States..... IT's all in the conclusion:
"promoting breastfeeding has the potential to save or delay 720HERE to read the original PDF version of the study
postneonatal deaths in the United States each year."
ABSTRACT. Objective. Breastfed infants in the
United States have lower rates of morbidity, especially
from infectious disease, but there are few contemporary
studies in the developed world of the effect of breastfeeding
on postneonatal mortality. We evaluated the effect
of breastfeeding on postneonatal mortality in United
States using 1988 National Maternal and Infant Health
Survey (NMIHS) data.
Methods. Nationally representative samples of 1204
infants who died between 28 days and 1 year from causes
other than congenital anomaly or malignant tumor (cases
of postneonatal death) and 7740 children who were still
alive at 1 year (controls) were included. We calculated
overall and cause-specific odds ratios for ever/never
breastfeeding among all children, conducted race and
birth weight–specific analyses, and looked for duration–
response effects.
Results. Overall, children who were ever breastfed
had 0.79 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.67– 0.93) times
the risk of never breastfed children for dying in the
postneonatal period. Longer breastfeeding was associated
with lower risk. Odds ratios by cause of death varied
from 0.59 (95% CI: 0.38–0.94) for injuries to 0.84 (95% CI:
0.67–1.05) for sudden infant death syndrome.
Conclusions. Breastfeeding is associated with a reduction
in risk for postneonatal death. This large data set
allowed robust estimates and control of confounding, but
the effects of breast milk and breastfeeding cannot be
separated completely from other characteristics of the
mother and child. Assuming causality, however, promoting
breastfeeding has the potential to save or delay 720
postneonatal deaths in the United States each year. Pediatrics
2004;113:e435–e439. URL: http://www.pediatrics.
org/cgi/content/full/113/5/e435; breastfeeding, infant mortality,
cause of death, risk, logistic models.
