Low rates of predominant breastfeeding in hospital after gestational diabetes, particularly among Indigenous women in Australia

Objectives: To investigate rates of ‘any’ and ‘predominant’ breastfeeding in hospital among Indigenous and non-Indigenous women with and without gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). Methods: A retrospective study of singleton infants born from July 2007 to December 2010 at Cairns Hospital, Australia, following GDM pregnancy, using linked hospital and birth data (n=617 infants), with a subsample of medical record reviews (n=365 infants). Aggregate data were used to compare to breastfeeding rates among infants born following non-GDM pregnancy (n=7,894 infants). Results: More than 90% of all women reported any breastfeeding before hospital discharge. About 80% of women without GDM reported predominant breastfeeding. Despite significant increases over time (p