Bed-Sharing at 3 Months and Breast-Feeding at 1 Year in Southern Brazil

Objective

To investigate the association between bedsharing at age 3 months and breastfeeding (BF) at age 12 months.

Study design

Almost all children born in Pelotas, Brazil in 2004 (99.2%) were enrolled in a cohort study. At birth, age 3 months, and age 12 months, mothers were interviewed to gather information on sociodemographic, reproductive, BF, and bedsharing characteristics. Bedsharing was defined as habitual sharing of a bed between mother and child for the entire night or part of the night. The analysis was limited to children from single births who were breastfed at 3 months. Multivariate analyses were carried out using Poisson regression.

Results

Of 4231 live births, 2889 were breastfed at age 3 months. The prevalence of BF at age 12 months was 59.2% in the children who bedshared at 3 months and 44% in those who did not (adjusted prevalence ratio [PR] for weaning= 0.75; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.69-0.81; P < .001). Among children who were exclusively breastfed at 3 months, 75.1% of those who also bedshared were still breastfed at age 12 months, versus 52.3% of those who did not bedshare (adjusted PR = 0.63; 95% CI = 0.53- 0.75; P < .001). The adjusted PR was 0.74 (95% CI = 0.60-0.90; P = .003) in children who were predominantly breastfed and 0.83 (95% CI = 0.76-0.90; P < .001) in those who were partially breastfed.

Conclusions

Bedsharing at 3 months protected against weaning up to age 12 months.

BF, Breast-feeding, CI, Confidence interval, DLP, Date of last period, IEN, National Economic Indicator (Brazil), LBW, Low birth weight, PR, Prevalence ratio, SIDS, Sudden infant death syndrome