Breastfeeding in the United States
The United States has seen many conflicting views on breastfeeding. Throughout the
history of the United States, the rates of breastfeeding have changed significantly. For example,
in the early 1900’s, nearly all the infants born in the US were breastfed.1The
use of wet-nurses was a common practice. Wet nurses are women who were hired to feed
another family’s child.2In the 1950’s and 60’s breastfeeding began to decline.
This decline can partly be attributed to the increasing negative societal views on wet nurses3
However, another contributing factor to this decline was the introduction of
human milk substitutes, which made it possible for a mother to feed her child without
breastfeeding.4Currently, breastfeeding has improved slightly, but is not
meeting recommendations.5
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics supports the World Health Organization’s
recommendation that an infant be exclusively breastfed until the age of 6 months.6
After 6 months, breastfeeding can be continued with the introduction of solid foods up to 2
years of age.7While this may be the recommendation, the CDC reports that
while most infants receive some breast milk, most are not being exclusively breastfed or breastfed
for as long as recommended.8The US government has taken steps to improve
these statistics through programs like Healthy People 2020.9Healthy People
2020 objectives include increasing the percentage of breastfed infants to 81.9% as well as the
percentage of those fed exclusively up to 6 months of age to 25.5%.10
