Maternal factors relating to breast-feeding duration in areas around Guadalajara, Mexico

Abstract

To investigate breast-feeding patterns and factor encouraging early weaning, a survey was conducted in Tonalá and Tlaquepaque, Two suburbs within Guadalajara's metropolitan area, en 1991. For this purpose a multiphase probabilistic sample of infants born in these areas from May 1990 through April 1991 was selected. This was done by choosing at random primary health care units in the study areas, health posts associated with these units, and all infants meeting the above criteria at each selected post. A total of 166 homes was visited and interviews were conducted with 14l mothers (91 percent of the 155 predicted) in June and July 1991. These interviews made use of a 33-item questionnaire developed for the purpose; the interviewers were social workers previously trained in such activities. Logistic regression model were used to calculate the relative risk (RR) and probability of early weaning being associated with certain variables. To help ensure the validity of the results, several regression models were constructed for the purpose of selecting the one best fitting the data. In addition, the attributable population risk (APR) was calculated. The results indicate that failure to breast-feed and early weaning were prevalent in the study population, 34.8 percent of the study infants being breast-fed less than 1 month. Three risk factor were associated statistically (P 0.05) with early weaning, these being maternal age 20 years (RR = 3.75;95 percent CI = 1.53-9.19), maternal marital status single (RR = 2.88; 95 percent CI = 1.08-7.69), and social status of the main family provider other than "worker" -i.e., employee professional (RR = 2.72; 95 percent CI = 1.17-6.28)