D’Youville Professor Co-Authors Major Research Study on Benefits of Breastfeeding

October 5, 2016

DâYouville Professor Co-Authors Major Research Study on Benefits of Breastfeeding

D’Youville Professor Co-Authors Major Research Study on Benefits of Breastfeeding

Buffalo, New York – October 05, 2016 – D’Youville College faculty member Dr. Briana Jegier, assistant professor in the Department of Health Services Administration, is the co-author of a .

Breastfeeding as recommended — for a total of one year and exclusively for six months — could protect babies and their moms from premature death and serious diseases and save the U.S. more than $4.3 billion in healthcare and related costs, according to a new study published online in .

“The study results highlight the potential for significant long-term return on investment for society if we invest in policies and interventions that help moms breastfeed longer, particularly maternal cost savings and maternal deaths averted,” says Dr. Jegier.

Study authors said their findings underscore the importance of providing women with the support they need to breastfeed their babies, beginning at birth.

“Breastfeeding has a greater impact on women’s health than previously appreciated,” said lead author Melissa Bartick, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a hospitalist at Cambridge Health Alliance. “The results should lead to policies that help support women to breastfeed longer and help exclusive breast-feeding, such as paid family leave, workplace support, and evidence-based maternity practices around infant feeding.”

For the study, the research team modeled two groups. One was an optimal group, in which the majority of moms breastfed as recommended: for a total of one year and exclusively for six months. That group was compared with a suboptimal group, in which moms breastfed at current rates in the U.S., which are less than the recommended guidelines. Using existing research and government data, they projected the rates and costs of diseases that breastfeeding is known to reduce, along with the rates and costs of early deaths from those diseases.

Children’s diseases included in the evaluation were acute lymphoblastic leukemia, ear infections, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, gastrointestinal infections, lower respiratory tract infections, obesity, necrotizing enterocolitis, and SIDS. For mothers, the study included breast cancer, pre-menopausal ovarian cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and heart attacks.

The researchers found that suboptimal breast-feeding was associated with more than 3,340 premature deaths in the U.S. each year, costing the nation $3 billion in medical costs, $1.3 billion in indirect costs, and $14.2 billion in costs related to premature deaths. The majority of the excess death and medical costs — nearly 80 percent — were maternal.

“Breastfeeding has long been framed as a child health issue, however it is clearly a women’s health issue as well,” said study co-author Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, professor of medicine at UC Davis Health System. “Breastfeeding helps prevent cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, yet many women have no idea breastfeeding has any of these benefits.”

The study results underscore the importance of policies that make it possible for women to breastfeed, according to study senior author Alison Stuebe, distinguished scholar of infant and young child feeding at the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute and associate professor of obstetrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Currently, 22% of employed mothers return to work within 10 days of birth,” Stuebe said. “Paid leave keeps mothers and babies together, which is essential for breastfeeding. Enacting paid family leave will impact the lifelong health of women and children.”

Additional study authors were Brittany Green of the University of Cincinnati, Arnold Reinhold of Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics in Boston, Tarah Colaizy of the University of Iowa, Debra Bogen of the University of Pittsburgh, and Andrew Schaefer of Rice University in Houston.

The research was funded by the .

Dr. Jegier is a graduate of the University of South Florida, earned her master’s degree in Health Systems Management at Rush University in Chicago and her doctorate in Public Health Studies at Saint Louis University.

She joined D’Youville in 2015.

The study is available online at .

For a synopsis of the study, .