A report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks Tennessee near the bottom in breastfeeding practices.
The CDC report ranks Tennessee 49th in the US for the percentage of babies ever breastfed and who continue to be breastfed as they mark their three-, six-, and twelve-month milestones.
The report found that four out of every ten mothers in Tennessee never begin breastfeeding, and that by the time infants are 3 months old, less than twenty percent are exclusively breastfeeding. Experts recommend babies be exclusively breastfed for the first six months.
The state currently runs a 24-hour hotline (1-855-423-6667) to answer questions about the topic. This year, the Tennessee Hospital Association, the Tennessee Department of Health, and the Tennessee Initiative for Perinatal Quality Care have begun promoting breastfeeding in the state’s hospitals.
The goal is to have all 65 of the state’s birthing hospitals meet at least five of the 10 hospital standards developed by the World Health Organizationand the United Nations Children’s Fund.
