Council tax valuation band predicts breast feeding and socio-economic status in the ALSPAC study population

Retrospective study of a subset (n.1390 selected at random) of the ALSPAC sample (Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children), a large, geographically defined cohort of mothers followed from early pregnancy to 8 weeks post-delivery. Outcome measures are attitudes to breast-feeding prior to delivery, breast-feeding intention and uptake, demographic and socio-economic attributes of the mothers, CTVB of maternal home address at the time of each birth. Logistic regression analysis, categorical tests.Study sample: 1360 women divided across the CTVBs – at least 155 in any band or band aggregation. CTVB predicted only one belief or attitude – that bottle-feeding was more convenient for the mother. However only 31% of 'CTVB A infants' are fully breast fed at 4 weeks of life whereas for 'CTVB E+ infants' the rate is 57%. CTVB is also strongly associated with maternal social class, home conditions, parental educational attainment, family income and smoking habit.CTVB predicts breast-feeding rates and links them with social circumstances. CTVB could be used as the basis for accurate resource allocation for community paediatric services: UK breast-feeding rates are low and merit targeted promotion.When the UK National Health Service began some 50 years ago, over 75% of British mothers initiated breast-feeding in their infants [1]. By 1970, a generation later, there had been a marked decline to something like half the former rate [2]. But a new phenomenon had appeared. There was now a significant social divide in how mothers preferred to feed their infants: 60% of Registrar General Social Class I women fed their babies at the breast but the rate in Social Class V women had plummeted to 24% [2]. Although breast-feeding has regained some popularity in the UK, the social divide remains. As recently as 1995, the National Infant Feeding Survey [3] showed that whereas 89% of women who had gone on to tertiary education before motherhood breast-fed their infants, only 52% of their