Background: Accurate measurement of the duration of exclusive breastfeeding is complicated by factors related to
definitions, timing, duration of recall, methods of analysis, and sample biases. Clearly prospective methods are likely
to be more accurate but are too expensive to use in most large-scale surveys. Internationally, most surveys use a
point-in-time or current status measurement (usually 24-hour recall) and report their findings using an indicator
established by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1991 that involves combining all babies less than six months
old in order to obtain a large enough sample size to result in stable proportions that can be compared over time.
However, this indicator is complex to understand and explain and is widely misunderstood, even within the breastfeeding
community. It is commonly cited in ways that greatly exaggerate how common exclusive breastfeeding actually is.