I understand the statistics involved, but conclusions like “900 lives per year” still seem squirrelly to me.
It’s not easy to breastfeed a baby exclusively to six months. Most of them want some food, especially if they have teeth! I’ve had only one of nine exclusively nursing at 6 months, and he just wasn’t hungry until he was nearly 8 years old and noticed that two younger brother were bigger than he.
I would suggest that instead of pushing exclusive breastfeeding until six months, they should concentrate on promoting extended breastfeeding. Nursing a child from one to two years old is easy, usually - you nurse when he gets up in the morning, before his nap, and before bed. Maybe in the afternoon when you’re all bored and watching the “Hercules” reruns.
The experts offered that they couldn’t provide a ‘real’ number and pulled it out of the air.. but.. part of the magic if you will is the ability of mama bear to pass lots of good nutrients to the cub... so I have a feeling it is not a number to sneeze at.. and vastly understated..
My experience was the opposite. I couldn’t get my babies to eat baby food. They nursed exclusively until they moved to finger food at about 10 months.
Mrs WBill credits the breast milk. Makes as much sense as anything, I guess.
Lots of Boob-Nazis out there, though. I had to toss one out of the hospital room our first time around. She was making my wife cry, she was so dead set on making sure that our kids were breast fed. "Pumping is not the same as breastfeeding", "What you're doing isn't correct" etc etc etc.
Sometimes, it's nice to be one of those eeeeeeeeevil conservatives. Gives me license to say what's on my mind, and not apologize later. :-)
On a related note, Mrs WBill made all of our baby food herself. Worked great, got the kids liking veggies, something that I've not mastered yet, myself. And, it saved a small fortune.
1 to 2 years? To me that borders a sickness.