The overall aim of this thesis was to address delivery and maternity practices that can impede breastfeeding and to develop methods to facilitate breastfeeding. The specific aims were to study 1) breastfeeding hormones in mothers giving birth vaginally and by cesarean section, 2) to what extent mothers roomed- in with their infants at the maternity and what were their attitudes 3) if anti-secretory factor (AF), known to prevent mastitis in animals, could be induced in human milk 4) if latching-on problems in “older” infants could be remediated by skin-to-skin contact with the mother during breastfeeding. Results and methods: Study I; During a breastfeed on the second day blood samples were taken from 20 mothers with normal vaginal delivery (VD) and from17 mothers with emergency cesarean section (CS) for analyses of oxytocin, prolactin and cortisol. The VD mothers had significantly more oxytocin pulses than the CS mothers. Furthermore, CS mothers did not exhibit a rise in prolactin. Mode of delivery, age of infant at first suckling and maternal somatic anxiety were found to affect the number of oxytocin pulses. Study II; One hundred and eleven mothers answered a questionnaire on the current (1990) maternity practices of keeping the infant in their room during the night (NRI) or not. Mothers who left their babies in the nursery at night were more likely to perceive that staff really believed their babies should be there. However, mothers not rooming-in with their babies scored closeness to their babies as less important than mothers who roomed-in with their babies. Study III; Forty mothers were randomly assigned to eat AF inducing cereals (experimental group) or cereals without AF inducing properties (control group). After 4-5-weeks AF was tested in mothers’ milk. A biological test was used. The median AF level in the experimental group (n=12) and the control group (n= 16) differed significantly: 1.1 (0.7- 1.25) units vs. 0.1(0.0-0.5) units (p=0.0001). The frequency of mastitis was reduced in the experimental ...