For years when I was a staff nurse, I would take my daily patient lists,
having marked the breastfeeding ones (this was the entire floor list,
not just the ones assigned to me) and at the end of the month compare
the ratio of breast/bottle on the days I worked with the total
deliveries for the month to come up with an estimated BF initiation
rate.  Now all our birth numbers go into a data base that links with
state records.  One item is whether the mom starts out breast or
bottle.  Our unit secretary is able to print up from this the list of
moms indicated as "breastfeeding" for each months.  Now I simply enter
that number and the total births for the month in my computer stats and
get the initiation rate.  We have increased from about 70% when I first
started keeping a record to over 80% for last year.  While the earlier
percentages may not have been as precise as the current ones, I think
they were pretty close.
Winnie

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