Breastfeeding: How is it related to food insecurity and other factors among low-income mothers?
Christina M Frazier, Jigna Dharod, Jeff Labban and 4 others
PMID 34280071WHAT IT FOUND
Food insecurity was linked to low-income mothers being less likely to breastfeed at 2 months, while household income showed no association.
Seventy percent of mothers who stopped said they did not make enough milk.
Key findings
01After demographic variables were accounted for, food insecurity was associated with a lower likelihood of breastfeeding at 2 months.
02Household income showed essentially no association with breastfeeding in the first step of the model.
03Seventy percent of mothers who started but discontinued breastfeeding reported difficulty producing enough milk or felt it was not enough for the baby.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample was small and recruited from one pediatric clinic, so it may not represent all low-income mothers. The interview method changed during the study because of the pandemic; some mothers were interviewed by phone and reported height and weight themselves. The pandemic increased food insecurity, which may have affected the results. Breastfeeding self-efficacy scores were severely skewed, so the analysis used bootstrapping to estimate confidence intervals.
Declared interests
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that food insecurity causes mothers to stop breastfeeding. The study is cross-sectional, and food insecurity was not significantly associated with discontinuation in the bivariate test. The significant finding was an association with lower breastfeeding at 2 months after demographic variables were accounted for.