Breastfeeding trends in healthy infants since 1990-results of the DONALD study.

Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended for infants during the first 6 months of life. The aim of this analysis was to examine time trends in breastfeeding between 1990 and 2013 in Germany using data from the DONALD (Dortmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed) Study. Although partial breastfeeding was observed to constantly increase over time in both 3-month and 6-month-old infants, fully breastfeeding rates did not further increase in 3-month-old infants since 2002, and even showed a tendency to decrease in 6-month-old infants. In conclusion, this finding emphasises the need for improvements in breastfeeding promotion in Germany, which currently seems to be ineffective in case of continuation of full breastfeeding until the age of 6 months.