Short mother-infant separation during first week of life influences the duration of breastfeeding.

Thirty term infants, who were separated 1-6 days (mean 3.3 days) from their mothers during the first week of life because of minor illnesses, were compared with 116 term non-separated infants with regard to breastfeeding. At 3 months of age the frequency of entirely breastfed infants was 37% in the separated group versus 72% in the non-separated group, p less than 0.001. Thus a few days of separation between mothers and infants during the first week of life seems to decrease the duration of breastfeeding.