An event recorder for infant feeding research

An Event Recorder program was developed for the HP 48 calculator to record the durational events associated with breastfeeding behavior. The Event Recorder menu structure is flexible and allows for the recording of response variables such as menstrual history and fertility symptoms. A Windows program was written in Visual C++ to give a graphical representation of the time-series data and to extract useful measures of breastfeeding activity from the raw data for each 24-h day postpartum. These time varying covariates include the mean and median bout length, median interbout interval, breastfeeding frequency and total 24-h suckling duration. The HP 48 calculator has proven to be a robust instrument for the self-recording of breastfeeding data collected as part of a prospective study on the factors that maintain postpartum amenorrhea. We have found also that the behavioral data collected are easily transferred electronically each month when our field workers make home visits.