Fast Facts: Breastfeeding Trends

This week’s fast fact comes from my ongoing academic research. Together with some coauthors, I’m putting together a paper on breastfeeding over time. We’ve smashed together a large number of datasets, and here’s a headline fact: Breastfeeding has gone up a lot since 1970. Based on these data (graph below!), only about 20% of new moms even tried to breastfeed in 1970. By the most recent years in the data, it’s well over 80%.

But it’s interesting to note that while the share of women continuing nursing through 6 months also increases, it doesn’t go up nearly as much. And perhaps more concerning, the trend really flattens in the most recent period, even as initiation keeps going up. When we dig more in the data, we see more women trying but stopping very early (even by two weeks, never mind six months). Lack of maternity leave? Terrible pumping situations? Struggles to get it to really “work”? Stay tuned…