Patterns of Breast Feeding in a Family Health Clinic

Abstract

THE frequency of breast feeding of 114 newborn babies of mothers attending a family health clinic in Boston from 1950 to 1956 was discussed in a previous publication.1 The present paper deals with the length of time those babies were breast fed, and with the reasons the mothers gave for weaning them when they did. It attempts also to give a possible explanation for the existing decline of breast feeding in the United States.Table 1 shows the number of babies wholly bottle fed at different ages from birth to one year. This is shown for 111 babies whose weaning records were . . .