More moms breast-feeding

Atlanta, Ga. - April 29, 2008

About 77-percent of new mothers breast-feed, at least briefly, up from 60-percent in 1993-1994, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

"It looks like it is an all-time high" based on CDC surveys since the mid-1980s, said Jeff Lancashire, a CDC spokesman.

Experts attributed the rise to education campaigns that emphasize that breast milk is better than formula at protecting babies against disease and childhood obesity. A changing culture that accommodates nursing mothers may also be a factor.

The percentage of black infants who were breast-fed rose most dramatically, to 65-percent. Only 36-percent were ever breast-fed in 1993-1994, the new study found.

For whites, the figure rose to 79-percent, from 62-percent. For Mexican-Americans, it increased to 80-percent, from 67-percent. Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher celebrated the report's findings, noting that black women have historically had lower breast-feeding rates.

"It was very impressive that when it comes to beginning to breast-feed, African-American women have had the greatest progress," said Satcher, who is now an administrator at Atlanta's Morehouse School of Medicine.

The new report is based on a comprehensive federal survey involving in-person interviews as well as physical examinations. The findings are based on information for 434 infants from the years 2005 and 2006.

A telephone survey of thousands of families, released last year, found that 74-percent of infants in 2004 had been breast-fed. At least three types of CDC surveys have shown breast-feeding rates moving upward since the early 1990s, officials said.

The latest CDC report found rates of breast-feeding were also lowest among women who are unmarried, poor, rural, younger than 20, and have a high school education or less. --- On the Net: CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)