In all parts of Britain the official policy is to promote breast-feeding whenever possible, yet its success seems to vary greatly from one area to another. For example, at the end of three months the proportion of women fully breast-feeding varied from 24% in Newbiggin-bythe-Sea (Hughes, 1948) to 58% in Luton (Dykes, 1949).It is not easy to understand why such variations occur. In any case, exact comparison between different centres is often impossible because results are expressed in different ways, and the populations studied are not fully described in terms of social class, age, parity, etc. This paper describes how such factors affect breast-feeding rates in Aberdeen. The incidence of successful breastfeeding is defined as the proportion of babies wholly fed on the breast during the first three months of life. After three months mothers commonly introduce other feeds, and it is difficult to know what contribution breast milk is making to the child's total food intake.Discussion of the literature is confined mostly to those British publications in which comparable information is available. Since there is some evidence (Ross and Herdan, 1951) of considerable changes in breastfeeding habits, only publications of the past ten years are quoted.
Factors Affecting Breast-feeding Social StatusMost authors agree that breast-feeding is usually more successful in the upper social classes. Ross and Herdan (1951) found in Bristol that women in Social Classes I and II breast-fed longer than those in Social Classes IV and V, but their figures did not include cases of failure during the first four weeks. Spence et al. (1954), in the " thousand families " survey in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, found 42.5% of mothers in Social Classes I and II, 34% in Social Class III, and 29% in Social Classes IV and V wholly breast-feeding after three months. Westropp (1953), studying 574 mothers in Oxford " who regularly attended the Oxford Child Health Survey for at least a year " found that 66% of those in Social Classes I and II, 54% in Social Class III, and 44 % in Social Classes IV and V completely breast-fed for four months. Douglas (1950), using material gathered in the 1946 Maternity Survey of England and Wales, found that wives in the professional and salaried classes breast-fed more often for three months than the wives of manual workers; in his investigation a baby was considered to be breast-fed until it was completely weaned. On the other hand, Dykes (1949), in a survey of all infants born in Luton in 1945, found no social class difference in the duration of breastfeeding, and Dummer (1949) found no clear-cut differences in breast-feeding performance between occupational groups.Women delivered in nursing-homes appear to breastfeed longer than those delivered in hospitals, who in turn breast-feed longer than women delivered at home (Hughes, 1948;Dummer, 1949; Dykes, 1949;Douglas, 1950;Campbell and Cheeseman, 1954;Spence et al., 1954). The possibility that social class differences may have accounted for these findings, at least in par...