Breastfeeding - Strategies to Enhance Childhood Development and Parenting Through Breastfeeding

Given that breastfeeding promotes optimal health, cognitive development, and bonding of infant-mother pairs, it is critical that implementation of Proposition 10 include strategies to increase breastfeeding initiation and duration rates. The California Policy Research Center and the U.C.L.A. Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities recently released the report, "Building Bridges for California’s Young Children: A 12 Point Agenda to Enhance Proposition 10," which identifies breastfeeding promotion and support as an essential component for child development services, as follows:

"Those who provide prenatal services must also begin to support and encourage important postnatal behaviors such as breastfeeding. National data suggest that women who receive prenatal education about and encouragement of breast-feeding are much more likely to initiate this important health-and-development-promoting behavior."

In addition, their report recommends that mothers have access to breastfeeding support groups, lactation support; family friendly workplaces and communities which support practices that promote optimal development of children (i.e., breastfeeding).