BACKGROUND
While WHO recommends that all infants be exclusively breast fed until 6 months of age, there has been little focus on the way in which breast milk is given to the infant. Our publication reporting baseline data for this study identified that (similar to our pilot study,) more than 50% of a large sample of healthy term infants of Australian mothers who intended to breast feed were not breastfeeding directly at the breast in their first 24–48 h of life. These findings were not affected by hospital admission status (public/private) or length of hospital stay, and adjusting for education or parity made no difference.The early introduction of breast milk substitutes is associated with cessation of breastfeeding before 6 months, or sooner than planned,however, the consequences of feeding breast milk other than