ReviewJournal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association2023
No such thing as a free lunch: The direct marginal costs of breastfeeding.
Review in Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evidence for incentive-based strategies to promote breastfeeding: a systematic literature review of randomised controlled trials.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Pooled it
- Breastfeeding Should Not Be a Privilege.Annals of family medicine · 2026Article
- Navigating infant food insecurity: low-income parents infant feeding intentions and practices in the UK.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Lactation and cardiovascular health: A comprehensive review.American heart journal plus : cardiology research and practice · 2025Review
- Evaluating and predicting exclusive breastfeeding behaviour based on an energy vitality model during women's lactation: a longitudinal study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Article
- Community pharmacists' support for nursing mothers in Serbia: potential cost savings due to breastfeeding continuation.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Breastfeeding Among First-Time Mothers Reporting Housing Insecurity and Food Insecurity.Journal of women's health (2002) · 2025Article
- Implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes and maternity protection: correlations with commercial milk formula consumption in East Asia and the Pacific.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2025Article
- Implementation of a clinically integrated breastfeeding peer counselor program.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2024Article
- Breastfeeding in infants who aspirate may increase risk of pulmonary inflammation.Pediatric pulmonology · 2024Article
- Levelling up health in the early years: A cost-analysis of infant feeding and healthcare.PloS one · 2024Article
- Close encounters with oxytocin.Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Understanding costs associated with breastfeeding is critical to developing maximally effective policy to support breastfeeding by addressing financial barriers. Breastfeeding is not without cost; direct costs include those of equipment, modified nutritional intake, and time (opportunity cost). Breastfeeding need not require more equipment than formula feeding, though maternal equipment use varies by maternal preference. Meeting increased nutritional demands requires increased spending on food and potentially dietary supplementation, the marginal cost of which depends on a mother's baseline diet. The opportunity cost of the three to four hours per day breastfeeding demands may be prohibitively high, particularly to low-income workers. These costs are relatively highest for low-income individuals, a group disproportionately comprising racial and ethnic minorities, and who demonstrate lower rates of breastfeeding than their white and higher-income peers. Acknowledging and addressing these costs and their regressive nature represents a critical component of effective breastfeeding policy and promotion.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.