Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Does Exclusive Breastfeeding Increase After Hospital Discharge? A Greek Study

2007; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 23; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/0890334407300384

1552-5732

Chryssa Bakoula, Polyxeni Nicolaidou, Alexandra Veltsista, Anargyroula Prezerakou, Maria Moustaki, George Kavadias, Demetrios Lazaris, Andreas Fretzayas, Xenofon Krikos, Themistoklis Karpathios, Nikolaos Matsaniotis,

Child Nutrition and Feeding Issues

To monitor the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in Greek maternity wards and to investigate possible changes in infant-feeding practices during the first month after hospital discharge, the authors questioned 4310 Greek mothers from 7 hospitals on the fourth day postpartum. Odds ratios were calculated to estimate the effects of health system, demographic, psychosocial, and environmental factors. Any breastfeeding and full breastfeeding initiation rates were 85% and 23%, respectively. One month postpartum, the corresponding rates of any and exclusive breastfeeding were 79% and 61%, respectively. Mothers of infants who lacked continuous rooming-in while in the maternity ward (OR, 2.08; 95% CI, 1.27-3.40) and with previous experience of breastfeeding (OR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.19-1.79) were more likely to reestablish exclusive breastfeeding at home despite the use of supplementation in the maternity ward. It seems women are capable of overcoming supplementation in hospital and can revert to exclusive breastfeeding at home.