Despite the 12-year KNA breastfeeding campaign, the declining trend in the national breastfeeding rate has not been significantly reversed. PURPOSE: This investigation focused on mothers' decision to breastfeed and the physical growth profiles of breastfed infants.
METHODS
Participants were 146 mothers and their 5-7 months old infants participating the "Year 2005 Healthy Breastfed Baby Contest." Data were collected through interviews with mothers on their breastfeeding practice and assessment of infant growth profiles by the investigators.
RESULTS
Concerning breastfeeding practice, 76% of mothers decided to breastfeed even before their pregnancy and 92% intended to breastfeed a year or as long as baby wants and 52% planned to breastfeed solely by self-motivation from reading. The growth profiles of breastfed infants showed that for WAZ (weight-for-age Z-scores), LAZ (length-for-age Z-scores) and HCAZ (head circumference-for-age Z-scores) the breastfed infants were above the WHO percentiles for their age.
CONCLUSION
Considering that the mothers planned to breastfeed even before pregnancy and that the physical growth of the breastfed infants was above WHO standards, the authors recommend that in future campaigns the focus should be on families who plan to have a baby.

PURPOSE
This study was designed to investigate effect of sensory stimulation on the mother-infant interaction in premature infants.
METHOD
The subjects of this study consisted of 36 pairs of premature infants and their mothers from NICU of one university hospital located in Taegu, 18 pairs for intervention group and 18 pairs for control group. The data were collected from May, 1999 to October, 2000. For the intervention group Field's sensory stimulation(tactile and kinesthetic stimulation) was applied 2 times a day for 10 days(10:00-11:00 in the morning and 7:00-8:00 in the afternoon by researcher and mother). To determine mother and infant interaction during feeding, tool developed by Kim Mi-Ye(1999) was used. Collected data were analyzed with SAS program using chi-square test and t-test.
RESULT
Significant differences were found in mother-infant interaction between two groups(t=-5.38, p=.00). It indicates that sensory stimulation was effective in improving mother-infant interaction. In the aspects of the quality of mother-infant interaction, sensory stimulation was most effective in improving sensitivity to mother and infant's synchronic behaviors(t=-5.43. p=.00) and followed by growth fostering(t=-5.07, p=.00), sensitivity to infant's cues(t=-4.53, p=.00), clarity of infant's cues(t=-3.03, p=.00) and responsiveness to the mother's behaviors(t=-2.14, p= 0.04).
CONCLUSION
Based on the result of this study, it is suggested that maternally administered sensory stimulation should be applied clinical practice to improve interaction of premature infants and their mothers.