Predicting exclusive breastfeeding in maternity wards using machine learning techniques

•Only a minority of European infants are breastfed according to health guidelines.•The in-hospital postpartum stay marks the proper onset of breastfeeding.•Best algorithm accurately predicted lactation from individual and setting factors.•Explainable Machine Learning is useful for decision-making support for breastfeeding.•The predictors’ importance, non-linearity and effect heterogeneity were identified.