Gisele Bundchen: Breastfeeding should be mandatory!

Just what women need, a supermodel ordering them to breastfeed.

Gisele Bundchen, wife of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, attributes her lightening-speed return to her super svelte form to breastfeeding her son Benjamin.

"I think breastfeeding really helped me keep my figure," the supermodel tells Harper's Bazaar.

Gisele says she believes breastfeeding should be a law. "I think there should be a worldwide law, in my opinion, that mothers should breastfeed their babies for six months."

She continues, "Some people here (in the US) think they don't have to breastfeed, and I think 'Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?'"

How much does breastfeeding save versus formula? Obviously, the breastfeeding in and of itself is free. But what if you want or need to go back to work and are forced to pump? Then it gets a little more expensive. According to breastfeeding.com, when you add up the cost of a breast pump, nursing bras and other essentials, breastfeeding an infant for 8 months totals around $544 compared to $592 for formula during the same time period.

There's also this to consider: If most new moms breastfed their babies for the first six months of life, it would save nearly 1,000 lives and billions of dollars each year, according to a Pediatrics journal study.