costs of inadequate breastfeeding of infants in Mexico

• Published in: The American journal of clinical nutrition Vol. 101; no. 3; pp. 579 - 586
• Main Authors: Colchero, M Arantxa, Contreras-Loya, David, Lopez-Gatell, Hugo, González de Cosío, Teresita
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Society for Clinical Nutrition 01.03.2015; American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc
• Subjects: Adult; Babies; breast feeding; Breast Feeding - economics; Breastfeeding & lactation; Child Development; children; clinical nutrition; Cohort Studies; Cost of Illness; death; economic costs; enterocolitis; Enterocolitis, Necrotizing - economics; Enterocolitis, Necrotizing - epidemiology; Enterocolitis, Necrotizing - mortality; Enterocolitis, Necrotizing - therapy; Epidemiological Monitoring; Female; gastroenteritis; Gastroenteritis - economics; Gastroenteritis - epidemiology; Gastroenteritis - mortality; Gastroenteritis - therapy; Health Care Costs; Health care expenditures; Health Promotion; Humans; Incidence; Infant; Infant Formula - economics; infant formulas; Infant Mortality; infants; Male; Mexico - epidemiology; monitoring; Nutrition Policy; Nutrition Surveys; otitis media; Otitis Media - economics; Otitis Media - epidemiology; Otitis Media - mortality; Otitis Media - therapy; Patient Compliance; Pediatrics; purchasing; Respiratory Tract Infections - economics; Respiratory Tract Infections - epidemiology; Respiratory Tract Infections - mortality; Respiratory Tract Infections - therapy; risk; Sensitivity analysis; Sudden Infant Death - epidemiology; Mexico; Mexico; cost analysis; infant morbidity; inadequate breastfeeding; infant mortality
• ISSN: 0002-9165; 1938-3207
• DOI: 10.3945/ajcn.114.092775

Background: Breastfeeding is vital for child survival, health, and development. Mexico has very low rates of breastfeeding and experienced a severe decrease in the prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding from 21% in 2006 to 14% in 2012. Objective: The objective of the article was to estimate the pediatric costs of inadequate breastfeeding in Mexico associated with the following acute health conditions: respiratory infections, otitis media, gastroenteritis, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Design: The authors estimated the economic costs of inadequate breastfeeding as follows: the sum of direct health care costs for diseases whose risk increases when infants are non–exclusively breastfed <6 mo or are not breastfed from ages 6 to <11 mo, lost future earnings due to premature infant death, and the costs of purchasing infant formula. Incidence cases were retrieved from national surveillance systems, except for NEC and SIDS, which were estimated from the literature. A sensitivity analysis was carried out to provide a range of costs based on different assumptions of the number of incident cases of all infant health outcomes examined. The model applied to the cohort of 1-y-old children born in 2012. Results: The total annual costs of inadequate breastfeeding in Mexico for the studied cohort ranged from $745.6 million to $2416.5 million, where the costs of infant formula accounted for 11–38% of total costs. A range of 1.1–3.8 million reported cases of disease and from 933 to 5796 infant deaths per year for the diseases under study are attributed to inadequate infant breastfeeding practices; altogether these represent nearly 27% of the absolute number of episodes of such diseases. Conclusions: This study provides costs of inadequate breastfeeding that had not been quantified in Mexico. The costs presented in this article provide the minimum amount that the country should invest to achieve better breastfeeding practices.