1 School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024
To the Editor.
Recently Maisels and Gifford1 stated that 123 mothers who breast-fed their infants on demand while in the hospital with encouragement from nursing staff nursed on the average only six to eight times in 24 hours. Experience with unmedicated mothers at home revealed that newly born infants will breast-feed on demand ten to 12 times per day. These babies were not jaundiced. Similarly, in an earlier study in 1982, De Carvalho et al2 found significantly lower bilirubin levels in infants nursed more than eight times in 24 hours.