Breastfeeding grows in popularity

Most new mothers in Canada try to breastfeed their baby, but only one in six actually sticks to it for as long as doctors recommend.

A new report titled Breastfeeding practices from Statistics Canada, based on a 2003 survey, found 85 per cent of mothers had tried breastfeeding their most recent baby.

But many stopped in the first month, and fewer than half the mothers continued to feed their infants at least partly from the breast for six months.

Only 17 per cent of women who had a baby in the five years before the survey had fed their babies exclusively from the breast for six months, as pediatricians recommend.

• FROM MARCH 8, 2005: Canadian pediatricians suggest new breastfeeding guidelines

The trend in Canada is clearly toward breastfeeding, however. The number of mothers who tried to breastfeed more than tripled in 40 years, StatsCan said in its March 15 issue of Health Reports.