Okay, here's something that is (I think) positive. I'm from Oakville,
Ontario, Canada - near Toronto. I'm the LLL Leader who sits on the local
hospital's maternity care committee (gritting my teeth and biting my tongue
sometimes!). But we had a report on the hospital's breastfeeding stats at
last month's meeting. I've been waiting for the minutes because I don't
remember the numbers exactly but here goes:

Women initiating breastfeeding (approximately - this is going by my memory)
85%

Women still breastfeeding  at 10 weeks (time of follow-up call) -
approximately 62% (this is EXCLUSIVE breastfeeding - another 12% or
something like that were doing both breast and bottlefeeding)

Mean length of breastfeeding - 27 weeks.

Anyway, the committee was pretty pleased. I'm not really sure how this
compares to other hospitals, though. Also, when you compare to the U.S., you
need to factor in the long maternity leave women in Canada are given.

I have been on this committee for many years, and we worked very hard on
making sure that accurate and consistent breastfeeding information is given
to every mother.  That meant getting agreement with public health, prenatal
teachers, hospital staff, etc., and making sure that everyone knew what
other people were teaching women. It doesn't always work, there is still
resistance, but I think things have improved considerably.

Teresa