Training allied health professionals to deliver breast-feeding services to women in the pre- and postnatal periods.

Results of a recently completed project at Baylor College of Medicine suggest that schools of allied health could incorporate a breast-feeding education program into existing allied health curricula. The need for such programs is the medical indication for the increased use of human milk for all segments of the population, especially for infants in the lower socioeconomic strata because of their higher risk to nutritionally related problems and infectious diseases. Paradoxically, increases in breast-feeding are occurring almost exclusively in the middle and upper classes. The benefits of breast-feeding to both mother and child are great: lower incidence of certain disease processes, enhanced psychological adjustment, and increased economic savings. Training allied health professionals in breast-feeding could help alleviate the problem of higher risks of nutritional deficiencies and infectious diseases among groups that do not traditionally breast-feed their infants.