Achieving Exclusive Breastfeeding: Translating Research into Action

Achieving Exclusive Breastfeeding is based on the United States Breastfeeding Coalition's (USBC) article by Dr. Miriam Labbok and Emily Taylor published in 2009. This volume is produced with permission from USBC, and is the product of the ongoing work of the two original authors, with important additions and insight from CGBI team member Kathy Parry. The authors have updated and revised the original monograph to address the ever changing breastfeeding environment, adding new resources, updating the breastfeeding research and advocacy discussions, and now offering summaries of selected ongoing programs supportive of exclusive breastfeeding. This revision highlights promising activities and programs in the U.S. that are helping eliminate barriers to achieving exclusive breastfeeding.

This book covers:
• The need to advance exclusive breastfeeding
• Obstacles and opportunities for exclusive breastfeeding during the reproductive health continuum
• Findings related to the obstacles, opportunities, current interventions, and gaps at eight time periods during the reproductive health cycle
• Suggestions for innovative implementation to advance exclusive breastfeeding
• The Surgeon General's Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding
• Monitoring, evaluation, and research needs
• Considerations for expansion, replication, and scaling up of activities
• Next steps

If you are involved in protecting, promoting or supporting breastfeeding, this volume will help you explore what others are doing. It examines the timing of interventions, addressing the life-cycle perspective, and offers insight from health, socio-political and media and marketing perspectives. This book will also give you facts and figures that may help garner support for your planned and ongoing activities, and provide you with ideas for the next steps you need to take to improve the impact of your efforts.

Additionally, the annotated bibliography made available by the authors provides a user-friendly guide to the latest research related to exclusive breastfeeding in the US and related settings. This bibliography is accessible via a link in the resource section.Kathy Parry, a new member of the CGBI team, has updated the annotated bibliography from the article for the book. There is a link in the resource section to access the bibliography.