The Journal of Pediatrics
Volume 152, Issue 1 , Pages 68-72, January 2008

The Impact of Maternal Negative Affectivity and General Self-Efficacy on Breastfeeding: The Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study

  • Eivind Ystrom, MSc

      Affiliations

    • Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
    • Corresponding Author InformationReprint requests: Eivind Ystrom, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Division of Mental Health, Postbox 4404, Nydalen, 0403 Oslo, Norway.
    • ,
  • Susan Niegel, MSc

      Affiliations

    • Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
    • ,
  • Knut-Inge Klepp, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Nutrition, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
    • ,
  • Margarete E. Vollrath, PhD

      Affiliations

    • Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway
    • Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.

Received 28 November 2006; received in revised form 27 April 2007; accepted 5 June 2007. published online 08 October 2007.

Objective

To assess the degree to which mothers’ prepartum personality traits predict breastfeeding status at 6 months postpartum.

Study design

This prospective cohort study is part of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, conducted at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. A total of 27,753 mothers completed assessment of negative affectivity (NA) and general self-efficacy (GSE) at gestation weeks 17 and 30 and completed a questionnaire about infant feeding at 6 months postpartum. Feeding status was classified with a cutoff at 6 months in the categories of predominant breastfeeding, mixed breastfeeding, and bottle-feeding.

Results

After adjusting for maternal smoking, age, education, cesarean section, preterm birth, primiparity, and external daycare, NA increased the odds of mixed breastfeeding (odds ratio [OR], 1.16; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.03 to 1.32) and bottle feeding (OR, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.14 to 1.53) compared with predominant breastfeeding. GSE decreased the odds of bottle feeding (OR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.84 to 0.97) but not of mixed breastfeeding (OR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.92 to 1.04) compared with predominant breastfeeding. The adjusting variables were also predictors of breastfeeding behavior in their own right.

Conclusions

Our results show that NA and GSE are important antenatal predictors of breastfeeding status at 6 months postpartum.

Abbreviations: CI, Confidence interval, GSE, General self-efficacy, MBRN, Medical Birth Registry of Norway, NA, Negative affectivity, OR, Odds ratio, SCL, Hopkins Symptom Checklist, WHO, World Health Organization

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 Supported by the Norwegian Foundation for Health and Rehabilitation and the Norwegian Health Association. Neither the Norwegian Foundation for Health and Rehabilitation nor the Norwegian Health Association had any role in the design of the study, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of the data, writing of the report, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Eivind Ystrom wrote the first draft of the manuscript. No honorarium, grant, or payment was given to anyone to produce this manuscript.

PII: S0022-3476(07)00563-X

doi:10.1016/j.jpeds.2007.06.005

The Journal of Pediatrics
Volume 152, Issue 1 , Pages 68-72, January 2008

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