> Now I'm being told by a couple of sources that duration rates only look at the percentage of babies who were ever breastfed that are still breastfeeding at 6 months. Looking at it that way, you could have a duration rate that is higher than initiation rate.< Yes, this is the way that duration rates are calculated, in my experience. It may look counter-intutitive, but, once you have chosen a population that exhibits a certain characteristic -- in this case, initiation of breastfeeding -- you want to track *that population*, so all those initiating breastfeeding becomes the population of the study of duration. You can also usually get figures, or calculate them, for the entire population (in this case, all babies born) to show how many babies breastfed at 6 months as a percentage of all babies. The UK governemnt stats show both of these, in their five-yearly surveys of infant feeding. Incidentaly, I have problems with the idea of initiation of breastfeeding beginning with the initial feed. When the governement did their survey of women in the UK from SE Asia, they used this measure -- for a population who traditionally avoid colostrum and give the first breastfeed at 2 or 3 days -- an important habit which needs to be kept in mind in certain populations or the figures will be meaningless. Magda Sachs Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html