Economic value of breastfeeding in Belize.

The population of Belize in 1989 was 184000 per capita gross national product in 1990 was approximately $1700. More than 90% of women in Belize breast feed their infants at birth yet only 10% of urban women and 48% of rural women with infants aged 0-3.9 months breast feed exclusively. While health and economic benefits accrue from this practice it may be assumed that far more benefit may be had if more mothers were to exclusively breast feed during the first 4-6 months of their infants lives and continue breast feeding for 1 year or longer. The Nurture/Center to Prevent Childhood Malnutrition therefore developed a workbook to help policymakers assess the economic value of breast feeding. The text was used in Belize to assess information on imports of and household expenditures on powdered milk hospital expenditures on bottle feeding breast feeding promotion expenditures and health statistics such as birth rate mortality and morbidity rates and infant feeding practices. These steps were taken to estimate the economic value of breast feeding in the country. It was found that households with children under 1 year of age spend US $1.2 million annually on breast-milk substitutes and that the capital city hospital spends more than $175000 on breast-milk substitutes. These figures would increase however to more than $2 million and $1 million respectively in the absence of breast feeding. Household and health care center costs would also escalate as a result of the increased prevalence of diarrhea and acute respiratory disease. Breast-feeding promotion through the Breast Is Best League and the Ministry of Health is estimated to cost $14/birth. It may be concluded that the accrued savings of $350/birth make such promotion a highly cost-effective preventive health measure.