A guide for calculating the benefits of breastfeeding (BOB).

The many benefits of breastfeeding include improved infant health increased birth spacing and economic efficiency in the use of food and other resources. These benefits can now be estimated with some precision. Quantifying them is particularly important where the true value of breastfeeding is unappreciated and where appropriate policies and programs to promote and protect breastfeeding are either absent or poorly implemented. Policy reform efforts are more likely to succeed when the benefits of breastfeeding are expressed in terms that are important to policy makers their supporters and stakeholders. The models and relationships described here are based on the many valuable efforts to quantify the benefits of breastfeeding that already exist. Users enter situation-specific data on a single "Assumptions" page of a spreadsheet. On subsequent pages these data are used in a series of mathematical models based on the published scientific literature that calculate the benefits of breastfeeding interms of improved health survival child spacing and the contribution of breastmilk as a food resource. (excerpt)