Breastfeeding has health, financial, bonding, and child-spacing benefits.

(Jan. 7, 2010) More women are realizing that mom’s milk is best, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The practice of breastfeeding has been increasing for the last decade, with recent data showing 74 percent of new mothers breastfeeding. That’s up from 68 percent in 1999.

And women appear to be breastfeeding longer, with 43 percent still doing so at six months and 23 percent at 12 months (up from 33 percent at 6 months and 15 percent at 12 months in 1999), says the CDC.

“You can save $1,000 to $3,000 a year just by breast-feeding,” says Gina Cicatelli Ciagne, director of breast-feeding and consumer relations for Lansinoh, which sells breast-feeding accessories. Ciagne was quoted in a recent Sun-Sentinel.com story.

But there is more than a cost savings involved here. There are superior nutrition and health benefits. And for many, it’s the nurturing component between mother and child that keeps mothers practicing it.

Besides that, breastfeeding provides an average of 14 to 15 months of postpartum infertility for those women who follow its guidelines, according to The Couple to Couple League Central (CCL). (Read the first part of CCL’s book The Art of Breastfeeding free.)

CCL offers a supplemental Postpartum Class to help breastfeeding mothers understand the return to fertility. (See our story, “Breastfeeding Benefits Becoming Recognized.”) The class is free and is open to any current CCL member. Breastfeeding is also taught by La Leche League.

Classes in the Sympto-Thermal Method of Natural Family Planning are offered by the Couple to Couple League to married and engaged couples, and can be taken at 15 locations in the Archdiocese of Chicago, IL and surrounding area, including southeast Milwaukee and northwest Indiana. A homestudy course is also available at CCL Central.

The next series of classes in northeast Illinois will begin Fri., Jan. 29, 2010 at 7:30 pm at Holy Family Hospital in Des Plaines. To register, and for a list of classes, go to the CCL Central class locator. Or go to the Chicago CCL’s Classes by Location and Maplinks.