ABSTRACT.We tested the hypothesis that extra early physical contact between mother and infant is associated with prolonged breast‐feeding. Healthy, advantaged mothers and their healthy, mature, vaginally‐delivered, firstborn infants were randomly assigned to receive either regular contact (N=39) or extra early contact beginning approximately one‐half hour after delivery (N=39). Fifty‐three (68%) of the 78 infants were breast‐fed. Age at which complete weaning occurred was known for 50 (94%) of the 53 infants. Prolonged breast‐feeding was not significantly associated with extra contact. Suckling during extra early contact was associated with greater incidence of breast‐feeding at two months (p0.05) for male and female inf