (most?) don't.
They don't have to know the cause of SIDS to know that it occurs less frequently in breast-fed babies.
I think that's standard for most insurance plans - 48 hours for vaginal births and 72 hours for cesarean births. It can be longer, but the doc must prove medical necessity. And if it's medically necessary for the mom to stay but not medically necessary for the baby to stay, the newborn baby gets booted with no mom (and sometimes no one at all) to care for it. Or if it's medically necessary for the baby to stay but not for the mom, the mom gets booted, making things such as breastfeeding exremely difficult. Attempts that I know of to argue medical necessity for social reasons in the first case or medical necessity because of the importance of breastfeeding in the second case have been denied.
Here once you leave hospital you are visited at home be a midwife which will be daily for the first few days and then if they are happy it was go to a 3 day gap and this will carry on for a minimum of 10 days but if there any problems with Mum or baby (including problems breast feeding) can go on for around 28 days.
Care is then passed to a health visitor who may visit at home or who the mother can visit at the doctors surgery.
Both midwife and health visitor are for baby AND mum so hopefully breastfeeding issues will be picked up.
Do you get this kind of thing as part of standard post-natal care??
Absolutely not! That's completely unheard of in our system. Where I work, we even have many docs who want to do home visits - because we know that coming in for appointments can be a problem, that it's best to assess the social situation in the home, and that home visits are one of the best things we can do for early childhood development (which affects many things for the rest of the child's life) - but they have been unable to work this out with the insurance companies.
And people are so horrified that we might eventually move to a system like yours! :roll:
i know we have maternity leave in canada though as I've never been pregnant (and never had a grown-ups job) i'm not sure how it works.
according to wiki though the canada labour code states this on maternity leave:
Divisions VII, VIII, XIII, and XIII.1 make arrangements for maternity, parental, compassionate care, bereavement, and sick leave. These sections say that “no employer shall dismiss, suspend, lay off, demote or discipline an employee because of absence due to illness or injury…”[s.239(1)], or any other of these aforementioned leave periods and that “pension, health and disability benefits and the seniority of any employee…[during] a leave of absence…shall accumulate during the entire period of the leave.”[s209.2(1)] Specifically, an employee is permitted 17 weeks of maternity leave, 37 weeks for parental leave, 8 weeks for compassionate care leave, and 3 days for bereavement leave. The leave period, and its associated benefits, due to illness or injury, depends upon the nature of the illness or injury and the period of absence.