The mean infant age at the time of the 6-month interviews
was 31.2 weeks (SD 5.8 weeks).
The characteristics of the women who were recruited
to the study are reported elsewhere;3 those presented
here are the characteristics of those women for whom
we have data at 6 months. There was no difference in
the responders compared with those who were recruited
to the study. Half of the women recruited were primiparous,
and almost all were married or lived with a partner
(table 1). Although the majority of study participants
were Australian born (67.7%), other participants came
from 79 different countries, including India (4.4%), the
UK (2.6%), New Zealand (2.4%), China (1.8%) and
Vietnam (1.3%). At 6 months, 3.5% (32/906) of women
had returned to full-time study or employment, and
28.2% (255/906) to part-time study or employment.
In the first 24–48 h postpartum, less than half of these
healthy term infants (48.8%; 446/914) had been breastfeeding
only at the breast from birth, and 46.1% (421/914)
had received at least some EBM (table 2).