Breast-feeding

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Abstract
IN THEHealthy People 2000report,1the US Secretary of Health and Human Services set as new goals for breast-feeding in the United States to "increase to at least 75% the proportion of mothers who breast-feed their babies in the early post-partum period and to at least 50% the proportion who continue breast-feeding until their babies are five to six months old." Importantly, these goals were set for the nation as a whole, without reference to any ethnic or economic subgroup. This conveys the message that breast-feeding will benefit all our nation's children, not just those of a defined population. The report goes on to state that overcoming barriers to successful breast-feeding will require "public and professional education and improved support from health care providers...." In recognition of the beneficial effects of breast-feeding to infants and of the role physicians can play in its promotion, the American Academy of