Characteristics and determinants of breastfeeding in mothers of infants who come to healthy child control

Abstract

Introduction: The current recommendation of the World Health Organization is that babies be fed exclusively with breast milk from the first hour of birth until 6 months of age, when the complementary feeding to breastfeeding begins until approximately 24 months old Children who are not breastfed have six times the risk of dying from infectious diseases during the first two months of life. Materials and methods: Observational, cross-sectional, descriptive and analytical study. Women over 18 years old were biological mothers of children 1 to 24 months of age who attended the control consultation of the healthy child, and the mothers were grouped according to the child’s age group: under 1 month, 1 to 6 months, 7 to 12 months and >12 months. Results: Two hundred mothers were included in total, 50 for each age group of the child, 54.4% between 18 and 25 years. The children were born at term, 52.5% were women. The prevalence of women feeding with breast milk was 94.5%, and the overall prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding was 45.5%. The main reasons associated with the abandonment of exclusive breastfeeding were feelings of lack of satiety of the child (30.3%), poor milk production (23.9%) and occupation or work (14.7%). Conclusion: The knowledge of breastfeeding plays an important role in the population of women in our hospital and it is possible that the quality of the information provided plays a role in the decisions that women would make about feeding their children. *Correspondence to: Javier Eduardo Castañeda-Juárez, Pediatrics Department, University Hospital “Dr. José Eleuterio González”, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon (U.A.N.L.), Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, Tel: (+52) 8116543224; E-mail: rmoralav91@alumnes.ub.edu