Breastfeeding related activities at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration

The Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) in the Food and Drug Administration conducts research related to breastfeeding as part of its applied nutrition activities. CFSAN has conducted two Infant Feeding Practices Studies, the first in 1993-1994 and the second in collaboration with CDC in 2005-2008. Both studies identified pregnant women through a nationally distributed commercial consumer opinion panel and surveyed the sample approximately monthly from pregnancy through the infants' first year of life. The postnatal sample size for both studies was about 2,000 women. Questionnaires asked about feeding intentions, attitudes towards breastfeeding, breastfeeding and infant formula feeding practices, solid foods, infant health, use of antibiotics and other medicines including dietary supplements, breast pumping, sleeping arrangements, mother's employment, child care, food allergy, WIC participation, and other related issues. The IFPS II included a separate dietary intake measure that was administered to a subsample prenatally and when the infants were about 3-1/2 months old; the same dietary intake questionnaire was used for a separate control sample that was neither pregnant nor within 1 year postpartum. The data from the IFPS II was made into a public use data base. FDA scientists analyze the data with a focus on issues related to the agency, including details about infant formula use and breast pump use and infant use of dietary supplements, but the data cover most domains related to infant feeding decisions and contexts.