Physicians and Breastfeeding Promotion in the United States: A Call for Action

Abstract

National breastfeeding goals, established by the US government within the Healthy People 2000 program in 1978 and restated in 1989, were to: “increase to at least 75% the proportion of mothers who exclusively or partially breastfeed their babies in the early postpartum period and to at least 50% the proportion who continue to breastfeed until their babies are 5 to 6 months old.”⁶These objectives are repeated in Healthy People 2010 with the addition of a new goal of a 25% breastfeeding rate at 1 year.³