Hi Everybody:
  I am one of the thousands of subjects that are being studied, and have been
for years. It is interesting, as the people surveyed are giving many clues
about health and related factors for women. The last survey asked detailed
questions about my diet from age 13-18.....I don't know how valid any of that
will be. Can anyone recall easily how many servings a week they had of fruits
thirty years ago?
   Their latest newsletter gives reports about published research. Included in
all the gems was a sweet little graph entitled "Average Length of
Breastfeeding per Child by Year of Birth". It is a bar graph, where there are
bars for nulliparous, never breastfed, breastfed <= 3 months, breastfed 4-12
months, and breastfed 12+ months. The groups of years are 1921-1929,
1930-1939, 1940-1949, 1950-1959 and 1960-1969.
   For people born in the 20's: less than 10% were nulliparous, about 35%
never breastfed, about 41% breastfed <= 3 months, about 15% breastfed 4-12
months, and just the teeniest percentage breastfed longer than 12 months.
   People born in the 60's: over 30% were nuilliparous, just under 10% never
breastfed, about 22% breastfed <= 3 months, about 24% breastfed 4-12 months,
and just over 10% breastfed over 12 months.
    In between there are some trends. The numbers of nulliparous women have
increased.  The percentage never having breastfed went down. The number having
breastfed <= 3 months went down and then leveled off in the 50's and 60's. The
number having breastfed for 4-12 months went up, reaching a peak for the women
born in the 50's and then dropped slightly in for those women born in the
60's.  This is also true for the women having breastfed for 12+ months: there
was an increase peaking for the women born in the 50's, then a slight
decrease.
    You have to remember that this is a skewed study: it is nurses who are
voluntarily cooperating with the research. So can't apply the findings to the
general population.
    I thought this was interesting and have tried to share it. It may be
easier to find a friend who is in the study and look at her copy of this
newsletter. Warmly, Nikki