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The Health and Financial Benefits of Breastfeeding

Breastfeeding Infant
Wikimedia Commons
Breastfeeding Infant

According to a 2016 study in medical journalThe Lancetglobal, universal breastfeeding would prevent about 800,000 child deaths every year around the world, and create $300-billion dollars in savings annually from lowered health care costs. And while the percentage of women who choose to breastfeed their child had dipped in the U-S, it’s been on the rise since the early 90s, and the trendline continues going up. Today is the last day of World Breastfeeding Week, a global effort to promote the benefits of breastfeeding, so we thought we’d spend a few minutes with two experts on the topic from Lee Health to talk about their efforts to help women before, during, and after giving birth, and to successfully breastfeed their babies. Dr. Carol Lawrence is a supervisor of Perinatal Practice, Education, Research, and Lactation; and Delilah Edwards is a Board Certified Lactation Consultant and Maternal Educator.

Copyright 2018 WGCU

Julie Glenn is the host of Gulf Coast Live. She has been working in southwest Florida as a freelance writer since 2007, most recently as a regular columnist for the Naples Daily News. She began her broadcasting career in 1993 as a reporter/anchor/producer for a local CBS affiliate in Quincy, Illinois. After also working for the NBC affiliate, she decided to move to Parma, Italy where she earned her Master’s degree in communication from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Her undergraduate degree in Mass Communication is from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Mike Kiniry is producer of Gulf Coast Live, and co-creator and host of the WGCU podcast Three Song Stories: Biography Through Music. He first joined the WGCU team in the summer of 2003 as an intern while studying Communication at Florida Gulf Coast University.