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Obesity certainly is gaining prominence as a health issue with the latest statistics proclaiming 67% of Americans as obese. Even more alarming is the rising rate of childhood obesity: The CDC ranks 15.3% of children age 6 to 11 years old as obese. Researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center have discovered a link between breastfeeding and a lower risk for later-life obesity and associated conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease.

The study’s principal author, Lisa Martin, PhD, of the Cincinnati Children’s Research Foundation Center for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, had been involved in identifying genes associated with obesity. Her research is the first to discover the presence in human milk of adiponectin, a protein that affects how the body processes sugar and lipids. The study also confirmed the presence of leptin, which affects the feeling of fullness after eating.

The researchers tested samples from 30 women who had donated to the hospital’s research milk bank. The samples ranged from the first day of lactation to the 400th day. The highest levels of adiponectin were found in colostrum, Martin said, with the levels decreasing with the length of lactation.

Many people blame the rise in obesity on the proliferation of fast-food consumption in the 1950s. That’s also the time when U.S. breastfeeding rates start to plummet, Martin said, reaching around 20% in 1956, according to La Leche League International.

Economic demands

Economic demands are making it tougher for new moms today to keep breastfeeding, Hagedorn said.

“Women are working harder, longer, and faster,” she said. “We’re doing what the job of two or three people used to be in our parents’ generation.”

Workplace perks such as on-site day care centers and lactation rooms that were used to lure moms back into the workforce have gone by the wayside with the economic downturn. Women find it difficult to have the time and privacy to pump breast milk and to store it, particularly if they work in low-wage jobs with rigid time constraints.

At the Colorado Springs Health Partners practice where Hagedorn works, patients receive a follow-up visit three days after birth. That’s when Hagedorn starts strategizing with new moms about managing breastfeeding and career. She advises working moms to forego running errands during their lunch break and instead use the time to relax and pump milk. She offers practical tips like how to store the milk so coworkers won’t use it in their coffee and how to master a breast pump in a public restroom stall if that’s the only place available.

Linda Ennis, director of the nurse-midwifery program offered by the University of California, San Francisco and San Francisco General Hospital, thinks the standard medical model of giving birth doesn’t provide enough support to breastfeeding mothers.

“It’s a little bit of a flaw in our U.S. health care system,” said Ennis, MS, CNM. Breastfeeding education and support is a cornerstone of midwifery education, she said, and midwives approach the practice as a family affair.

Caregivers need to tailor the education to meet the individual mother’s needs, she said, and to support the woman’s decision of whether to breastfeed. Women in low-wage jobs have less flexibility and privacy to pump breast milk during the workday, she said, and some women fear they may not have enough milk to sustain their infant.

While going back to work is a common reason why women give up on breastfeeding, another deterrent remains the lack of family and community support. The first weeks of living with a new baby are stressful, and breastfeeding can be painful. If the baby’s father or other family members discourage the mother, she may turn to bottlefeeding.

“When they start to run into resistance, the tendency is to fold because they don’t have that support,” said Cheryl Thorne, RN, CPN, who works in the General Clinical Research Center at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.