U.S. health agencies call for more breastfeeding

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- Two U.S. health agencies said on Thursday that much needs to be done to get more women to breastfeed their babies.

As breastfeeding rates in the United States did still not satisfy healthcare providers and policymakers, it was time for action, said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Office of Women's Health, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Representatives of the two agencies made these comments at the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta during a meeting which aimed to search for ways to increase the breastfeeding rate.

The two agencies plan to issue a "Call to Action" by the middle of next year to promote specific policies and activities to address what they call "an urgent public health priority."

In the decade after the federal government issued a "Blueprint for Action on Breastfeeding," some progress has been made, but it was still not enough, health experts said.

CDC statistics showed that in 1999, about 68 percent of U.S. women breastfed their babies in the days right after birth. In the 2005-2006 period, this rate had increased to about 74 percent.

By the time their babies were 6 months old, only 32 percent of women were still breastfeeding in 1999, compared with 43 percent in 2005-2006. For one-year-old babies, the number had declined even further to 15 percent in 1999 and 22 percent in 2005-2006.