Press release

Indicators on breastfeeding

Data on breastfeeding, quarter ending September 2012.

• From: Department of Health and Social Care
• Published: 29 November 2012

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Indicators on breastfeeding

Quarter ending September 2012

The key points from the latest release are:

The breastfeeding initiation rate was 73.9% in 2012/13 Quarter 2, which is the just less than the annual percentage for 2011/12 (74.1%) and slightly higher than 2010/11 (73.7%), 2009/10 (72.8%) and 2008/09 (71.7%).

The prevalence of breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks in in 2012/13 Quarter 2 was 47.4% of infants due a 6-8 week check, slightly less than the figure of 47.6% recorded in 2011/12 Q2.  Comparisons are made with the same quarter in preceding years due to seasonality.

Full tables are available here.

Published 29 November 2012