Study Says New Moms Need to Take Care of Their Health
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iStock/Thinkstock(MINNEAPOLIS) — Women who are thinking about having a child should take heed of a new study out of the University of Minnesota.
Based on research conducted on 2,400 women who gave birth around the nation in 2011 and 2012, it was found that a third of the new moms were in poor health.
What’s more, women with health issues were also 30 percent less likely to breastfeed than those in better condition. Breastfeeding has been shown to provide numerous benefits to babies and infants.
According to Dr. Katy Kozhimannil, the study’s lead author, new moms with health problems that include obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes tend to be non-white, lower income, unmarried without support and receiving medical care funded by the state.
Of the women in this category who try to breastfeed, Kozhimannil says that many just give up and resort to expensive formulas.
She says her study is hopefully a wake-up call to the medical community at-large to go beyond just counseling women with special needs about the importance of breastfeeding and staying in better health.
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