Initiation and duration of breast-feeding in Indonesia

Breast-feeding plays an important and influential role in child survival and fertility, offering immunological protection to an infant against early morbidity and mortality, and contraceptive protection to a mother against closely spaced pregnancies. In developing countries, breast-fed infants experience substantially lower morbidity and mortality risks than infants who are not breast-fed, particularly in the first year of life (Retherford et al., 1989; Pebley and Stupp, 1986; Palloni and Millman, 1986; Grant, 1984; Knodel and Kintner, 1977; Wray, 1977). A survey of 33 comparative studies of breast- and bottle-feeding in different parts of the world has concluded that the risk of death in infancy is three times higher for “mixed-fed” babies (both breast- and bottle-fed) and five times higher for babies who are exclusively bottle-fed (Grant, 1984) relative to exclusively breast-fed babies.