| المستخلص: |
Background: Breastfeeding is determined by most health experts and organisations to be the best, most efficient method of infant feeding to warrant optimal growth and life-long health. Accordingly, the second Perth Infant Feeding Study (PIFS II) has been carried out as a cohort study among 587 mothers in Perth, Western Australia between 2002 and 2003. Objectives: To review the literature on breastfeeding, to document the occurrence of life events and to evaluate its influence on breastfeeding duration by analysing the PIFS II dataset. Methods: The existing dataset from the PIFS II were used to extract demographic data; in particular data on breastfeeding practices and the occurrence of life events at 4, 10, 16, 22, 32, 40 and 52 weeks after childbirth. Life events were categorised into four groups: death/sick in family, events related to house, events related to work, divorce or pregnancy and other events. An event was considered major if it belonged to the first three categories. Then, relevant statistical procedures and tests (survival analysis and Cox proportional hazard regression) were applied to determine the association between the occurrence of life events and breastfeeding duration. Results: The vast majority of participating mothers had no life events during the study period (88.3% in week 4 and 75% in week 52). Events related to death/sick in family appeared to have a higher relative risk (RR) of not breastfeeding than non events group (RR = 5.181, 95% CI = 1.105-24.248 in week 22). Hazard ratios (HR) from Cox regression revealed that major life events have significant effects on any breastfeeding duration (HR = 1.382 and 1.359, p-values = 0.045 and 0.015 for durations up to 6 and 12 months respectively). Also, when the number of life events occurrence reaches two or more during the first year after birth, the risk of discontinuing any breastfeeding before 12 months is estimated to be 1.403 times that of no life event occurred (HR = 1.403, p-value = 0.023). Conclusion: Life events, in particular major ones, have an undermining impact on breastfeeding duration, especially any breastfeeding duration. Although the method of any breastfeeding is popular, its duration up to 12 months has the potential to be considerably affected as the number of life events increases. Therefore, adopting exclusive breastfeeding would be helpful in avoiding effects caused by life events.
|
