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Maternal cognitive skills and infant feeding practices in rural Guatemala
Author(s) -
Webb Aimee L,
Sellen Daniel W,
Ramakrishnan Usha,
Martorell Reynaldo
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.20.5.a1047-c
Subject(s) - breastfeeding , medicine , logistic regression , cohort , breast feeding , cognition , demography , lactation , recall , pediatrics , infant feeding , cognitive development , formula feeding , cognitive skill , developmental psychology , psychology , pregnancy , psychiatry , biology , sociology , cognitive psychology , genetics
International health organizations recommend exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) to 6 mos and breastfeeding (BF) to 2 y for healthy mothers and infants. In many developing countries maternal schooling is inversely related to compliance with these recommendations. To investigate whether schooling influences infant feeding practices through acquisition of maternal cognitive skills (MCS) we collected data on MCS assessed with academic achievement tests and feeding practices assessed by maternal recall for a rural Guatemalan infant cohort (n= 341 births) between 1996 and 1999. We assessed relationships between MCS and onset of lactation (OL), first week feeding practices, adequacy of feeding in the first month and EBF at 1 week, 1 mo, and 3 mo postpartum (pp) using logistic regression. Mothers in the middle tertile of MCS were more likely to supplement prior to OL (OR high vs low : 1.2, {95%CI: 0.5, 3.0}; OR middle vs. low : 2.6 {1.1, 5.7}) and give medicines in the first week (OR high vs low : 2.54 {0.6, 10.8}; OR middle vs low :5.3 {1.7, 16.8}), and less likely to report EBF at 1 mo pp (OR low vs middle : 3.6 {1.4, 9.3}; OR low vs. high : 1.6 {0.56, 4.6}). Mothers with an intermediate level of cognitive skills exhibited poorer infant feeding practices during the first mo of infant life, but not thereafter. These results suggest cognitive skills acquired during schooling influence infant feeding practices in complex ways. Supported by NIH: HD‐29927, TW005598 , CG‐181‐449