Background: Breastfeeding provides unsurpassed natural nutrition to the newborn and infant.

Methodology: Out of 100 cases of breast feeding failure, 11 babies were selected, whose mothers had complete failure of breast feeding during the first postnatal growth, who were aged exactly one month (plus or minus one to two days on either side), were full term, of average weight (2.5-3kg at birth) completely healthy on clinical examination with no clinical evidence of infection in any part of the body and their weight gains during the first months were within normal limits (300 to 350 gms). All the babies in the present study were fed with tinned milk.

Results: Failure of establishment of lactation properly from the very beginning was responsible in 17 cases (24%). In 63.4% of the total number of cases in this group, no obvious reason was found other than simple ‘lactational insufficiency’.

Conclusion: Most of the cases of breast feeding failure were found to be due to some cause in the mother i.e. 71% of the total number of cases. In most cases of this group the cause was simply ‘inadeqaute lactation’ 63.38% of the different factors responsible for failure of breast feeding, lack of knowledge among parents about the uniqueness of breast milk for their babies, is important.

Keywords: Lactation, Pregnancy, Breastfeeding, Lactational insufficiency, Lactational failure.

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